NDK Day 02, or: Mikasa en tu Casa
(note: this post was written on day 02 even though its posting has been delayed until today for previously stated reasons.)
After a morning with several false starts, I made it to the hotel (while missing a photo op with an adorable Seychelles walking to the hotel, damn) and headed to the video game room to get equipped, as per usual, and then headed to the panel on intro to independent filmmaking, run by the assistant vice director of Harmony Gold, Kevin McKeever according to the guide, and it was very informative, if also terribly intimidating. He called it the "crush your dreams" panel for a reason, even if that reason was a joking one.
After that, I headed off to find where Hidenori Matsuhara's autograph signing. I've never been to a signing, so I really had no idea what I was in for. I was hoping to remove one of the geas (what is the plural of geas? Geass? Geasses? Wikipedia says "gaesa", but I like geassessesss better.) that was placed upon me. I haven't managed to remove it just yet, but I will tomorrow.
Anyway, on my way there, I ran into Yuyuko from last year, but she wasn't Yuyuko anymore!
She was there along with Murasa/Sakuya from last year! I threw out a nice round number for the Touhou cosplayers to meet up in the atrium, 1PM, and then kept trying to find the autograph line for Matsuhara.
Caught a Sailor Chibi Moon on the way there.
My interest in Matsuhara's presence is that he was the character designer for a number of big-name anime of the 90s, like Evangelion, Ah! My Goddess, and.... Sakura Taisen. I got him to sign my copy of the Sakura Taisen movie's sleeve, and its booklet.
The line was really slow because a number of people were making him sketch. He was doing short personalized sketches, or two autographs. So I was standing around in line for quite a bit. At least I got to take some more photos.
The most impressive Mikasa I've seen yet. There were sooooooooooo many Mikasas, but I kept running into this one in particular. I shall call her
Kansas Mikasa Mikansas because she told me that she was really just here for Matsuhara, and was driving back to Kansas tomorrow (Sunday). Her getup is ridic impressive, though. Her jacket was commissioned, but everything else she did herself.
While my spot was being held by some very nice people in line, I dashed off to take a few photos of cosplayers who walked past us.
Sailor Saturn! Seems to be a different one from the Saturn I irritate year in and year out.
Sailor Pluto. We will see her again later, this time with the big-ass key.
Princess Tutu went past us. Her book reads "Princess Tutu". This is where I confess to Iced that I still haven't gotten past episode 7 of that.
Kirito and Asuna from Sword Art Online were also behind me in line.
Anyway, after a way longer line than I had anticipated, I had my autographs and headed off.
I was late to the meetup I had set the time for as a result, and only just managed to catch Reimu before she had to go.
With Satori.
I am still hella sorry about this. I really should have shown up to autographs earlier, or just set the meetup time later.
Also ran into Patchouli and Murasa again. I asked everyone if they wanted to go to lunch or photos first, and the consensus was photos, so off we went!
The YuGiOh folks were using the grassy water fountain area everyone uses for photos, including us. We just waited for them to leave.
Patch! She was really nice, even though I didn't to talk to her for very long. She had with her an Aleister Crowley book, to look the part of a proper western magician.
Murasa has anchor socks. She was very proud of them.
And then she took them off, to head into the water.
A terrifying sinker ghost.
This setup is intended to be Satori mimicking Murasa's drowning powers.
But Murasa isn't the only one who can summon up water!
Note: the page she had bookmarked was that iconic kabbalistic image of God, the Sephirot, the one you see splashed all over the place in Evangelion. She thought it fitting.
Summoning up metal.
But then, humanity received a grim reminder. We lived in fear of Ika Musume.
Even the ghosts.
Ika Musume came along with us, being Murasa's friend, and then they staged this fight for us. A fight I am pretty sure Ika Musume won.
Touched by Her noodly appendage.
Satori's mum offered to take photos of me, and Patchouli wanted photos of me too before she left, so I took them up on that.
This is probably the clearest shot I've come across of my cape. All those constellations are valid ones*, with my right hand side having the northern hemisphere and my left hand side having the southern hemisphere.
*Except for one on my left shoulder, which is the rotated
moon sign from Kingdom of Loathing. (There's only one constellation, they just rotate it.)
Some group shots!
Now with attempted photobomb.
Since Utsuho is Satori's pet and all....
Last year Murasa got a photo of me looking ridiculous on the ground, so she repaid that before we headed to lunch.
Lunch was at Taco Bell, stuffing our faces after a walk across the highway. Had a good talk with Satori's mum! What a swell lady. Murasa, Satori and I all exchanged info, and drew some cute doodles. I will scan them later, because they are seriously adorbs.
Next is the danmaku tunnel!
SFX: Pichuu~n
I like how every character in this shot spent some time underground.
Satori wanted this shot because the danmaku looked like an eye.
Murasa versus Utsuho! There are also some shots of a Satori and Utsuho combination attack versus Murasa, but those are on Satori's mum's camera, I believe.
I said my goodbyes to Murasa and her father, then headed the other way up to the Marriott across the highway. I was the only one returning to the con, everyone else was leaving. I bade Satori and her mum farewell as well, then crossed the street.
From across the street we had seen that there was a massive crowd outside, but since most of it was blocked by cars and trees, we couldn't see just how big the crowd was. We thought it was the line for the dealers' room, swelled to obscenely large levels. But no, it was not. As it turned out, someone had pulled the fire alarm (without cause, we later found out) and everyone had had to exit from the hotel in a hurry.
I took this shot of Kenshin while waiting, and then the fire department left and we could all go back inside.
I quickly got out of the way of the cosplayers sprinting for the dealers' room line, and began the long process of taking off my wings, which takes a fairly lengthy time because of the way they're tied into my outfit. Of note: I saw Yuko Ichihara here, but wasn't able to take a photo of her. A regret, because she had an amazing outfit.
In general, I think that while Utsuho is great fun to cosplay, she is an absolutely
terrible choice for a photographer like me. I spent more time concerned with my wings and hauling around a huge canvas bag of gear than taking photos. Next year, I am certain to choose someone else whose outfit is way less unwieldy.
An adorable Taiwan!
The Powerpuff girls, looking dangerously adorable.
Everyone likes crossovers! Shingeki no Gate, anyone?
Homura and Charlotte. Lookin' excellent, ladies.
One of various Jack Frosts I saw running about.
A Seychelles! I don't think it was the same one I missed from the morning though. I distinctly remember her being so happy with her friends afterwards, with her friends saying, "look, people think you're adorable!" :3c
More Sailor Moon is never unwelcome.
As per my usual, I avoided taking photos of Homestucks because I am not familiar with the series, but there were a few here and there that were too good to pass on.
Almost to a person, a lot of the Attack on Titan cosplayers did this salute.
Om nom nom, those are some cute taiyaki outfits!
Ladies of Naruto.
Speaking of nice Homestuck cosplay!
Now, here is a surprise! Sakuya le bel Shirogane, from Hatoful Boyfriend.
Some Vocaloid cosplay I caught outside the video game room.
A very adorable Mami.
Team Rocket, always nice.
Wandering back through the lobby, I heard shouts and cheers and turned to look:
Homestucks playing spin the bottle and approaching each other for hugs.
This appeared to be the crowd organizer.
Just then, though, I saw the condition to lift my second geas!
This is Chihiro Fujisaki from Dangan Ronpa, who is also a friend I know on Tumblr. After she took a selfie of us, she let me take a photo of her.
That's the end of batch one. Now, when I came home several hours later, I discovered that while it had been raining and drizzling at the tech center, my neighbourhood had been hit with rain and hail. So at the time of writing (11:34 PM 9/14/2013), my internet is out. I hope this post can go live soon.
Batch two of day two coming up when it can!
[X] Fast Forward.It is now 8:13 PM 9/16/2013 that this post is going up. Siiiiiigh, I am late. Also, hi, Sakuya and Satori!
