Anime North 2018 Report & Lolita Fashion Tea Party

Here is my Anime North 2018 con report! First off I have to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who stopped by my table! It was so nice to see a bunch of old faces and make some new friends as well. Everyone is just so friendly at cons and it really helped make my 10th year selling in the Crafter's Corner that much better. Of course I couldn't have done this without Fred, who helped me man my table and made sure we weren't dying of thirst and hunger lol.

A photo of my table! I sat next to Pheleon & Careko and on my other side was Melissa. Sadly I forgot to take photos of their booths... :( I was lucky enough to get a table all to myself this year, the last time I had my own table was in 2010 I think lol.

I re-made a bunch of katamari cousins and I was surprised that so many people still recognize them even after so many years... I've made them previously but they didn't sell and I had leftovers so I wasn't expecting them to sell out! I only have La La La (the naked one) left!! I'm glad they were so well loved!!

Friday was a short day so for dinner we went to Montana's with some friends. I usually don't post the food at cons since it's nothing fancy but I took my camera out and couldn't fit it back into my bag so might as well! xD Since it was a simplified menu I wasn't expecting much but the beer battered fish n chips weren't bad!

A quick shot of my outfit on the Friday. I originally wanted to bring my other bag that matched better but of course... lolita bags can't fit anything so I had to use my Kuroko ita-bag instead. Somehow it worked out since the colours matched my outfit! I am wearing everything from Angelic Pretty minus the shoes, which are from Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. Speaking of AP... I totally regret not heading to the AP booth first thing on Friday as I did not know that they were selling lucky packs. And they sold out by the time I got there, I was really kicking myself for not getting on that sooner... oh well!! I only visited the AP booth briefly but I refrained from buying, there was nothing much that caught my eye. I felt like Metamorphose brought a lot more merch. I guess I was a little disappointed! (But good for my wallet lol)

I haven't been following any new anime... but I saw a ton of Boku no Hero Academia and Darling in the Franxx cosplays but I only got to episode two of BNHA... I gave Fred my camera to take photos of any interesting cosplays but all he did was take pics of the Gundam display so here are some pics of gundams lol.

The last anime I watched was literally Gundam 00 so ...

Gundams from the SEED series...

Random hotel view. Weather reports hinted at rain but the weather was nice all weekend! It got kind of hot in the afternoons but luckily there was AC where we were sitting... Our hotel was right by the air port. Didn't get much sleep this weekend lol... @@;; On Saturday I had originally signed up to be a Yard Sale Vendor at Doll North but I ended up not being able to make it. It was too late and I didn't have anyone to help me with my stuff ... I forgot that in 2012 when I did both Crafters and Doll North, I had friends helping me and this time I didn't have anyone... Now I feel terrible since I paid for it and I'm stuck with all this doll stuff because I was too lazy to go. Partly it's because I don't feel very involved in the doll community anymore. I feel like bjd companies have finally assessed the attendance of Doll North and decided it's not a very popular event -- I remember in 2012-2015, there were a ton of huge doll sponsors, even SOOM and Crobidoll but now there's so little. DoA seems so quiet now. And even some bjd companies that opened in 2009 (when I first started getting into the bjd hobby) no longer exist... gosh I sure feel old. Has it already been 8 years...???! OR MAYBE... this is all just in my head since I haven't been to Doll North since 2015. If I do go to AN next year, I'm gonna kick myself to go... I still love my dolls regardless of the community but it's a little lonely... I'm thinking of starting a bjd tumblr and I'll have to try to sell on DoA.... anyway (sorry for ranting)

On Saturday evening, there was a BACK-ON concert... it was held in the same building so we heard them as we were leaving but I had no idea how to even get in there.

On Sunday as I headed out to the lolita fashion tea party held in the other hotel across the street, there was a religious anti-anime protest. It was kind of jokes. I really couldn't take it seriously since apparently the protesters were young guys and they knew all the names of the anime.

Met up with some friends for the tea party! This year the fashion guests were Minori and Angelic Pretty. Never would I have thought that AP would come to AN!!! There was a scavenger hunt meant to be an ice-breaker game to get to know other lolitas as we waited for everyone to get seated. I remember they had this at the 2015 tea party too.

I know nobody really cares about the food and I really can't complain since it's catered hotel food and it's not meant to be a meal, but I just feel like it is slowly getting worse lol...

Especially those tarts... let me tell you, those are the saddest tiniest tarts I've ever seen... even the blueberries were cut in half lmao.

The beverage station... we had a choice of coffee or tea.

We were table number 19 at the back. Last year they called the table numbers in the reverse order when it was time to get food, which made sense since the lower the number, the closer they were seated to the guests. However this year they went in numerical order so we had to wait quite a bit until we were called, and we were sitting so close to the food tables too... lol oh well.

Eventually got food and was seated! My favourite part is eating and listening to the Q&A. I had to leave early to head back to my table though so I missed the photo opportunity with the guests... ah well. Maybe one year I will stay to the end!

Photo credit goes to Whitney! A group pic. It's funny how we all wore different things. It was nice seeing so many different AP prints in one place. Overall I had fun and I'm thankful that the tea party team were able to get AP as a guest!

And lastly here is my small haul! I had to visit The Littlest Gift Boutique again for some cute things (Jinbei-san!!) I stopped by Nikkie's table in the Comic Market and we traded! (We tabled together in 2012!!) I also traded with Mowgen who is the creative mind behind Kawaii-Land, a kawaii themed event that I will be joining in November this year! (please look forward to it!) Thank you also for the gifts!! There were lots of pretty things in the Crafters including some nice jewelry but I didn't have a chance to go back to buy. The weekend passed by too quickly. Here's to 2019... I guess? Haha, if I don't *retire* by then!! :')

That's all for my report - thank you for reading!!