Year of Cosplay 2014

 What's up bros? ;)

Again we approach the end of one year and the beginning of the next; every time it feels just as weird and you wonder in what black hole the time disappeared. :S I swear the older I get the faster one year is spent, seemingly – I remember so clearly that as a kid it definitely felt like half an eternity between new year and next Christmas, dangnabbit!

Oh well, as it is tradition by now I'll start this post by listing all the anime conventions that I ended up attending during the duration of year 2014:

Kitacon - Kemi, Finland

Cosvision - Turku, Finland

Desucon - Lahti, Finland

Skecon - Skellefteå, Sweden

Oulun Animeseminaari - Oulu, Finland

Nerdcon - Umeå, Sweden

DesuCruise - Helsinki, Finland ↔ Stockholm, Sweden

Tracon - Tampere, Finland

Kemin Mangapäivä - Kemi, Finland

Yep yep, I score in with 9 events for this year! It's actually the exact same amount as on 2013, although I didn't attend the exact same cons. I'm actually a bit surprised that after all economic issues I've had this year I still somehow managed to attend this many events, haha!
But yeah, this year gave me some new convention experience in the form of being a con volunteer worker instead of just an attendant; it was really nice to see the other side of the coin and I surely want to lend a helping hand more times! :D

But hey, if I have to do some kind of list of what cons were my favorites this year I assume the list would be something like this!

1. Skecon - I just had way too much fun at Skecon this year! The Vocaloid concert, the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! tournament (on which I combed home victory!), all the martial art stuff and hell, even the unlucky bouncy castle rage had its charm. xD The general comfy atmosphere was so good I couldn't have asked for more either; Skecon just keeps improving and getting better and better for each year that passes by!

2. Cosvision - Cosvision was something so great, I tell you! An event purely for and with cosplay as its main focus was so needed and boy was it appreciated too! Everything about Cosvision was just awesome – panels all about cosplay, Guest of Honors were famous coslayers *coughkanamecough*, wonderful locations and great atmosphere! The only things Cosvision suffered from were too many interesting panels overlapping and not a lot of attendants but, then again, it was the first Cosvision ever and so on.

3. Tracon - It's really hard to put Tracon third this time because it is my favorite Finnish convention to attend. Tracon is always a blast and there's great photoshoot locations, the building is perfect and this year there were even extra additions in the outside area. Tracon definitely doesn't lose to Skecon or Cosvision but I just put the other two ahead this time because Skecon had amazing entertainment value –especially considering how small it is– and Cosvision was an instant success and it just deserves second place because it was all about cosplay and well, I could praise that decision to Middle Earth and back; there needs to be more conventions that are less about anime and more about cosplay!

With the conventions summarized and ranked I'll move on to the cosplays I've worn over the year. Yep, this totally means that it's time for the yearly compilation photo!

In 3... 2... 1...

Clockwise, starting from top left corner: Keisuke Sannan (Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan), Gin Ichimaru (Bleach), Hajime Saitou (Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan), Souji Okita (Rurouni Kenshin), Yukinaga Kuroyama (Original), Souji Okita (Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan), Souji Okita (Hakuouki Sweet School Life), Gakupo Kamui (Vocaloid), William Crimshade (Original), Ryunosuke Ibuki (Hakuouki Reimeiroku), Taregard Frir (Original).

Umm, what? Why are you looking at me like that?
....
Oh, yeah, let's not even talk about the Gin photo. xD I only have herpaderp pictures of said cosplay from this year's Kitacon because well, the photoshoot was nothing but silliness so of course the Gin photo is not very, err, representative. :-DD

I think that about sums it up for this time. As for the very-soon-it's-here 2015 year's cosplay plans I dare say that I do have some cosplays in mind that I'm very likely to do, although exactly for what cons is more of a mystery! I will definitely try to do at least a few new costumes although I guess I just might end up recycling some older ones more. I'm still poor.
But as far as the new cosplays are concerned I can spoil you all enough that some Attack on Titan dudes are fairly sure to show up ~

Lastly, let me thank all my friends as well as everyone who follows my ramblings in here – I hope you all will follow my cosplay crap the coming year too! :'D

Bye bye & Happy New Year 2015!