Big Apple Anime Fest 2001

October 26 - October 28

Day Two

Princess Mars

The Cosplay:

All right, first off, let me just say, I have read the advice on COSP, and totally agree, that for the first convention you ever go to, you should not enter the masquerade, but watch and learn. Honest to God, that's all I intended to do. I had not made my costume, I was by myself, I'm not very good at writing skits.

However.

I am a sucker for girls who ask me things.

Dammit.
Sakura and Kero-chan from Card Captor Sakura
On Friday, when I was getting my ticket for Spriggan, two girls who were running the cosplay table gushed over my original Sailor Mars costume.
Baby Bonnie Hood from Darkstalkers

"You should do the masquerade!" they said.

"I didn't make my own costume," I said.

"You should do the masquerade!" they said

"I don't have a skit," I said.

"You should do the masquerade!" they said.

"...okay," I said.
Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII
I mean, I figured, what the heck, right? I had discredited myself as much as possible before even entering.
Goten from DragonBallZ

Plus, I figured they must really be desperate for applicants, if they were asking me. I mean, I knew they were only allowing about 20 or so entries. I figured they would've been snapped up already. For them to be asking me, no one must have entered yet. And what damage could it do? It's not like I was going to win.

So, Saturday, I showed up directly to the Director's Guild. Thank GOD I had my camera Saturday! I really needed more film, I would definitely have photographed all of the winners of the masquerade, and even more in the room we all waited in beforehand. There were so many adorable costumes, and I even recognized most of them!
Vash from Trigun
They brought us upstairs, I'm not sure when as I wasn't wearing a watch, gave us numbers and had us sit in order. They let spectators sit with us, so I had a nice aisle seat with only Tim next to me.

Gohan from DragonBallZ
Now, I freely admit here, I've never seen a masquerade before. I only know what I've read. But honestly, we had a LOT of time to kill before the start time of 6 PM. Does the emcee usually ask the audience if anyone wants to come up onstage to entertain the crowd until it's time? When no one in the crowd would come up, he let the cosplayers loose, provided they didn't do parts of their skit. Well, let me tell you, cosplayers are a talented bunch. There were singers. There was wrestling. There was random Japanese. And that dancing Iori! Man, I wanted to marry him! I hope someone got this on tape! I want a copy! But then, the emcee started giving prizes for the masquerade away to the entertainers! A lot of people seemed to think that wasn't fair. I didn't care, as I knew I was never going to get one of those prizes anyway, lol.
Tifa from Final Fantasy VII
Then, there was the thing with the judges. There were none. So the emcee pulled people out of the audience. Not at random, mind you. He let the cosplayers say, "Pick Vash!"
Someone from Angel Sanctuary

Again, I didn't mind, I don't think they were friends of any of the cosplayers in particular, they just happened to be in costume, and from what I've read, cosplayers prefer to be judged by other cosplayers. The emcee picked out three people in costume, the one "normal" guy in street clothes.

Anyway, the cosplay started on time, at six. The cosplayers went up on stage. Now, people who didn't have a skit prepared were supposed to do "walkons." But it's hard when all the entries before you have been skits, and really funny ones at that, so that people who marked down that they wanted to be judged for craftsmanship ended up making up skits on the spot. It worked better than I thought it would have, in fact, some of them seemed better than skits that had been prepared.
Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII
Now, back to the judges. The emcee stopped after every three skits or so, and asked the judges their opinions. Is this a common practice? I found it a little intimidating, but maybe that's just me.
Cammy White
Plus, in my opinion, it really seemed to interrupt the flow of the masquerade. Maybe that was the idea?
Card Captor Sakura group shot
Who knows.
Final Fantasy Universe group shot
Now, you may be wondering what yours truly did, as I had NOTHING planned. I had nothing going for me...except I'm a big Mars fan, and know her personality rather well. I wasn't going to try to put together a dramatic or wildly hysterical skit, but just say a few lines to show how much I resembled the character. That is the purpose of cosplay, isn't it? So at my turn, I went up on stage, as gracefully as possible, and stood center stage. I gazed out over the crowd. "I am the Princess of Mars," I announced. I dropped to the classic kneeling-knight pose, and clasped my red rose to my chest.
A new Team Rocket member--she won a crowd's choice award in the cosplay!

"I have sworn my chastity to the Princess Serenity." I looked up with a wicked grin. "Too bad, boys." And walked off the stage.

All right, it wasn't an Oscar winning performance or anything. But it got a few laughs, and that's all I was really aiming for. ^.^

Now then, the judges retired to make their final decisions. A beautiful handmade Kaoru (don't know the series, gomen) won best costume (see picture below), a guy (see below, don't know what character he was) who played a beautiful flute melody won best performance, and a hysterical Sailor Moon/Dragon Ball Z group won best overall. Very good decisions, I must admit.
Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin

Now, again, I don't know if this is me, because I'm a first time con goer, or if this was them, because they're a first time con. They had many prizes to give away, and decided spur of the moment who got what. After the three main prizes were given out, they had more prizes left over, so they went into the crowd at random and had people choose who to give prizes to. I'm not saying I don't agree with their choices, all the people who won deserved to win. But there were a lot of good skits, and I wasn't sure it was, well, usual, to let the crowd pick.

However, to enter the masquerade for the very first time, at my very first con...I really feel like a true cosplayer for the first time in my life. And I had a BLAST! And I want to do it again!
Utena group shot

More Photos (not taken by me)

Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII
DDR boy
DDR boy again

Me as Princess Mars in the downstairs waiting room before the masquerade
Still waiting downstairs
Onstage during the masquerade