Big Apple Anime Fest 2003

Day Two

1:30 PM to 8:00 PM

Tomoyo Daidouji

Very little preparation on my part went into this con. As you saw, Friday I wore well-chosen "street clothes" and ears made by Firefly-Path.com. For Saturday, I had bought a Cardcaptor Sakura winter uniform off of eBay about a week and a half before, made by Setsuna Kou. My Tifa costume for Sunday had taken a little more work, but not much.

Lou's costume, on the other hand...

Due to my repeated beggings to come in costume, my friend Lou decided to be Zell from Final Fantasy 8. We started the costume roughly a week before the convention. We started SEWING the costume that Tuesday. Oy. We made some laughable beginner mistakes (Lou started sewing fabric to the base jacket before cutting it into the shape he wanted, I switched stitches whenever I felt like it) but thought we were doing well.
Lou as Zell with Selphie from Final Fantasy VIII
Lou made an AWESOME Zell. For all intents and purposes, this is the first costume I ever sewed, and I am proud of it.
Li Shaoran and me as Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura

We met up with Lou's girlfriend, Mary, and our friend Simon in the city and all went into the Marriott together.

The line to get their tickets was LONG! There were SO many more people Saturday then the day before. (And, consequently, many more cosplayers.) We took a few photos and then went to see Magical Saint Tail. After waiting a long time (and meeting up with a man who took a whole roll of me as Jupiter last year), we finally got to the front of the line to see that not only was the Saint Tail room full, the anime was dubbed. Ew. So we gave up on that. We then started hunting cosplayers and posing for photos. Fun! Then we went into the J-Pop screening room, and I saw my very first ever Japanese music videos. They are SO much more visually interesting then contemporary American music videos.
Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura
Simon knew ALL of the songs they played (I'm not exaggerating--every. single. one.) and sang along softly (he has a very nice voice.)
Anthony as Link from Legend of Zelda
Then, on to the insanely long line for the dealer's room. It was actually rather fast moving, and, eventually, we all ended up buying something. I got two more of those Sailor Moon figurines in bathing suits (the ones I needed), and two new Utena DVDs that they didn't have there the day before. (I know have every episode that's been released to DVD in the US.) Lou bought a Cat Soup DVD (the box is awesome--they have like floating red liquid in the cover) and was surprised to see Ken Knudtsen, the author of "My Monkey's Name Is Jennifer", an indie comic he collects, so I bought him a copy of the comic so Ken could sign it for him. Very cool. :) Mary bought three box sets of Slayers so she now has every single episode, which she is thrilled about. Simon caved and bought himself a kick ass Transformer (the fire truck one, if that means anything to you. I don't know much about Transformers.)
Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess
Mary also bought...
Lilith from Darkstalkers 3
"Zell endorses 'Hello Kitty Vibrator'!"
"Sweet Jesus, there are instructions!"
"No, guys, it's really a shoulder massager! Honest!"
After the dealer's room, we went on another photo hunt and I RAN OUT OF FILM. That's right, I went through TWO AND A HALF rolls of film like THAT. Of course, THAT'S when all the Sailor Moon cosplayers started showing up! I eventually had to ask Lou to start photographing them for me (he had his video camera, which he generously let me pose with as a prop for Tomoyo, but he also used it to take still photographs.)
Sumomo! I got another picture of her Sunday, but that's another story.
I was able to introduce my group to Usagi and Seiya Kou, and talk to CHris about what we are doing for the skit the next day, but I never found Ranma. Darn.
Cloud, Sephiroth, and Yuffie from Kingdom Hearts, and Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII.
Finally, at 6 o'clock, we went for another run through the dealer's room (when it was much less crowded) and we ran into Kevin Lillard again! He took a picture of Lou and of me and GODDAMMIT I REMEMBERED TO PUT THE BAGS DOWN THIS TIME BUT MY BLOODY EYES ARE CLOSED! I'm SUCH a dumbass! And Kevin is SUCH a sweetheart! Misunderstanding the relationship between Lou and I, he kind of gave Lou a stern look and told him to "take care of me."
GLOMP times two!
AWWW! Kevin Lillard cares about me! I was beaming for like an hour after that.
Yubaba and Chihiro from Spirited Away

At 8 PM, we had had enough. We were starving, so we went to a TGIF across the street. We weren't the only congoers in csotume who were there. Those poor waitresses. :)

Lesson of the day: If you dress as a Final Fantasy costumer, people WILL photograph you. Then other Final Fantasy people show up. Then it turns into an impromptu group photo shoot. It's very cool.

Lesson two: Not too many people know who Tomoyo is. :(
Lulu from Final Fantasy X
 
Mei Lin and me as Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura

Yet More Photos Lacking Proper Commentary
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's Kotoko from Chobits, Merle from Vision of Escaflowne, and Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi
Simon's favorite anime is Love Hina, so when we found a girl cosplaying as a girl from it (I'm not sure which one, since I've never seen the series) it turned into a sort of reverse-glomp...
Radical Ed from Cowboy Bebop! They were selling those adorable little Eins in the dealer's room for only $15, but they only took cash and I was tapped out, and I got too busy the next day to go in and get one for myself...
Another wonderful Tifa! By this point, I was getting really nervous as to how I'd look dressed as her the next day...
Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess
You can't tell from this picture, but there was a person in the Kilala and even though s/he must've been on all fours, s/he must've done something to extend his/her legs, and yet was still able to walk around...it was incredible.
San from Mononoke Hime.
Dark Vash from Trigun.
Another Radical Ed with a plushie Ein!
Squall and Lou as Zell from Final Fantasy VIII
A Final Fantasy VIII group.
Light and Dark Chii