Kummacon 2026 – Where did you all people come from?

 Hello weirdos!

I was at Kummacon last weekend (16-17th May) and, unlike all previous times, this year Kummacon was held in the University of Oulu (Oulun yliopisto). This was also the first Kummacon in 5 years where I went as a visitor and not as a volunteer worker and, in hindsight, it was the right choice. 

Let's get on with the summary~

Kummacon 2026 poster.

I traveled with Firith and we took the train from Kemi to Oulu on Friday early evening. The train ride only takes roughly one hour (it was like 20 minutes delayed though #perusvr) so one's ass doesn't have time to get flattened by all the sitting lol. Once we got out of the train station we crossed the street and went to eat dinner at a nearby Tibetan restaurant because it had a buffet and it was super close. We did have an average amount of luggage, for a con weekend, but neither of us was keen on walking any more than necessary with it. Another reason why we decided to eat in centrum instead of after we had dropped our bags at the accommodation was because the university that Kummacon was to be held in was located in a part of Oulu called Linnanmaa, which is a fair distance away from the city center and thus a bit of an inconvenience for those arriving from other towns and/or by public transport (aka you don't have a car); there's also only like one restaurant in that area so you were really limited on food options once you got there. We just figured it would be better to eat before taking the taxi to the airbnb. 

We had an... embarrassing amount of trouble finding the airbnb. The taxi took us to the right general area but it was one of those lowkey confusing residential areas with a lot of apartments clustered up and pseudo-hidden staircases leading up to the upper apartments. We were about to go up the wrong staircase (it was the only clearly visible one okay? ;_; ) when some random Finnish man came outside from the apartment just next to said starcase, who was clearly fed up with lost airnbnb bookers wandering around the area, and he asked if we were looking for the place and then proceeded to tell us where the correct staircase was along with asking us to pass along a shitty review to the hosts. He clearly disliked the couple who hired out the airbnb apartment and wanted them to lay down the whole business. I kinda got the impression that some previous guests had been nuisances, at least he raged about some previous guests parking their car wrong – I mean, the first thing he asked us was "did you arrive by car?". Ahh, getting embroiled in surprise neighborhood beefs. :'D

Oh well, we finally found our way inside the apartment, it was on the upper level. I think Mister Angry might even have been straight below us omfg. The apartment was nice and clean and there was even a sauna! A somewhat small one, but still. 
I took out some of my cosplay stuff from my suitcase and noticed that there was no ironing board anywhere. I'm not sure why I was even expecting there to be one (not even all hotels have one!) but when I unfolded my Jedi robe, and took a good look at it, I felt like I had to do something to get at least some of the worst wrinkles out because yeah, it looked like it had been thrown haphazardly into a drawer and forgotten.. which it kinda had, oops.

Desperate attempts are desperate. Go go sauna steam power!

It wasn't perfect but for an emergency solution it worked surprisingly okay. Steam does relax and soften fibers and I did notice an improvement after letting it cook in there for an hour or something. Of course I vigorously threw some water on the rocks to generate extra amounts of steam. xD

I don't think anything else of interest happened during the Friday, aside from the fact we finally finished watching the second season of the anime Bastard!! after having issues with Netflix working at home. It only took like... almost 260 days to finish it. Oof. There's a reason that whenever I start watching an anime I always try to marathon it because otherwise I forget so easily what was going on – good thing Bastard!! doesn't have a lot going on lol, it's mostly just nonsensical action with a ridiculously overpowered protagonist and a staggering amount of fanservice thrown in. I'd assume quite many would file it under that weird why-am-I-watching-this guilty pleasure folder haha. I know I did.

Fazer chocos for breakfast. Our dumbasses had nothing else.

I slept bad. Really bad. Like it-took-me-5-hours-to-fall-asleep levels of bad. The bed was outrageously soft and you just sank into the mattress like a rock once you laid down. The support was nonexistent. My lower back hurt so much throughout the night and I slept like a dog, constantly aware that I'm trying to sleep and tossing and turning non-stop. If anything it was a relief when morning finally came and it became an acceptable time to get up and start the day. Yet despite sleeping like shit I still felt surprisingly fresh? I have no idea how that worked out, the math wasn't mathing.

I had decided to do a random, unspecified Jedi OC again, just like I did in Kemin mangapäivä earlier. Although this time I put in more effort, aka I used a wig and put on makeup – which, normally, is my bare minimum but ehh, even that takes effort and energy I don't always have readily available. Life's been tough lately. After all Kummacon is a bigger event and I kinda didn't want to look like I dined with swamp trolls the night before and woke up from under a bridge lol. Donning my Star Wars getup is perfect for exploring and it's also quick and easy to put on. Besides, I've never been to the University of Oulu before so I wanted something comfy to move around in.

Boring proof pic, in questionable phone quality. Yay!

The clock was roughly 12:40 when we arrived at the university. Conveniently it was within walking distance from where the airbnb was located. The weather wasn't the most exciting though, it was very dull and gray outside and it looked like rain might come down any minute. I wasn't really in the mood to photoshoot my own costume with the cloudy dreariness but I took some photos of Firith's Darkrai gijinka (Pokémon) before we went inside.

Kummacon entrance view.

I'm not sure what exactly my first impression was when I stepped inside but I know I noticed very early how crammed it felt. Perhaps I should have expected a lot of hallways and crowdedness since it's an university building, just like Närcon and many others, but I guess somehow I was still blindsided by the sheer amount of people? I never really thought of Kummacon as a big event, I'm not even sure where on the con size scale it is nowadays; it probably has grown over the years and maybe it's not so small anymore?

General view almost immediately upon entering.

I'm quite sure that the Kummacon location upgrade had something to do with the "Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture" designation. Maybe a bigger culture budget was allocated? Would make sense at least! I'm really happy for Kummacon if that was the case, it's not unheard of that cons struggle with funding and I know several that died because they didn't get enough funding to be able to continue. 
It's just speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if the whole capital of culture thing put Kummacon on the radar for many previously unaware and that's why it felt like there were a lot more people than previous years? I mean for real, it felt like it had exploded in terms of visitors!

Continuing down that same corridor...

... eventually lead to an open, branching area.

I think one of the first things we did was to check out the Kumma Kirppis, aka Kummacon's own second-hand shop.. or flea market, thrift store or whatever else you wanna call it. Basically congoers can sign up for it in advance and have their goods sold there during the con by Kummacon personnel. It's a nice way to sell things you don't need forward to other fans. :) It was quite hidden, outside the main areas and I'm pretty sure that unless Firith hadn't checked beforehand and knew where to go I probably wouldn't have found it lol. I'm not sure if I liked the placement personally, I lowkey feel like it probably affected sales and overall awareness because yeah, I did hear from friends that they never found it. Which brings me to my other gripe – the lack of signs. In such a large building signs are paramount to a good experience and, while there were signs, I felt like there could have been more. I don't have the best navigation skills and it being a new place I kinda got the feeling that perhaps there was an assumption that most visitors would be from Oulu and thus already familiar with the university? The signs that were there were good, but most were just next to whatever they were indicating; what I missed would have been signs in other locations, especially the large open areas, pointing towards places of interest like the Artist Alley, video game room, photography booth etc. Most of these were not easy to find intuitively (aka if you had no map)! The stage where the cosplay competition etc was held was really far away from all the other used spaces and this one had a good amount of signs along the whole distance – yeah it was like a 5 min walk to the other end of the university. 

Kumma Kirppis view.

Along the path to the second-hand area, if you went down the right path (against the wall) you would pass by the video game room, the karaoke room and this little area where a local indie game developer group had a station where you could playtest a beta version of their upcoming game. I chatted with one of the makers and he seemed really passionate about the project and said that their base of operations is in Oulu so yeah, it's extremely local haha! The game is a mix of different genres including puzzle-solving and roleplaying with visual novel styled storytelling. Go support these guys!

Indie devs Runoi Games upcoming Fortune Fragments game.

I took a peek inside the video game room and I liked the retro dominance going on in there. I saw a Nintendo Gamecube, a PS2, a Super Nintendo and I think there was an older Xbox in the back. Always when I see a Super Nintendo I have to go check what games are available and I'm in particular looking for Super Mario World and U.N. Squadron (Area 88 in Japan) because those were a major part of my childhood and I miss those games, especially the latter with its banger soundtrack. ;_; Neither was available so I didn't stay to play this time, although I saw there were some other awesome games like good old Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Gamecube!

Gaming room!

I gotta give props for the gaming room having retro consoles, especially because most people who are gamers probably own at least a current gen console or a last gen console (like the PS4) but I think there's many attendants who might not have the older consoles at home, especially the younger people who didn't grow up with them back when they were new. I've noticed a shift in the age groups of attendants since a few years back – I feel like there's been a big influx of young people (school-aged children and young adults) while people my age and older have slowly dissipated or moved to being a part of the organizers and workforce. So yeah, it makes my millennial gamer heart extra soft to see older consoles accessible for those who didn't get to live that era (or those who miss that era!), especially now that the value of older games and consoles are skyrocketing and are, quite frankly, rather unaffordable for the average person without a lot of spendable income.

Chill beanbag corner. Every con needs one of these.

Our exploration journey continued. We had to pass through the main shopping area where both the Dealer's Hall and the artisans were (it's basically the same as the Artist Alley but for those deemed 'sellers', aka who have a registered business and probably do vending as a full-time job) located and holy moly was it crowded on Saturday! There were so many people it was really anxiety-inducing. Neither of us could stand to stay in there long enough to even browse, it was way too overwhelming.

General Dealer's Hall view.

Another corner of the Dealer's Hall incl. Manga Cafe.

And Dealer's Hall again but from the opposite side.

We unequivocally decided to check the Dealer's Hall the next day, in hopes it would be more manageable. I did like what little I had time to see, there was a nice variety of items for sale and not everyone were familiar faces either! 

After some time Firith had to leave for some worker responsibilities (cosplay contestant judging) and so I was left to wander on my own. I have no memory of what I did during this time, I just know that when the cosplay competition was about to start I walked all the way back to the other side of the building, only to be met by this ludicrously large queue to which I said "fuck it" and walked back to the main area. xD I mean I'm not that interested in the cosplay contest that I'd stay in like a kilometer long line, especially when my feet were killing me at this point and standing still was painful. 

I proceeded to sit down near the cloakroom-ish area and played Pokémon Go to pass the time while waiting for the cosplay competition to finish. There was conveniently a raid at a gym within distance so I played it (sent raid invites to get backup from players in Kemi) and got a perfect IV Pheromosa from it lol.

Classic paper wall where you could doodle and write con greetings.

I know that when I was in the middle of the raid Firith tried to call me and ask if I was ready to leave the con and go grab dinner with Sallukka and Dongrieg, whom we had already briefly bumped into earlier in the Dealer's Hall. I had to click away the call at first because there's a high risk Pokémon Go crashes/restarts on my phone if I answer calls. I felt so rude lol but luckily all three of them were very close so it wasn't a big deal in the end – it was more silly than not because we were so close to each other but yeah, that damn tie-dyed fabric drape curtain conveniently hid me from their point of view lmao.

Sallukka and Dongrieg had arrived with their own car to the con (a one-day trip) so we could actually drive to centrum and choose from a much larger pool of restaurants than if we hadn't all had the same idea to go eat at the same time! But before we went to eat we quickly docked at our airbnb and Firith and me removed our costumes, it's easier to eat when you don't have to worry about messing up your cosplay fr. 
We ended up going to a sushi buffet restaurant called Okiniiri and it was a nice experience to wind down for the day. Very nice dessert table with mochis, honey cake and churros! Still thinking about that random cute ladybug that was on the wall next to our table though, I hope it got out safely. :c

After we had finished eating we went to a nearby foodstore and bought some necessities for the upcoming Eurovision-watching, aka beverages and sweets. Sallukka and Dongrieg dropped us off at the airbnb after that was done and continued on their way back home. Firith went to turn the sauna on and I had just time to shower and get ready by the time Eurovision started. 
Before the show started there was this silly slip-up where I was trying to explain that dismissed call during the Pokémon Go raid earlier and that it didn't mean that I was in a bad mood or anything and yeah, while explaining I didn't even notice at first that I accidentally said "laittaa luuri koiraan" instead of "laittaa luuri korvaan" until Firith burst out laughing. In my defense I was exhausted from the day and talking on autopilot. xD It's a bit hard to translate but the phrase of 'hanging up on someone' in Finnish would, when literally translated, be like "to put the phone in the ear" and, well, I accidentally said "to put the phone in the dog" lololol.

Eurovision time! (oli hyvä lonkku. :D)

My favorites were Albania, Croatia, Romania, Sweden (the singer is the former Fröken Snusk) and Finland of course. Serbia got my hopes up with the outfits and the cool sword but the song just didn't click the way I hoped it would. I was hoping Finland would win with all the hype around it, 20 years since Lordi's first Finnish win etc but I guess it wasn't meant to be. Well at least a certain country didn't win in the end, that's all that matters. 

It was like... uhh, way too late by the time I fell asleep. And I felt it on the morning! Of course I couldn't be lucky and feel oddly fresh two days in a row with poor sleep. I think I slept like 4 hours at the very best and those hours were shit quality sleep. Once I was up and sat down in the kitchen I felt an absolutely debilitating pang of nausea building up – it felt like I'd blackout and throw up at the same time continuously and it took a lot of effort to just stay conscious. It was horrible, no cap.
It's not exactly a secret that I struggle with chronic sleep difficulties and nightmares and often am very tired on the mornings and throughout the day.. but this was an unprecedented level of sleep-deprivation nausea even for me. In hindsight I'm so relieved I didn't apply to be a con worker this year because waking up with this level of nausea on a work day would have been a death knell. There's no way I could have predicted this nor the shitty bed but I'm so glad I listened to my gut feeling this time and decided to go as just a visitor.

Eventually the worst of the nausea somehow slowly passed, don't ask me how because I didn't go back to sleep and we still had no breakfast either. I just drank some water from the tap and prayed, I guess? 

I had not prepared a cosplay for Sunday and that was a good decision – no way would I have been able to go costuming with both the lingering nausea and the feet pain! I should have taken some spare shoes because yeah, I could have fit my flip flops in the suitcase. Well at least I didn't get blisters, although at one point it looked like some could have formed.

General hall view.

We took a taxi to the con just to avoid the trickling rain and having to drag all our luggage around. The weather did clear up a bit later on but we had to be out of the airbnb by 12:00. Oh well, if one thing was immediately noticeable it was that there were fewer people around – which meant we could finally go take a proper look at the Dealer's Hall.

Various organization booths were present, mostly other cons.

I didn't buy anything from the Dealer's Hall this time, mainly because I'm painfully aware of how much stuff I have at home that I don't actually need and in fact need to get rid of due to a shortage of storage space. I've been quite a hoarder most of my life and I'm trying really hard to work on that, which means only buying things that I actually really need or really want after thinking about it – in other words: I'm trying to be more aware of my spending habits and, in particular, to lessen impulsive buying and comfort buying. It's hard because all my life I've subconsciously self-soothed by buying stuff that gave me joy, even if just for a moment. Having a broken childhood sucks.

Entrance to the Artist Alley...

... and a view inside it. 

I did buy a wooden fridge magnet in the Artist Alley though depicting a smiling samoyed. I had to buy it because for some reason I got suddenly emotional when I saw it because it made me think of our old family dog, a samoyed named Lady, whom we had in my early teenage years. Fridge magnets are useful too since I keep a bunch of notes and important papers on the fridge so that I remember them.

Kumma Kahvila sortiment.

In the same general area as the Artist Alley was the Kumma Kahvila, aka Kummacon's cafeteria. It sold sweet and salty snacks, coffee and such. There were a bunch of tables around the cafeteria so you could sit there and eat. On Saturday there was a homemade chocolate banana cake available that I almost bought a slice of but on Sunday there was no cake at all. *sniff* A little bit of ragrets.

Oh and yeah, before I forget! This is unrelated to Kummacon but is relevant to my blog at large so here goes a brief mention that I was, once again, featured on FeedSpot's Top 60 Cosplay Blogs list, hooray! It's nice to have one's work acknowledged. I mean I really enjoy blogging and I wouldn't be writing for over a decade if I didn't find a lot of enjoyment in sharing my whimsy hobby experiences with others who are like-minded! I hope this summary and all previous and upcoming posts will keep inspiring people near and far and maybe even bring a smile on a bad day. :) 

Fih.

Speaking of smiles and being whimsical I... *clears throat* .. I might not have been entirely 100% in ordinary clothes on Sunday. I wore this funny Magikarp hat my big sister bought from Japan as a gift after she made a joke to me about seeing it in passing and I answered by saying I seriously want it... which meant she had to backtrack and find the shop that sold it like two hours after first spotting it. xD Joke's on her! No but really, it's all in good fun – she knows the first generation mons (Gameboy era) but after that she lost interest, she was more into Magic: the Gathering back in the days. She knows I never grew out of being a Pokémon nerd though and pokes fun of it. We have a good relationship.

Photo booth for congoers. It's a free photography service.

My Magikarp hat generated some fun reactions including some random congoer trying to show me their Pokémon TCG collection while I was browsing snacks from the cafe. It was cute but a bit awkward because I was trying to buy something at that moment and there were others trying to browse as well (in that same small space) and yeah, it wasn't the best time nor place for that interaction. I didn't see them again after that; I hope they didn't think I intentionally ignored them. :/

Sunday was otherwise a pretty slow day for me. I didn't really participate in anything aside from Firith's book talk program. After the book talk was over we went to pick up what remained of our second-hand items, the clock was roughly 15:30 at this point. We both felt like we were satisfied with our con experience and ready to leave once we got our unsold items back and so we booked a taxi and went to wait outside. You could tell a lot of other people had the same thoughts because we saw people in droves leaving and others possibly waiting outside for a ride to come pick them up. 

Have some random eggplant display art. 

We left Kummacon around 16:00. We got a decent discount on the taxi because VR (Finnish railway company) had a deal with that particular taxi company so that if you went to the train station you got a cheaper ride, profits! 

As soon as we arrived at the train station I booted up the ResQ app on my phone to check if there was any good deals nearby but alas, there was none. We then wondered if we'd have time to go eat something before the train arrives because we were quite hungry by now. The good Chinese restaurant we'd usually frequent was temporarily closed due to fire damage so we couldn't go to our trusty place this time. It's almost literally on the opposite side of the road so that's one reason we've been regulars there haha. But yeah, we browsed our options on Google Maps for a while before we saw that the hamburger place that's in the same building as the train station actually had pretty damn good customer reviews. I was worried it might be one of those really expensive ones but we decided to take a look and thankfully it seemed to have rather normal prices so yeah, we booked our foods and sat down. 

After-con burgers om nom nom~

The burgers were a lot better than expected! I had some chicken burger with devil's jam and I certainly wouldn't mind having another the next time I'm in Oulu, hehe.

The rest of the journey home went well, I don't have so much more to say because nothing out of the ordinary happened. But in regards to Kummacon itself I'm generally pleased with the trip, although I do have mixed feelings about the building and how the location was used. It was nice how big the university was but I constantly had that feeling of it not being used to its full potential and some placements just seemed suboptimal to me, I guess? I'm also not sure if Kummacon had the whole university in their use or just specific sections of it, yet regardless it did feel inconvenient and empty that you had to pass through tons of unused space just to get to the stage – it felt so disconnected from the rest of the event. I don't know, I saw the potential and I had a good time but it also felt like it could have been even better? Of course I don't know what exactly the organizers had to work with and yeah, if they had used all sections they were given and the rest was off-limits then that's not on them and the choices made were thus understandable. :)

All in all Kummacon is a great free entrance event with a very low barrier of entry, it's very chill and relaxed. Kummacon's main focus has always been literature, popular culture and queerness and they're very visible with the latter – there's rainbow flags everyone and the safe space principle is followed – if you feel like the odd one out in everyday society then in Kummacon you will feel right at home. It's a con for all the outcasts, weirdos, queers, geeks and bookworms. I would recommend visiting if you live within the northern half of the country.

Thanks for reading and thanks to all the people keeping Kummacon alive! Stay nerdy~
Shiro Samurai out.

Lens review: EOS Dunia Violet

 Hello!

Sorry it's been a bit quiet on the blog the past few months, I've honestly been very busy and quite mentally exhausted lately. Con season is slowly starting up and there's quite a lot going on behind the scenes so I haven't really had the energy to blog at the extent I'd ideally want to but hey, life happens right? Anyways, today I'm doing a circle lens review and it's for the EOS Dunia Violet. This lens was a free sample lens that came with a previous order I did and forgot about and yeah, that's why it's just a single lens and not a pair like usually.

Let's go!

Base curve: 8.7 mm
Diameter: 14.2 mm

Water content: 38%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

In case someone wonders how come the lens has a completely different label compared to the actual brand, that's because it's a rather common practice that the manufacturer rebrands lenses – in this case EOS lenses are under P-con (Peach Color?) labels. I'm not entirely familiar with these newer rebrandings but these lenses were from Pinky Paradise so they're as legit as they get. I'm not affiliated with the site by the way but, even if this was a sponsored review (which I would disclose in such an event) then my honesty wouldn't be affected anyway. I just thought I'd mention were I got these in case someone who reads this is new to using circle lenses and needs recommendations for safe stores to buy from. :)

Back on track! This is a rather soft design lens I'd like to say and by that I mean that the print and color intensity is rather translucent and toned down. The design is reminiscent of a starry sky or a kind of pastel galaxy, it's cute and delicate without coming on too strong. It's an exquisite and subtly magical design that lends itself surprisingly well for casual wear as well as some fun flair.

One lens in.

These lenses blend rather nicely with my light gray-blue eyes, looking surprisingly natural while providing that kind of enchanting look? Honestly I really like it, it's a shame I can't try how it would look with both lenses on. I know the name of the lenses is Violet but the actual color is a mix of blue, pink and violet with white sparkles so yeah, it's got a lot more going on than just being your average purple lens lol.
There's a very slight enlargement effect but it's not really noticeable on my eyes, at least. These lenses lack the so-called 'dolly effect' because there's no defined black limbal ring, in fact the limbal ring on these is fuzzy and sparingly pigmented.

I had some issues doing my makeup because my liquid eyeliner just decided to die on me in the middle of doing the second eye and so I had to salvage whatever I could. Luck in misfortune though since this was a sinle-lens review I could block out the messed up eye with an eyepatch... xD

Lens photos below!

All photos are taken by yours truly during an April afternoon. All close-ups are free from color filters and the like and that's so that the colors would appear as true to life as possible.

Indoors, yellow room light.

Flash photo.

Outdoors, back against sun.

Outdoors, facing sun.

I know, this is a weirdly small amount of lens photos; I tried to take the normal amount at first but my old trusty camera had one of those tantrum days when it just refused to take sharp photos despite good light conditions and correct focus points so yeah, eventually my patience ran its course and the camera started blinking red battery and so I just took the ones I managed to get lol. I can't stand blurred photos haha.

Regarding comfort I gotta say that, aside from the slightly scratchy feeling after insertion (which subsided after a handful of minutes), the overall comfort seemed fine enough? It wasn't best lenses ever or anything close to that but they weren't bad either, just very average. As with most circle lenses nowadays these were also thin and easy to insert, so no problems there. There was a feeling of increasing dryness though that was set in motion soon enough but, ehh, it's always hard to tell whether the drying sensation is from the lenses or from my eyes since my eyes are naturally really prone to dryness.
I didn't try to wear these longer than for the duration needed to take these photos and that's because I noticed that they had expired before I even opened them I'm very time blind sometimes, it feels like I got these not long ago so yeah, not gonna mess around more than absolutely necessary. I don't recommend wearing lenses past their expiry date even if they feel fine – it's not worth gambling your eyesight for saving like 20 bucks.

Overall I'd say this is a fun lens that dances expertly on that fine line between being natural enough for everyday use and yet playful and with enough extravaganza to work for fancier dress-up days. It has a convincingly natural-looking galaxy effect that enhances the depth in your gaze. It's not bold in a costume-y sense and I doubt the lenses would be noticeable when viewed from a distance, yet the overall aesthetic appeal is undeniable and it's a very likeable lens at large. I wouldn't have any qualms about recommending these if they have piqued your interest.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 7/10 

Beautiful soft blend of several colors that work together to create a delicate yet lively appearance.

Design: 8/10 

Lovely galaxy design with a sparkly effect, gives a distinctive magical charm. Not dramatic.

Opacity: 5/10

Fairly transparent, sitting somewhere between a colored lens and an enhancement lens.

Enlargement: 3/10 

A meager enlargement effect is there but it won't bring attention to itself.

Comfort: 5/10 

Seemed average to me, thin and easy to insert but felt drying almost from the get-go but, then again, I'm not the best judge for this since my eyes are really sensitive and dry by default. *shrugs*

Naturalness: 7/10 

You'd be hard pressed to find a more natural lens than these in the galaxy print department. Very passable for what the design is.

Thank you for reading, stay awesome out there!

Shiro Samurai out ~

Kemin mangapäivä 2026 – Buttons, butts and bubble teas

 Hello there!

Kemin mangapäivä (aka Kemi's manga day) was held this past Saturday, on 7th March, for the second time since its revival from a decade of hibernation. Of course I was dragged went there to show my support for a local anime event and yeah, I was kinda needed as manpower too.

Let's get on with the report!

Event poster. Mascot by Nette Nikula.

I woke up early as heck on Saturday morning and mom drove me to Kemi, where I arrived roughly around 9:30. I didn't post any cosplay plans prior to the con because I wasn't set on what to cosplay and yeah, decided to just go with whatever mood I had on the actual day. I ended up choosing the comfiest, most low effort cosplay I had and packed my jedi robes with me.

When I arrived at Kulttuurikeskus, aka the con building, Firith let me in as the doors were still locked. I almost immediately went upstairs to put on my costume and after that I prepared our items for the Matsukirppis (second-hand shop hosted by Matsucon's crew), which mainly meant putting on pre-printed price tags. There were some small chats here and there to make sure all the volunteer crew knew what to do and soon enough the doors were open to the public!

Entrance view feat. Artist Alley.

Some more artist tables and a hoers~

Even though I was a worker I didn't have a specific job schedule or anything, I was mostly a stand-in to help Sanna with the pin workshop, which was a drop-in activity where anyone could make button pins – it was really popular last year and, err, a helper was requested for this year and that helper was me. :'D Some people might remember that I hosted the drawing room last year and well, due to our immense shortage of staff it had to be one or the other and yeah, that's the reason why the drawing room was reduced to a drawing corner and also why there was no drawing contest this year. Simply not enough crew you can count all of us on one hand pretty much and we had to prioritize.

Entrance to Kohtaamo, aka where the pin workshop and other activities were.

Sanna did the first hour or so of the pin workshop while I was free to explore, which mainly meant checking the Artist Alley. It was fun and giving to talk to all the different artists, everyone was so lovely! The clock was roughly 11:00 at this point and while I was browsing the artist tables the first colorful visitors had started to show up, which is always so nice to see. Me and Firith ran around taping Mangapäivä advertisement posters all over Kemi and Tornio and even all the way to Seskarö island in Sweden just a couple weeks before so yeah, it's always a relief to see that people actually knew about the event and we didn't do a lot of work for nothing. xD 

One thing that I couldn't help but notice was the boba tea stand! I had heard from my friends that there's a freshly opened bubble tea shop in Kemi centrum and it was so nice to see them having a booth at the event to promote their new shop! The actual shop is located at the market square area and I heard it was very popular during the Mangapäivä hours; they had to redirect customers to the shop because they kept running out of boba and also because they didn't have all the different flavors available on-site. There was this dude who had to run between the two locations to resupply the Mangapäivä boba booth with more drinks whenever the stash emptied!

MiSu boba's flavors. Yum!

I talked quite a bit with the owners and they were so friendly and genuinely passionate about what they were doing. Seems like it's a small-scale family business run by two young siblings and their mom and dad for support. Honestly a super wholesome bunch, I really hope they succeed! Can't tell y'all how happy I am to finally have a bubble tea shop closer than fucking 100 kilometers away. xD Especially now that the quality has dropped in the boba shop in Oulu since they changed names...

I had time to drink my strawberry boba in peace before it was time to set Sanna free and take over the workshop so she could go explore. But before I could roll in I had to get acquainted with the pin machine, which meant I had to make a prototype pin myself so that I could handle the machine and do pins for all the kids and visitors. You see, the pin workshop was always supervised by an adult and that meant that either I or Sanna took care of the machine – to keep the workshop running smoothly and to avoid anyone hurting themselves. The machine is entirely manual and works by pulling some levers and turning a metallic part around that you put the pin's upper and lower halves onto, including the artwork and a plastic sheet. It's hard to explain but it was quite easy to use once you got the hang of it, just had to be careful to memorize all steps (aka make sure you do them in the right way and in the right order) or you'd mess up and that would suck because you'd then ruin something that someone put time and effort into drawing and/or coloring and I'd hate myself for making a child sad. :'( I had to keep my anxiety at bay because yeah, I was so scared of ruining someone's artwork but luckily only one mistake happened and it was entirely the machine's fault, not mine. It's an old machine and sometimes it will have a hiccup even if the user does everything correctly...

Pin workshop with Sanna sitting at the edge.

Matsukirppis and Matsucon's organization booth.

On the photo above to the far right you can see the drawing corner – despite its shrunken size it was quite popular. Mangapäivä didn't have any panels or organized meetups this year so yeah, aside from the cosplay competition there wasn't any scheduled activities to keep track of. The activities that were available were the pin workshop, the drawing corner, a photo booth (what is 'kuvauspiste' called in English??) and there was also a Nintendo Switch one could use for free in the library's youth room, aka the same room in the back where the drawing room was last year. Matsukirppis, drawing corner and pin workshop were all in the Kohtaamo area btw so yeah, it was busy in there!

Guest book. I continued the Buttman tradition huehuehue~

Working at the pin workshop was actually surprisingly enjoyable. It was fun to see all the different personal drawings and statements people did – I mean I saw everything ranging from Kemi's city hall to boobs so how can I even begin to complain about creativity? The youth will be fine. And there's a resurgence of yaoi and yuri fans omfg. Me vanhukset muistamme.

General view. Kyösti's cafe was open and you could even get ramune!

I ran into some familiar faces too like Joni and Sallukka of course but also my former study counsellor Kaisu from back when I studied at Lappia AMK! It was so nice to see her again because yeah, it's been ages and we used to play Ingress and Pokémon Go many years ago and eat kebab together haha, fun times. She's retired now and seemed to be in good spirits, here's to hoping I'll see her more often in the future!

Once the clock was nearing 14:00 I waddled my way to the auditorium upstairs to go watch the cosplay competition. I planted my ass on a chair relatively far away from the stage which, in hindsight, maybe wasn't the best idea because the music came from the back and it was quite loud, which made it a bit hard to hear what the hosts were saying in the front. It wasn't terribly overpowering or anything but yeah, just an idea for an improvement next time because it was distracting and my neurospicy brain can't focus when there's conflicting sounds.

All contestants on stage.

As one can expect from such a small event's cosplay competition there's not gonna be a lot of entries and it's also gonna be a very short and simple show consisting of a catwalk ('lavajuoksut' as we say in Finnish) and posing and then the winners were announced. No big spectacles, intermissions or acts. Of course all the contestants were pre-judged before the competition even started – Firith and Sallukka were the judges. I was asked if I wanted to judge before the con but it was later deemed that I was better needed elsewhere because yeah, event's short on personnel and two judges were sufficient for this scope.

I think it's very important that we have these lower threshold competitions mixed in with the big ones. With small competitions the primary focus is usually to get experience and stage confidence and it's not necessarily a must to have made all parts of your costume yourself to even be able to enter. Not every contest needs to lead to high-stakes qualifiers and global championships. We need to make sure there's still a place for shy beginners to dip their feet in without overwhelming performance pressure crushing them at the doorstep.

General view.

With the cosplay competition over we were down to the last minutes of the event. I was very happy with how the day had gone and yeah, it's so nice to know that our efforts bore fruit once again and was appreciated. I might not have had the biggest hand in arranging this event but yeah, I've been there beneath the curtains helping with what I could and providing some much needed moral and emotional support to the main organizer. Huzzah!

Kääk! (inside the library, which was open normally during the event)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that at some point, when I was inside the library, Olli (spoiler alert: he's the singer of local metal band Dethropia), who was manning the desk, suddenly asked me in Finnish if I'm Jesus while I was in my unspecified aka random jedi outfit. xD I assumed he was being cheeky and referencing to that one famous Star Wars photo meme that's been floating around the internet if you know, you know and I was like "naaaahh not exactly" lolol! It was all just really silly fun even though it came out of left lane. Random moments are the best!

Random jedi patrolling. (photo: Firith)

Once the con day was over Firith went to grab our unsold items from the Matsukirppis and soon after I went back upstairs to the changing rooms and swapped back into my everyday clothes. Changing out of costume was extremely quick since I had no wig nor makeup or anything – I mean, the level of can't-be-arsedness I felt on the morning was high due to massive sleep deprivation lol. I got a ride back to mom's place where I then had the first grillikota grilled foods of the year and muurikka pancakes for dessert, heck yeah! A great ending to a great day.

Bonus pic: my beautiful button pin. 

With everything else pretty much already said I want to mention before I go that yes, the surprise announcement that was made during the end of the cosplay competition is true – there's a bigger event arriving in Kemi in 2027. ;) I might have something to do with it... *whistles innocently*

Thank you to everyone I interacted with! Thank you for reading!
~ Shiro Samurai out.

Lens review: Princess Pinky Yellow Werewolf

 Hi everyone!

I wanted to do this review already sooner but I kept getting distracted by all kinds of events in my favorite video games lol. Oh well, better late than never so here it is, my colored contacts review featuring the Princess Pinky Yellow Werewolf lenses!

Let's-a go!

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm

Water content: 38%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Some of my earliest readers might remember that one of my very first circle lens reviews featured a very similar lens, also from Pinky Paradise, called Orange Werewolf. This is, in fact, not the same lens although the stock photos look almost identical! I'm mentioning the site I bought these from because I'm almost certain that it's their own brand of lenses and thus not available anywhere else – this is not a sponsored nor affiliated review by the way, although even if it was it wouldn't make a difference in my honesty.

One lens in.

The 'werewolf' style lenses have long been a staple design when it comes to crazy and animation style lenses, they've been around for a good time and over the years various brands have done their own versions of this base design. Werewolf lens designs are super opaque, feature a wild burst-like design, a yellow inner center and a bold main color. It's definitely that kind of lens that turns heads and has no intentions to be subtle and ordinary!

The color is extremely bright and highly visible even from greater distances and in poor light conditions like during nightfall outdoors and such. The pupil opening is a tad narrower than on your average circle lens but it has no kind of fade effect or such so there's a sharp cutout which can be kinda jarring to some. But then again, that's rather typical for this style of crazy lenses in general – they ain't exactly aiming for naturalness. 
Oh and there's a slight enlargement effect but at least on my eyes it's rather negligible. The black outer rim helps frame the eyes and make the lenses look even more intense and beastly.

Lens photos ahead ~

All photos taken by me during a February morning with a clear sky.

There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

Indoors, natural room light.

Indoors, yellow room light.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Indoors, facing a backyard window. (not sun side)

Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing a wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun.

The comfort is all good; I wore these twice to anime conventions for a full day with little to no issues. I have naturally really dry and sensitive eyes so for me being able to do that is already a big win, especially without the crutch lifesaver that is eyedrops lol. I don't remember them being itchy or anything of the sort and they held their moisture rather well throughout the day. One thing worth noting though is that, just like with many other crazy lenses, these will give you yellow corners at the outer edges of your field of vision in average and poorer light conditions (due to the smallish central opening) – this is normal and nothing to be alarmed about if you're a new cosmetic lens wearer.
It's also very easy to insert these lenses correctly since the print looks faded out on the 'wrong side'. They're thin and comfortable, I would buy them again if needed for a cosplay or just for fun.

All in all this is a solid lens, especially if you're on the lookout for yellow and/or orange lenses. I've always been rather easily excited by really colorful and vibrant lenses myself and these are definitely a 'hell yeah!' in my book. If you have any kind of affinity towards monster looks and creepy stuff I'd say this is a great lens to try out. This is obviously also a great lens for cosplayers, ren faire costumers and any kind of live-action roleplay and geeky dress-up stuff in general – you can use these for anything from vampires and anthropomorphic wolves to orcs, merfolks and even James Cameron's Avatar Na'vi characters.

Distance photo!

Check out my other reviews here: Orange, Green

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 

Screaming yellow with some orange undertones, you don't get much stronger color payout than this.

Design: 8/10 

Beast-like design to mimic predator eyes from the animal kingdom. Very cool and does its job!

Opacity: 10/10

Super dense pigmentation, no doubt. Flawless coverage of your real eye color.

Enlargement: 5/10 

For a crazy lens these are perhaps a teeny bit on the big size, or at least the black rim adds to that illusion.

Comfort: 7/10 

Thin and I don't feel them much at all, wearable for a full day of fun at events even on dry peepers like mine. Be aware of colored corners in your vision.

Naturalness: 0/10 

These are not even supposed to be natural so just... no. Nonono.

Thanks for checking out this review, stay tuned for more!

Shiro Samurai out.