Kemin mangapäivä 2014 -– I'm attending panels, ohmaiglab!

Hiya hello!

On 11th October I attended Kemin mangapäivä (lit. Kemi's manga day) and it's a local small event held yearly in Kemi. No shit Sherlock. This year –unlike previous years– it was held in the Sauvo-talo building, the same place where Kitacon 2014 was held as well. I guess the other location still has some reparation process going on, I dunno. I heard there had been a fire in there...

It says "Kemi's comic day" but there was almost
only anime/manga stuff so, yah...

Okay, so this year Kemin mangapäivä lasted 6 hours – from 10:00-16:00 local time. The night before the 11th me and Hasakitsuki stayed up way too late, talking about everything from jellyfishes to Lord of the Rings and shark attack videos on Youtube... -.- We went to sleep at 01:30 something Swedish time (-1 hour difference from Finnish time) and the following morning our alarms rang at 07:30, Swedish time again.

On the morning we just woke up, dressed in our everyday garb, ate breakfast and took our mini-size suitcase –in which we had packed our costumes– and walked over to Jäätynyt Enkeli's place. 

Wait, suitcase?

- Yeah, suitcase.

You see, on 10th October it had been raining and snowing all day and the air was moist as hell. We figured that it would be much more clever to put on our costumes and do our makeup at Jäätynyt Enkeli's place, because mom would pick us up from there and drive us to the event. And also, by the time you would have speed-walked to his apartment –and gone up all the stairs– your makeup would have gone all over the place thanks to sweat, possible rain/snow and the 100% humid weather. Yeah, better do the preparations there...

   When we got to his place I waited until my body got rid of the sweat wave wasn't all exhausted anymore from the fast-paced walk. Hasakitsuki started putting on her red circle lenses meanwhile. 

The clock was nearing 9:00 Swedish time (10:00 Finnish time, which meant the event had started!) when I started changing into Taregard Frir, my Original Character cosplay. I borrowed a gray shirt from Jäätynyt Enkeli because I had none of that color. But I must mention that I had done a slightly risky thing.. no, I don't mean the shirt, it fit me fine.
You see, a few days prior I had opened new contact lenses that I'd use for Taregard but the thing is that I didn't have an opportunity to try them out before the actual event. If you wonder "why not?" it's because one of the days I just didn't have time and the only other day my eyes were lolnope-ing all day. I mean, all day on the 10th it had felt like my eyes had dried out in my sockets or something; it was shit hard to even keep them open, it hurt to watch a screen etc and my eyes would randomly cry when I tried to focus on something. I don't know what was up with that but no way in hell did I want to pop in contacts that day. Dx So yeah, when I now –on the day of the event– were standing in the bathroom I hoped that my lenses would cooperate and not hurt. I popped in the right one first and it went on like a charm.. but when it was time for the left one it decided to troll. Basically, as soon as I inserted the lens and blinked once it came right off! That never happened to me before. o_o Yeah, I mean to say that it just popped out of my eye with the blink when I opened my eye again. But hey, I tried a second time and the exact same thing happened again. Dafuq? :S The third time I tried the lens finally got a hold off my eye ball and I could actually see/feel it set itself in properly. Felt a bit funny and weird at the same time lol.

With the contacts in I continued with the makeup and putting on the rest of the cosplay. Good thing with cosplaying a character who has almost half his face covered is that I can skip doing half the makeup. :'DD lazy me

   10:00 Swedish time we were done and this was also the time mom had said she'll be here. We took our con bags and headed downstairs, jumped into her car and drove off to Kemi. Around 15+ minutes later we reached the goal and entered Sauvo-talo. Yeah, in other words we had missed a bit more than half an hour of con time. Then again, couldn't have done it another way because mom had work and I'd rather have a free ride than take the bus.

I've arrived, muthafuckas! >8D
(selfie in the cloakroom's mirror)

Inside we put our jackets to hang in the cloakroom and while doing so we bumped into Sairu-chan, who was cosplaying as Naho Saenoki from Corpse Party. We then went to check the merchandise and Artist's Alley, of which both were mixed in the main hall thingy. There were really few sellers and artists, so it didn't take long to check through them all.. and when you were done with that you were left with *drumroll* the bore. Yeah, needless to say 15 minutes in the event I regretted my earlier choice of not taking with me a handheld gaming console for killing time. OTL

Overview of the merchandise and Artist's Alley hall.

The jellyfishes... IT'S A SIIIIIIIIIIGN. D:

One of the two entrances to the merchandise hall.

Oh, and I quickly lost interest in the available merchandise because I noticed that a good majority seemed to be bootleg/counterfeit products, as far as I could tell on a quick glance that is. Eew. :<

   12:00 local time (aka Finnish, I will talk about Finnish time only from now on) it was time for the cosplay competition, but no one in our group were interested in watching it so we headed outside to photoshoot Sairu-chan's cosplay instead – she wanted a photoshoot anyway and I was quick to agree on standing behind the camera. After the photoshoot we went back inside and lagged around until the clock started nearing 13:00, which was the time that a panel I wanted to attend would start.

Schedule for the room with the most panels. Two of them were interesting for me.

I headed for the "Miksi pukeudumme Cosplay-asuihin?" panel together with Jäätynyt Enkeli, while Hasakitsuki and Sairu-chan went to do something else. The panel's name translates to "Why do we dress up in cosplay costumes?".

Panel start.

Short summary.

The panel was pretty okay and there was a lot of information, I'll give creds for that. It wasn't quite what I was expecting though and occasionally a bit, err, "puuduttava" (numbing?) with the heavy-ish facts as well as some repetition. I would have wished for more expressive talking –that's what makes panels fun and less tedious to sit through– because the whole 45 min panel was mostly in the same tone of voice. Also, maybe it's just me but it felt like most of the time the panelist was looking at her screen (reading notes?) and there wasn't much eye contact or interaction with the audience, except for the same two or so persons in the front left seats; they seemed to be friends. I'm sorry but I really don't mean to be all negative because it wasn't bad – I did have some laughs and so, it's just that I was expecting something more light-hearted and entertaining. D: Maybe I'm biased because all previous panels I've been to have been very funny, expressive and entertaining. But yeah, occasionally it felt like sitting in school listening to a lecture. :'<

After this panel it was... time for another panel. This time a panel about cosplay photoshoots. I was the only one of my company to attend this one. I must admit though that it was a bit blergh to go sit through two panels in succession, haha. But I really had nothing else to do and both panels had interesting enough topics, so why not? :)

"Cosplay photoshoot – Through the eyes of the photographer and the photographed"

Short summary.

This one was pretty cool; I learned a fair amount of stuff that I maybe wouldn't even have thought about first-hand when going for a more seriously planned photoshoot! I'm happy I attended it. :) The only issue I had with this panel was that it was damn hard –for me at least– to hear what the guy (aka the one who talked about the photographer's part) was saying. Yes, there were two panelists. Mostly because he spoke in a very silent/low voice, spoke fast and he was kind of jabbing words together quickly (talk without having noticeable breaks between the words, kind of) so it was hard to make out what he said without focusing greatly.. and focusing was hard in the panel room because the door was kept open and people were noisy outside, much to my chagrin. I don't know, maybe it's just his normal way of talking, but honestly, I probably missed 80% of what he said because I couldn't hear and/or make out the separate words in the sentences. ;_; What bothered me was that he had a microphone but pretty much at all times held it so far from his mouth that it was practically useless. *mini tableflip* I was so close to tell him to speak louder or keep the mic closer but I really didn't want to be the "USE THE MIC! :C" Annoying Audience Person™ twice in a row, hahah. :-D Too awkward. OTL Yeah, in the previous panel I told the panelist to please use the mic because it was hard to hear without. 

But yeah, I'm happy that this panel had at least these kind of short "one sentence summaries" of what they were talking about, so I could just read the text on screen and learn from that. :') Points for that, saved me some inner frustration. xD Then again, maybe my hearing was screwed because I had pointy ears and a part of the latex front flap thingy blocks my "ear hole" slightly. I dunno. *shrugs*

There was this one Artist's Alley seller who had
cute amigurumi dolls for sale!

So cool! *w*
(too bad I'm really broke so I couldn't buy anything :C)

When I came back out from the panel room I quickly located my company sitting at one of the tables at the beginning of the merchandise hall thingy. We agreed that everyone wanted something to chew on so we went out in town and raided a nearby Lidl! 8D Yes, the same one I always buy provisions from when I'm at Kemi's train station heading southwards to a con. Me and Hasakitsuki bought some tasty breads and cinnamon buns. I must say that people stared at us. I overheard a young boy asking his mom something and the mom said "there's an event in town". :'D Also when we had paid for our stuff we passed by this one grandma next to one of the game/coin machines and she just stood still there and stared at us. I feared her eyes would pop out of her sockets or something, that's how much she stared. xD I noticed too that she was shaking (her hand was outstretched a bit), I hope we didn't scare her. :S I mean, I had obviously pink eyes and pointy ears and Hasakitsuki had tears of blood on her face and red eyes. Hopefully we shouldn't have looked like Satan's followers lol...

   When we came back to the event there was maybe 30 minutes remaining. Just before we went inside we passed by this one guy who was trying to photograph himself next to a wall. He called us over, asking if either me or Sairu-chan could take a pic of him with his camera. I agreed and it was quickly over. Back inside I went into the bathroom and bumped into him when I was done. I told him that if he wanted more photos I could offer a quick photoshoot – I had nothing else to do anyway, except for eating the stuff we had bought. So yeah, I went out to shoot him quickly and then back inside to rejoin my friends. We spent the last 15 minutes eating our Lidl foods and then stepdad had come to pick us up; the clock had struck 16:00 and Kemin mangapäivä was over.

I don't really have much to say about the event itself because, well, Kemin mangapäivä is Kemin mangapäivä. ._. There's nothing to do unless you have good company and/or attend panels. Also it felt like it was fairly.. empty? Didn't feel like there was a lot of attendants. Then again I'm sure many left earlier because of sheer boredom. But it's still nice to have these kind of small local events to brighten up "normal life" a moment.

That's it, ciao!


...
...
......
Oh hell to the no! ~
I have a bonus pic, bitches! >8D

But first, a short background story:
A little bit before the first panel started our group was hungry and so we sat down in the cloakroom to eat our provisions, which we had taken with us from home. I'm pretty sure we all were pretty damn hungry like titans, or at least me and Hasakitsuki, because the last thing we had eaten was breakfast at 08:40 Finnish time and now the clock was a bit before 13:00.

So, are you ready...?

3
2
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RUN!!

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD...
Ei helvetti, that crazy face.

No comment... xD I'm outta here!
Shiro Samurai out.