AniManGaki 2013

AniManGaki 2013. It was the event that had some major decisions made.

For the event, I had printed a lot of Pokeball badges to be sold. Using the existing Pokeballs, I designed my own style of each Pokeball from Generation 1 to 6, Pokeball to Dream ball, including some from the anime and 1 from the spin-off Pokemon typing game.

Also for the event, I had made the decision to crossplay for the first time. Crossplay is "cross costume play" for short. Being in the cosplay community, crossplay among girls was always the norm but crossplay among guys wasn't until recent years. I made about four months of preparation for my first crossplay, Naze Youka. I made as much effort as to keep it a secret until the day itself.

So.

Day 0
I went to Cheryl's house to sleepover as usual because I wanted to get fully dressed before going to the event because I was worried people will see me and I was nervous and shy about it, and I didn't want my family to know it yet, especially my dad. I brought all my stuff including half the amount of my Pokeball badges. We have a booth on Sunday only. I wanted to have it both days of the event but my friends sharing the booth didn't want to. As to save money as we were fairly broke (the downfall of being an animation student and a cosplayer) we only had the booth for one day. Cheryl was rushing her Original Character (OC) cosplay so I helped her out.

Day 1
I woke up really early to prepare and Cheryl was finishing up her cosplay. After she helped me put on makeup and bandaged my head, I got dressed. My bandage plan was a failure, I should have done a test before to make sure it was right. With only being able to see with my left eye, everything was a blur because my left eye has astigmatism and I don't wear contacts because my eye sight isn't so bad as to need them. Amanda was supposed to be my cosplay partner as she cosplayed Kurokami Maguro but she was busy with her booth so I pretty much was solo the whole day. It was both a scary and new experience. It was the first time I had a lot of people ask for a photo while being a solo cosplay. Looks like I manage to fool majority of the public that I am a girl. I manage to meet up with a few friends who either already knew I was crossplaying (I told a few girls about it) and some who recognise me somehow (most probably my big smile). I didn't get enough sleep so I was sleepy the whole time, having only one eye made me really sleepy. I fell asleep for a while while Cheryl, Misaki, Baddie and Weiss were taking a break. Then they went for late lunch. I wasn't feeling hungry because of the bandages, they gave me headaches because of how tight they were and it was pretty hard to breath. I decided to change out and after doing so, I felt so much more energetic and hungry. I joined Cheryl and the others for lunch and soon after waking around the booths, we went back.

Day 2
This day it's easier. I was cosplaying as Okabe Rintarou again. Before going to bed (sofa) the night before, I had packed everything in order in my box along with the stuff Cheryl needed to bring for the booth. We got to the event late because we woke up late. But we manage to set up our booth in time but not complete when the door were open for the public. Laura, Wee and I stayed at the booth most of the time. Business was slow that day. Even thought a lot of people were interested in our stuff, they would not buy after some consideration. It was obvious when looking at their expression changes. The day came to a close with the dance off and Danny Choo who was at the event too did a sexy dance on stage. He wanted to escape afterward but the cosplayers on stage kept him in the center. He eventually jumped off the stage from the front and went back to cleaning up his booth. I bought two sets of badges, a Pacific Rim Yaeger set and a Black Rock Shooter set. I dropped one of my BRS badges somehow, I was pretty upset about it.

I intend to continue to sell my badges at Comic Fiesta but the booths are all taken and I can't find any friends who's got space for me to join them. I don't really have any other plans for the end of this year. Without a booth, it looks like it's gonna be a pretty boring Comic Fiesta for me. I hope it won't be as boring as I think it will be. After many years of being an event-goer AGC conventions don't appeal so much to me anymore.