Hello geeks & peeps!
The Cosvision weekend is now past, for a while ago, and I got to experience the first convention held in Finland that was solely dedicated to cosplay!
I must say that whoever came up with having a cosplay-centered con deserves a cookie because hey, I had a blast and there were a lot more interesting panels and cosplays to see than in your average manga & anime based convention. Also you don't get the unpleasant thought of "you don't belong at this con because you only come here to cosplay and hang with friends, so piss off and let the real target audience who attend the con's programs get the tickets instead" which has appeared lately in the Finnish con scene. Thus I voice a huge "YES PLEASE!" to more cosplay focused cons!
But enough of that, let's hear now about my Cosvision journey and all the epicness it included, let's go!
Pre-con journey (aka Attack on Spurgu) 8-9.5.2014
My journey to the south started already on early Thursday morning. Me and Hasakitsuki woke up, finished our suitcase packing and went to the new bus station in town when we were done eating breakfast and shit. We spent quite the time waiting for the bus in town because we'd rather be too early than too late. Oh, and also we prepared our stomachs for the con-diet-to-come by eating hamburgers at Max for lunch/dinner before we left. :'D The bus took us to Kemi around after-noon something and our train towards Turku (actually, Tampere, but we changed there to a Turku train) left from Kemi train station 19:31 local time.
We ended up molding at the train station and had an encounter with your ordinary Finnish possibly homeless
At some point me and Hasakitsuki went to the nearby Lidl and bought provisions for the journey and we happened to see the drunk guy go into the Rovaniemi train, to which we mentally sighed in relief – I mean, I wouldn't have wanted him in the same train we took! He made me very uncomfortable because he was overly social, said some not-sure-if-complimenting-or-suspicious comments to this one girl and yeah, I just don't like drunks around me. Period.
In the train we just lagged, played video games, got so hungry we could die and barely slept at all. I swear when I finally was tired enough to be able to sleep on a train (which is not easy for me) then, of course, the guy in the seat in front of me had to snore. Loudly. Half the night at least. Not amused.
We had a train change at Tampere not even five in the morning and when we stepped out of the train station –in hopes of finding some food place that would be open– I got all the Tracon feels all over again when we passed by the familiar roads! But enough of Tracon feels, we had fucking-hungry-stomach-feels and our Tampere stroll proved to be fruitless... until we found a McDonald's that *le gasp* was open. And there was a lot of students inside. Breakfast time five on the Friday morning, anyone? Normally neither of us would put our feet inside this place but it was McDonald's or nothing and well, hunger and
The continuation Train to Turku left 05:56 and well, during our almost two hours waiting time at Tampere train station we had yet another lovely meeting – drunk guy duo, take two. So we were just sitting on our blue suitcase in the underground part leading to the train tracks, minding our own, when two young-ish men approached us, of which the louder one started talking. We ignored him but then he started trying to ask us something and Hasakitsuki saved us by pretending to only be able to speak French. The second guy maybe wasn't drunk but the one talking to us was pretty surely and to make it better
At some point the main area of the train station opened and we moved there because it's more comfy and well, while we were sitting and waiting a security guard guy started confronting an old-ish man who was sitting with a very bent back. It quickly became obvious that we had stumbled upon yet another spurgu experience but at least this one was the least scary/uneasiness-inducing one. Basically this guy was drunk as piss (it was near impossible to understand his slurs) and the security guard guy tried to take the drunk with him but the drunk refused to budge –even though le security guy tried taking his arm by force several times and his backpack as well– and then they started a verbal fight and the security guy just... gave up and went away? I don't know but the spurgu stayed in place until he moved towards the R-kioski because he saw that the working lady appeared and was about to open the shop; the drunk asked when they would open and the woman screamed in Finnish "WE OPEN AFTER A QUARTER OF AN HOUR!!". I tried to hold my laughter because it was overly amusing for my tired brain; she surely wasn't amused by drunks.
The train to Turku was chill and more comfortable than the previous one (on the Kemi train we ended up in an old cart and yeah, your ass gets glat in less than two hours of sitting) and soon enough we jumped off at Turku train station and awaited Ri-kun to pick us up and drive to their home place, aka our sleeping accommodation during the con weekend. At Ri-kun's we took a nap, watched the first episode of Shingeki no Kyojin –aka Attack on Titan– along with some cracky fandom stuff from the series and slept later than we should have. Yee.
No comment.
This was stuck in my head for the rest of the Cosvision weekend. xD
Cosvision Saturday 10.5.2014
We woke up 07:30, lagged around in bed for a while and then all three of us went to have breakfast and then it was time to put on our cosplays. My cosplay for the day was Hajime Saitou from Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan. I got to borrow Ri-kun's swords for Saitou over the con weekend because my wooden ones are still broken.
We arrived at the con not long after opening time and me and Hasakitsuki exchanged our con ticket receipt papers for fabric tickets.
Hasakitsuki showing the Cosvision con ticket. |
The Boo sensor light at the store. |
Logomo building map in front of the entrance. |
Logomo backside, I assume. |
Inside, close to the info desk and entrance. |
Artist's Alley. |
Main hall. |
Main hall seen from higher ground. |
I was tempted by that surfing Jesus t-shirt but it was too expensive. :'( |
Geeky merchandiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise! |
Cool medieval-ish stuff. |
Hungry like a Titan! |
Towards the afternoon our trio got pretty dang hungry so we headed out of our geeky building to go fetch some food. We ended up in the Kerttu restaurant which is seemingly specialised for youths and
Inside they had the most beautiful menu list I've ever seen:
Protip: Open on a new page to view bigger version! |
Pasta for life. |
We stayed close to the cave's entrance and had a quick photoshoot.
Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Hajime Saitou) & Hasakitsuki (oni!Chizuru Yukimura)
Photographer: Ri-kun
Actually before the photoshoot there was like 30 minutes or less left of the con so when we were done shooting the con had pretty much closed for the day... and it started raining. Good thing Ri-kun had taken with them two umbrellas so we got back safely into their car without getting wet.
At Ri-kun's place we took off our cosplays, chilled, watched the Eurovision Song Contest and cheered for Conchita Wurst who ended up winning the whole shit and it felt pretty dang awesome. Her song was great! I also really liked Norway's song. After Eurovision we went to sleep.
Cosvision Sunday 11.5.2014
We woke up 07:30 again. My eyes wanted to die but I managed to get up anyway.
We arrived at the con slightly too late for me to go attend Narudossu's panel
The panel itself was pretty okay, sometimes funny and sometimes a bit, I don't know, sometimes it felt like it took too long to move on to the next thing (they got sidetracked a bit) and I got a bit bored, I guess. Then again that might just be me comparing this panel to the similar one held in Oulu's Animeseminaari last year that I personally think was the better one of the two. But all in all this Cosvision panel was worth my time.
A few panel photos:
Actually a bit before I attended the panel I ran into Kenshin and we agreed to have the photoshoot after I was done.. and so we did! Good thing Hasakitsuki was wearing a lolita outfit because this made it a bit easier for her to move around and photoshoot us.
Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Souji Okita) & Anniilaugh (Kenshin Himura)
Photographer: Hasakitsuki
Photo editor: Anniilaugh
Also Kenshin helped me down from that little 'hill' I was standing on; it was shit scary and hard to get up there with my wannabe geta shoes and even harder to get back down again. Luckily enemies are not always enemies and Kenshin offered to help. Funnily Hasakitsuki took some photos and I think this one looks a bit like "nuuu I didn't really want to kill you after all!"
Bonus! Helping Okita down! |
Hungry samurai on the way ~ |
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......
Wait, why this suspense?
...
...
...
...
Well, you see, I have a photo that I had a lot of fun editing... and it kinda went out of control...
THERE, I WARNED YOU. BEWARE MY DERPY EDITING SKILLZ!
Wooooooooo!
Now the crack is out of my system.
Maybe.
When we got back to the con we learned that Anniilaugh soon had to leave so we didn't have time for the epic follow-up shoot
Yum, sandwich time! |
Yeah, this sums it up perfectly. |
With KANAME☆ !! |
Happy day ~ |
and then we waited for Ri-kun's friends to show up; we had planned to go eat dinner together in town after the con.
We ended up in a Chinese restaurant called Golden Dragon, just next to the train station. I ordered some chicked food with lemongrass and coconut milk because it sounded awesome – but what actually was on my plate when it arrived was a buttload of onions, far from awesome. ONIONS. Did I tell you there was no single mention of onions in the menu whatsoever and that I really dislike onion in food in general? I've never been this disappointed in any restaurant dish before – that shit had never even seen lemongrass in its life and where's the coconut milk anyway? There was no liquid-ish thing on the plate to even speak of. I swear the only thing on the plate was some bland tasteless slimy chicken and onions. It wasn't even chicken with onions, it was onions with chicken! (╯°
I barely ate anything of my food but luckily one of Ri-kun's friend's had another dish that at least tasted a bit better than the crap I was served and which said friend let me have a part of. But yeah, I was dang disappointed, almost to the point of being furious and when we all went to pay I complained to the lady in the desk and told them to rename the dish "chicken with onions" to not screw over further customers. She didn't even apologize for the disappointing and misleading dish or anything, argh! I know for sure I won't ever put my food in this restaurant ever again.
After the craptacular food it was time for me and Hasakitsuki to leave for the train station and so we bid Ri-kun's company farewell and jumped into the train. The train ride back went without any spurgu encounters
Let's end this with pics of the stuff that I bought!
Flareon plushie and Boo light, latter is now in Jäätynyt Enkeli's care. |
Bottle of bloooooood... (feat. Hasakitsuki holding it) A necklace, that is. |
I think I've talked enough for now.. but hey, there's the obligatory bonus picture waiting to end this shit. Here, have it!
Yah, that's it for Cosvision! I'm already longing for the next one!
Thanks for reading and see ya!
Thanks for reading and see ya!
No worries, we will, with a really high probability, gather again. The Inu group I mean ;)
ReplyDelete~Group's Byakuya :)
Aika ebin kuvia :> Ahahahaaa dem editing skillz :DDDDDD
ReplyDeleteHitsit, olis pitäny käyä tuolla luolassa. Kuvailtiin aina kyl jossai muualla ni en ees tienny tosta ku vasta nyt ku o ihmisten päivityksiä lukenu. Tosin kaikki tuntuu olleen kuvannu siellä et ehkä siel ois ollu ryysistä :'D Meinasin myös ostaa tommosen Hungry like a Titan pipon, koska meilä cosvisionin teema oli nälkä xD
"Attack on Spurgu". Okay I died. XD But seriously, Finland plz.
ReplyDeleteCosvision was awesome! I want to shoot with you and Kenshin again! And I want the fanboying again because sffsfhfg cute <3
Actually I just want Cosvision again, please ;A; <3
Dem editing skillz. Such beauty. Such feels, wow.
: DDD yeah the amount of derp that day.. beautiful. (sorry not sorry)
ReplyDeleteslap fiiiight!
da samurai in da houuuuse yo!
It was a very fun shoot, thanks for tolerating my company, both of you! Let's continue the fightoo @ Tracon.
(tai jos oot desuun tulossa ni tu kylää, kaupunginpuistossa on niin maukkaita linnanraunioita ja paviljonkeja jotka ihan huutaa photoshoottia)