Kemin mangapäivä 2025 – Hosting an activity room!

 Hello geeks and bookworms!

After years in a deep hiatus Kemi's manga day has returned! It's been a whopping 10 years since I last attended this local event and I think that's roughly when it stopped being held too, give or take a couple years. Kemi's manga day was held on Saturday 8th March, it's a free one-day event in the Kulttuurikeskus building.

Let's get on with this summary!

As a little backstory I want to mention that many many years ago Kemi's manga day was the first ever pop culture event I attended and it's where my cosplay journey started back in 2009. :'D So yeah, I have a certain nostalgic fondness for this humble event – and so when I heard news that Kemi's manga day was about to rise from its grave I got very excited and made sure to inform my willingness to help make it happen, especially because I knew the firesouls behind the effort to bring it back.
For those unaware Kemi's manga day and Kitacon have actually been arranged by a single person all those previous years, more or less, and at some point down the road said person burnt out and that's why both anime events in Kemi suddenly stopped. This is why it's so very important to have other passionate people to pass the torch forward to when your powers eventually fall short!
Anyways, I was early with taking contact and, while my initial position was to be one of the cosplay competition judges, I saw a creeping dilemma approaching the closer to launch we got. That creeping dilemma was called ~not enough programs and activities~. So in a last minute change of mind a few days before the con I asked the main organizers if I could host a drop-in drawing workshop instead of being a cosplay judge; I figured getting activities was more urgent and an art room is easy enough for me to host, despite my numerous struggles. I got a grateful thumbs up and set the plan in motion!

Entrance to the event building. Nostalgic for many of us.

Then came the much awaited return of the king day. My mom was an angel and had promised to drive me to Kemi on the morning and so I didn't have to take public transport or anything. Who wasn't an angel was my neighbors though, because of course they decided to have some karaoke night on Friday night because why the fuck not, complete with humppa and drunken setämies fights. This month has been a ridiculous bullet hell of Murphy's law everywhere for me, I shit you not. Oh well, thank lord my lovely neighbors eventually went to sleep and so I could go to sleep too lol.
My original plan had been to cosplay but due to a combination of bad luck (including aforementioned partying wrecking my chances at a decent night's sleep) and other factors I decided on the morning to just go casual instead. Or well, as casual as my most basic metalhead attire is.

I arrived in Kemi roughly 10:30, with half an hour to spare before the event officially opened its doors to visitors. Immediately upon entering I noticed that some of the artist tables had been placed just next to the entrance, which I personally think is great as it adds a lot of visibility and novelty, as in you can immediately tell that it's not just another normal day at the library. Yes, I'm saying library here because the local library is in the same building and it's the main reason most people enter the building. Also a shoutout to the library for being one of the two organizing bodies and lending personnel to make the manga day flow smoothly!

Immediately upon entering you saw a part of the Artist's Alley.

Here's OwlCraftian's booth, one of the talented young craftmakers. ♥

I went to dump my jacket and scarf in one of the backrooms and then I quickly checked my work station, aka the library's youth room where the drawing workshop was to be held. I scurried around for a few minutes fetching some people to get all the tools I needed for the room (paper, coloring pens etc) and after making sure that everything was ready at 11:00 I spent the next 30 minutes checking the Artist's Alley while I still had some time to do so.
I saw some faces from previous con trips but I also saw a few I've only seen like once and there were one or two booths I think I've never seen before, which was very nice to see! I really like how the organizers have given newcomers and locals a chance to come and sell because Artist's Alley slots are highly sought after and usually events get more applications than there's available slots so yeah, sadly not everyone who wants in gets a place and usually the bigger, already established names get priority. Variety and supporting those with less experience (so that they can get more experience) makes me a happy fellow artist. :)

General view of the main area (immediately after passing the AA).

Before leaving for my work station I snapped all the photos in this summary and yes, because I took the photos early that's why it looks more empty than it actually was during the busiest hours.

Oh, I forgot to mention that aside from the library there's also a permanent comic exhibition (feat. Donald Duck characters) and a museum in the same building. And a cafeteria and a rotating art exhibition hall so yeah, it's not called Kulttuurikeskus (lit. 'culture center') for nothing.

Kemi's children's culture center held a DIY pin workshop in the comic exhibition area.

Once the clock hit 11:30 I made my way through the library and all the way to the drawing room in the far back, past the youth section. When I arrived two kids were already diligently drawing in there, much to my surprise. In this room I was to sit until the cosplay competition started, which was at 14:00 local time.

Drawing workshop, prepared and awaiting attendants~

I'll admit, I was quite nervous at first. I've never hosted any kind of self-suggested activity alone before. I might or might not have co-hosted something at some point, I can't remember. Oh, and I don't count Mericon's photobooth here because it was officially needed and not something that came from my head. I can get panicky in front of people but I figured that watching over kids drawing is less daunting than hosting something for adults, because especially young kids aren't as critical and bothered by neurospicy quirks or social awkwardness as adults can be, generally speaking. Anime events tend to be an exception to this rule, which is a calming thought.
I did start to feel comfortable eventually and I'm very happy about how everyone who visited the workshop was very well-behaved. There were zero behavioral issues throughout the whole day and everyone even knew to keep their voices down despite there being no signs anywhere. #faithinhumanityrestored

A big part of why the workshop existed was because there was also a drawing competition held for minors – the theme was "me as an anime character/hero" and to qualify you needed to draw an original character that had three traits that you also have, be it personality or visual features. Inspiration from existing franchises (aka "me in the Naruto universe" etc) was allowed but no actual character art or a colorswap of an existing character etc.
The competition was originally split into three categories divided by age (for fairness) but it just so happened that every single person who submitted a drawing for the competition was in the same age group! We got a healthy amount of submissions and so, when it came time to judge the competing works, we decided to choose one winner and one honorable mention. And when I say we I mean me and the other judges; originally it was supposed to just be me and Ilkka from the library personnel but Firith and Sallukka happened to show up just when we were about to start the judging process. You see, we had two contestants who weren't done by the time the clock struck 14:00 and so me and Ilkka agreed to give them 15 minutes more grace time to finish their artworks – it would have been cruel not to extend the time a little because the poor kids were so stressed when they realized they wouldn't have time to finish by the original deadline. Yes, I was mentioning every now and then how much time was left. I just didn't have the heart to tell them 'no' when they asked for overtime because I had seen them drawing very focused for the better part of an hour and I know how crushing it can be to hand in something you created passionately that isn't complete.
So yeah, because of this additional time before the judging started that's why Firith and Sallukka already ended up finishing the cosplay judges responsibilities and so we were four people trying to decide on who would win. I gotta be perfectly honest here and say that it was genuinely difficult to pick a winner. Every submission was well done when you consider the age of the artists (everyone was between 9-11 years old with a majority being 10) and similar in terms of technical skillsets. I honestly felt bad and genuinely sad that I couldn't give everyone an award because it was that even. :'( Library budgets are tight af, I personally provided some of the prizes and so did a few others. Just know that if you're one of the contestants and you happen to read this now or many years into the future – you all did a great work and should be proud of yourselves. Keep on drawing!

General view next to the library's entrance.

Once the judging was done we tried to find all the contestants and get them back to the room for the reveal of the winner and handing out the prizes. After some roaming we managed to find all six participants (thankfully no one had left yet!) and the lil' ceremony could start.

After the prize-giving was over the event was down on its final hour and I tagged along Firith and Sallukka to the last activity of the day, namely the former's panel upstairs. It was a filler rerun of the same panel first seen at Mericon's debut in 2023. There were a handful of listeners despite how late into the day it was. I don't know how I managed to appear present and proper because it felt like my brain was nearing the questionable state of fried tofu. Yeah, I have quite severe afternoon crashes sometimes when my energy just drops to absolute Mariana Trench levels. Luckily the worst part of this kicked in after Kemi's manga day was already over because I was yawning non-stop for over an hour and it was embarrassing lmao.

Near the library's entrance. Notice the lost & found bookmark hanger!

Because I was watching over the drawing room all day I saw very little of the rest of the event itself. I did not see the cosplay competition and probably missed half of all colorful visitors but I don't mind, I feel like I significantly contributed to make the event get out of the starting line and run a successful run. :') I'm just so happy to see Kemi's manga day returning from the dead and I would be pissed at myself if I hadn't lifted a finger to help it in some way lol. This means that my summary is, perhaps, not as "complete" as it might have otherwise been – but I have no regrets.

I think that's roughly all I had to say about this fuzzily nostalgic yet new experience. It felt so wonderfully déjà vu to enter the building for the first time and see fursuits and cosplayers again after all these years. I mean, this is one of the buildings where Kitacon used to be when I started out; it's hard to describe this weird nostalgy I'm feeling but it feels like I've come full circle – I started here as a bullied, young and cringy weeb (we all were cringe, don't lie lmao) with hardly any friends and now I am one of the adults forming the backbone of safety and community and making sure that the next generation of kids can have the same fundamental experiences I had when growing up. It feels unreal but it's so very real – this is the kind of small magic that everyone can do: giving back to the very same community that helped you. ♥

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed this little read!
~ Shiro Samurai (aka KaamosWolf) out.

Lens review: Princess Pinky Obsidian Yellow

Hello to everyone~

It's time for another circle lens review and I'm well due showing you guys the Princess Pinky Obsidian Yellow lenses. You might recognize these lenses because I wore them for Hotaru from Samurai Deeper Kyo but honestly it's a really cool lens that could work for a lot of anime characters with yellowish orange eyes. Yes, this is a very 'anime style' lens and thus great for cosplay.

Let's go!

Base curve: 8.8 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm

Water content: 40%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Yeah I know, the name says yellow but these are honestly more orange. This is an extremely pigmented lens, on par with those Halloween style crazy lenses so yeah, works great for costuming purposes and less so for daily looks – unless your fashion style is akin to cybergoth, decora or such.
As I mentioned earlier I got these specifically for Hotaru because his eyes range between yellow and orange and I thought these lenses were the perfect compromise!

The design of the lens features a distinct black limbal ring and a fiery orange color that nicely fades towards a sunny yellow on the oppposite side. There's also some added white reflection lights to make the lenses look more lively and animated, aka give off a distinct manga styled look. These lenses are honestly super opaque and by that I mean that my real eye color doesn't show through at all – there's no mottled color or speckles, it's a very bright and impactful lens. It can even be a bit on the unsettling side if you're not used to such bold effect cosmetic lenses. In my opinion these don't look scary and I'd say that those white dots have a lot to do with it because yeah, it makes my eyes look very cartoony and costume-y.

One lens in.

There's a small to moderate enlargement effect but I'd gauge it on the smaller side, personally. I feel like the black rim adds to the illusion but when I compare the size of the lens to my natural iris it's not big. Of course one thing to bear in mind here is that different people do actually have different eye sizes and thus also different iris sizes – so what's a small lens for one person might be medium size for someone else.

Some of your reading this are probably wondering if these lenses spin in your eyes when worn and to that I would say that "yes they do, but not terribly much". I've worn these to anime conventions and I did have to do some minor touch-ups (aka rotate the lenses in my eyes by poking gently with one finger) throughout the day. I feel like they might be weighted to some degree although I can't find any information confirming this on Pinky Paradise's website since they don't spin as much as some other lenses I've worn before where you can tell if they spin. I think most lenses do in actuality spin but it's only noticeable on lenses that have a design that isn't symmetrical and/or identical all around, which means that the only type of lenses where spinning is typically visible is on special effects lenses like cat eyes, sharingan lenses and those that incorporate dots, stars, stripes, half-and-half split colors etc.
But if you're terribly bothered by the fact that you might look cross-eyed on photos if you don't check your lenses with a pocket mirror every now and then, then you might want to choose lenses where spinning isn't detectable. My opinion is to not skip these though because the spinning is manageable (especially if you have a friend who can tell you if it starts to look bad lol) and if like only one lens has a slight tilt it's not that noticeable from a distance, promise. This is one of the best orange costume lenses on the market right now, especially for cosplayers.

Lens photos below!
All photos taken by yours truly during a noon with sunny weather. All close-up photos are free from color filters etc and that's so that the colors would appear as true to real life as possible.

Natural room light, indoors.

Yellow room light, indoors.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Facing window indoors, not sun side.

Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun.

These lenses were pretty okay to wear, just be mindful that because the pupil hole is small you will see colored corners at the edges of your vision in some light conditions, mainly indoors. I gotta admit that I forgot to write down any notes about comfort so I don't really remember much, but I know they were thin and I did wear these lenses at events for roughly 5-7 hours. I have naturally very dry eyes and I do recall feeling that the lenses started to dry a teeny tiny bit a couple hours in but it didn't get uncomfortable until roughly the 4 hour mark.

Overall this is a lens I would highly recommend for cosplayers, especially since there's not terribly many orange lenses out in the market and even less if you don't want any of the classic werewolf designs. This is a fiery, very vivid and high coverage lens that doesn't look flat. It's not an understatement when I say that these are really visible even from a distance! Honestly you can't really go wrong with these, just be aware that they do slowly spin (if you have a lazy eye or other eye conditions it will spin more on the affected eye) so if that's an immediate dealbreaker then you might want to consider other options. Personally I would be very much inclined to repurchase these whenever I need orange lenses again for costuming purposes.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 

One of the best orange lenses on the market currently, fiery and super vibrant shades!

Design: 9/10 

A really effectful anime-inspired design, it's clearly tailored for cosplayer needs.

Opacity: 10/10

Perfect and full coverage.

Enlargement: 4/10 

Somewhere between small and moderate I'd say. 

Comfort: 7/10 

Decently comfortable. I have particularly dry eyes naturally and could wear these for roughly 4-5 hours at events before they dried my eyes out, which is very well within average to good.

Naturalness: 0/10 

I can't even in good faith call these natural. But they don't need to be either.

Thanks for reading my blog! Do you have any lenses you'd like to see me review?

Shiro Samurai out.

Lens review: ColourVue Crazy Lens Red Spiral

Hi there!

Here comes the first colored contact lens review for the year and it's the now-discontinued ColourVue Crazy Lens Red Spiral. In fact the whole brand's line of sfx lenses seem to have disappeared of the face of the Earth but nevertheless I wanted to review these for posterity. Sometimes similar-looking lenses exist by another brand and it might be fun to compare them. :)

Let's go~

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.0 mm
Water content: 45%
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

So what we have is a yellow base color with an orange-redish psychedelic ring pattern, kinda. There's only two colors and it should also be noted that, unlike most crazy lenses, these aren't actually fully opaque but rather slightly transparent. This means that the color is somewhat affected by what your natural eye color is, but not much. You can still very easily see that your eyes look unnatural and the wanted effect is still there.

One lens in.

There's not any notable enlargement effect but these don't look as spooky or crazy as one might expect when worn, especially when viewed from a distance – they mostly just look orange and that's because the ring pattern is quite tight (small spaces between each ring) so it blends together the further the viewer is. I still like the effect and it's cool in its simplicity.

Lens photos below!
All photos taken by yours truly during a noon with mostly sunny weather. All close-up photos are free from color filters etc and that's so that the colors would appear as true to real life as possible.

Indoors, natural room light.

Indoors, yellow room light.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Facing a window, not sun side.

Unlit corridor, weak natural light in the distance only.

Outdoors, back against the sun. (facing wall)

Outdoors, facing the sun.

These lenses are a part of that accidentally forgotten box I've been plowing through lately so yeah, if you've read any of my previous lens reviews you know the deal but if not then the short version is that I found a stashed-away box with lots of unopened expired lenses and I've since then been reviewing them. This means that I don't grade comfort since I toss the lenses the moment I get all necessary photos taken.
But what I can say about these lenses is that I didn't feel them in my eyes, they were thin and surprisingly comfortable. One thing I also noticed was that I didn't notice any colored corners at the edges of my vision, which is very typical of crazy lenses due to their opacity combined with the smaller-than-average pupil hole (especially when compared to circle lenses). The lenses seemed comfy but obviously I wasn't about to try wearing them for an extended amount of time because they were expired. Don't do stupid shit, yo.

I can't really tell anyone to go try these lenses out because they don't exist anymore lmao. But if nothing else this review might give an idea of how a lens out there with a similar print might appear when worn on light eyes. It's a simple but effective design that gives lowkey demonic vibes and is useful for different monster, devil and bad or at least questionable guy looks. Works well for oni, ogre and such creatures as well where you want an ominous eye color but don't necessarily want a straight-up screaming red or yellow.

Distance photo!

Short summary:

Color: 8/10 

There's only two colors but they work to create a creepy orange that works for a lot of monstrous looks.

Design: 6/10 

A lot of rings on a yellow base, blending together to look orange. Decently unique and functioning but simple.

Opacity: 8/10

High level of coverage but it's not 100% opaque; your eye color slightly affects the final shade.

Enlargement: 2/10 

Negligible enlargement, it's very minor but if you compare with just one lens in you can make out a small difference.

Comfort: 7/10 

I can't grade comfort properly but the lenses appeared to be very comfortable. I didn't feel them at all and they were thin.

Naturalness: 1/10 

No, no one has these kind of unsettling unnatural colors naturally. Won't fly bro.

Thanks for reading, there will be another review coming in a bit!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Konekocon 2025 – First winter visit to Kuopio

 Hello everyone!

Konekocon was held this past weekend on Saturday 1st February in Kuopio, Finland. Konekocon is essentially a mini version of Nekocon that's held on the summer in the same city. I've been to Nekocon twice before but never to Konekocon so yeah, I thought I should check it out at least once so that I know whether I've been missing out or not. Spoiler alert: not really.

Let's get to the summary~

Entrance to Lumit, the con building.

The night between Thursday and Friday I spent over at Sallukka's and Dongrieg's place in Kemi, to make it easier to catch the train on the morning. We had a pleasant time just chilling, talking and I also watched them play Monster Hunter Rise together and now I'm tempted to grab it too the next time it comes on sale. :') I played the early demo on Switch way back and it just rubbed me the wrong way back then, I hated so many of the changes as a long-time hunter and decided it would be the first installment of the series that I'd skip. Well, now I saw my friends play and I was quite surprised to see that none of the annoying things in the demo seemed present, almost as if it was a completely different game? It looked like *gasp* Monster Hunter – and the new things suddenly seemed managaeable and not like forced gimmicks you had to use at all times. Completely changed my opinion right there and then lol.

Anyways, we eventually went to sleep (Dongrieg went earlier, me and Sallukka ended up talking about con stuff until way too late lmao) and then it was Friday morning. I was the only one out of us three who was heading for Konekocon (they had just been at Desucon Frostbite the weekend before!) so on the morning I packed my stuff and had Sallukka kindly drive me to the train station. Had a panic moment when I didn't find my phone in my pockets once I sat down in the car (we were already on the verge of running late) but luckily it had not fallen out on the yard – it had just slipped out of my pocket and I was sitting on it. Classic. xD
We got to the train station just in time when the train arrived. I saw Firith waiting on the platform. We got to our seats and then the journey down to Kuopio started... or well, first there was a stop and train change at Oulu, which meant we went to the Asian market on the other side of the street and bought some mochi and coconut jelly drinks.
I honestly don't remember much of the train trip itself, I think I mostly just idled on my phone and then suddenly we were in Kuopio lol. Our hotel for the trip was Sokos Hotel Puijonsarvi, which was a first visit for me.

There was a goldfish aquarium at the hotel's reception!

Of course we got a hotel room that was like the furthest away in the corridor (and no, it still wasn't quiet because some kids were running amok), yay. Anyways, because we had been traveling the whole day we hadn't really had an opportunity to eat properly so of course we were really hungry. We dropped our stuff in the hotel room and almost directly started to look up restaurant options; Kuopio is not really a familiar city to either of us but after staring intensely at Google Maps for long enough we just decided to head out and go with what we found first that looked inviting. Yeah, in truth we couldn't agree on if we wanted pizza or a Chinese restaurant lmao.

Spoiler broiler! We went to a Nepalese restaurant instead!

Fuck me this food was good. ;__;

We found this super convincing Nepalese restaurant hidden inside a shopping center that had these huge decals plastered outside saying "Finland's best Nepalese restaurant" – now it can't be bad at least. :'D There were a lot of people eating inside too and that's always a sign of quality. So yeah, we totally went with this one and oh boy it was a good choice, so much yum yum! For anyone curious who happens to be in Kuopio now (or in the future) and wants to know the sauce name of the place – it's called Mandala and it's located in kauppakeskus Apaja. Well worth a visit, just be aware that it's slightly on the expensive side.

Once we were done we headed back to the hotel for the night. A nice thing was that we had access to National Geographic in the room so we might have watched a lot of programs, including WW2 history (what happened to the submarine USS Scamp) and a program about king Herod from the Bible. It's a good thing that I don't have National Geographic at home or I would probably watch it too much lmao, almost everything's interesting dangit!

Okay, Saturday morning was upon us. I slept poorly, no surprises there. Quickly put some clothes on and headed for the breakfast buffet, which was really good (on par with the Sokos hotel in Oulu). I was disappointed when I saw a handful of random women with multiple macarons on their plates, only to find out that there were none left at the dessert table when I went to look. :C *sniff* Oh well, I don't complain when there's fresh cantaloupe melon available!

Once we were done with the breakfast we went back to our room to put on our costumes. My costume for the con was Yamato no Kami Yasusada from Touken Ranbu. I managed to find the scarf before departure but it was in a weirdass place and terribly wrinked to boot, but thankfully Sallukka let me iron it before I left Kemi; I don't have an ironing board at home – scandalous for a cosplayer, I know!
I don't know what was wrong with this con morning but my makeup just wasn't having it. Like I had done all peelings and moisturizers and prep-work the night before but still the foundation just looked blotchy and shit lol. Not to mention that my eyeliner was particularly assymetrical too, rääh! Normally I might be a bit of a perfectionist but when even Firith said that the wings are noticeably different that's when you know it's bad lmao. I wasn't the only one struggling with putting my costume on though so I take pleasure in that shared suffering lololo

Once we finally were done we took a taxi to Konekocon. Sadly we arrived a bit too late and so we missed the Digimonien Avara Luonto program, again. :'( I wanted to see it already on its first outing at a previous con but it just didn't work out and now we were too late again. I'm just not a morning person so yeah, trying to catch con activities that are on the first couple hours after opening is hard when you have some serious insomnia issues.
It was a bit confusing when we arrived in front of the building because there was basically no one outside (which, on one hand, is normal because winter and cold) and so you have that split-second of doubting if you're even in the right place. It looked so empty. The lack of any posters or anything indicating that something was happening inside was also a bit weird. If you didn't know that it was the correct building you might have just walked past it, that's how plain and unassuming it looked.
Oh well, quite literally the first thing we did after we got our con tickets exchanged was that we went back outside to snap a couple proof photos that we had costumes on.

When you try to be cute but look like you need tramadol.

We had no intentions to have any proper photoshoots because neither of us felt like it – makeup game wasn't on point and that bothered us both enough to feel like it wasn't worthwhile. So yeah, once we got the photos we needed we headed back inside and I changed out of my winter shoes and into my geta. I dropped my shoes off at the cloakroom (honestly it felt nice to only have a bag of shoes to drop off and not half your belongings lol) and then we beelined to the Artist's Alley.

View from the entrance. Ticket desk to the right.

There were no info booklets so instead you had the activities
and info plastered on a few walls around the con.

The Artist's Alley was located upstairs in what looked like a school's gymnastics room. I gotta say I felt a bit dumb because I was so disoriented and confused when I went upstairs the first time – I didn't get it at first that it's the same Lumit building we had been in at Nekocon because we entered from a different floor and direction and because the spaces were utilized differently. So for example what was the Artist's Alley in Nekocon was a lounge area in Konekocon and what was the Artist's Alley in Konekocon had been the video game room in Nekocon. :D

View when entering the Artist's Alley.

Closer view of the middle table area.

Artist's Alley was easy to move around in because it was located in a big gymnastics room and the tables were located along the edges and a group was roughly in the middle. This made the traffic flow well and it never felt crammed nor suffered from poor air quality, which was nice. Oh, I should mention that the gymnastics room didn't only host the artists, there were also some merchandise dealers like manga sellers, Pokémon TCG sellers and an authentic kimono seller whom I was so socially awkward with that I was tormented by that encounter for the rest of the day #help.
I liked that there were some sellers and artists that I hadn't seen before and also some that I've only seen like once or twice!

General pic of the main/lounge area.

After plowing through the Artist's Alley and combined Dealer's Hall we just sat down at one of the tables in the main area for a little while and then we went to look for the 'conikirppis', aka the flea market. I'm not sure if we were just late (clock was roughly 13 something) and everyone had already raided it clean or what but I gotta be blunt here and say that this was by far the worst kirppis I've ever seen at a con. Like it was so empty that it was a very weird sight and what was left was clearly stuff that people wanted to get rid off and no one wanted to buy (*coughloneharrypottermerchcough*). I mean it looks a little bit depressing when you see more table surface than products on the table. It was full-on empty, no joke.
There were a few figurines in boxes that I think were probably fair buys (didn't check price or look closer because the series didn't interest me) but there were some things that just made me shake my head in disbelief when I saw the price tags. I'm not gonna go into specifics but lets just say clearly self-made stuff that either were falling or had fallen apart (or was just poorly made) and with outrageous asking prices considering the condition. It was just... baffling. No one buys near-broken stuff for like 30€, that's some serious delulu.

More tables to sit and lounge at.

After the flea market we headed up another floor to get to the video game room and were most of the activity rooms were. Or well, one of them was a "silent room" option, which I gotta say is a very nice concept because sometimes you might just need to retreat for any reason and it's good that there's a space provided for this kind of needs – especially since it seems rather common that congoers are on the neurodivergent spectrum. This kind of increasing thoughtfulness makes me happy.

View towards the silent room.

Just next to the silent room was the video game room. It was a moderately small room with a few consoles, mostly newer generation. There was at least one PS5 (maybe two), a Nintendo Switch, a PS2 and then one console with a rhythm dance mat. There was a relaxed atmosphere in the room and the guys running it seemed very chill too. I wouldn't have minded playing some Mario Kart on the Switch (I don't have it myself) but the trio of friends seemed really immersed and so I didn't want to bother them and have them potentially ending their session early. I ended up just watching them playing for a while and then I moved on to try and find the karaoke room. There was Tekken 8 that was vacant but I didn't feel like throwing punches.

Gaming room feat. gamers.

I just aimlessly wandered around upstairs and I happened to find one of the panelist rooms that had one of those character improvisation panels running ("how to be in-character", basically) and when I walked past that room I soon came across the karaoke room in the far back. I'm surprised that the karaoke room was so far away from everything else but I guess it was probably one of the few bigger rooms to host it in or something? The room was indeed quite sizeable, I'll give it that. There were several groups of people just hanging out there and the overall mood was laid-back and casual.

The karaoke room and one of Nekocon's mascots singing.

We stayed in the karaoke room for a while because it was free music and also because Firith was on the fence on whether to dare sing or not. It didn't end up happening.

I gotta say that one thing that we both couldn't help but notice was that the average age of the visitors seemed to be a bit lower than on your average convention. It felt like there were a lot of kids and minors running around and because I'm a millenial I felt like a goddamn dinosaur in comparison lmao. I mean yeah it's nice to see that the younger generations are getting into the anime subcultures yada yada but man did it make me feel like an old fart!

Upstairs were also these nice "private boxes" were you could hang out.

View when you arrived upstairs, there's a scene just downstairs.

We eventually noticed that the clock was quite much and decided to head back down to go check out whatever that one Miku Hatsune program was. I'll admit I had no prior knowledge and basically went in blind with the only assumption that it probably featured dancing. I'm not sure if I even had any expectations and that's probably a good thing because I just went in with the hopes of being entertained to some degree. The show was called Snowflake Harmony and it was held on the con's last hours. I wanted to attend at least something and this seemed like it could be fun – and so I tagged along with Firith, who's a big Vocaloid fan.

Snowflake Harmony first solo live debut.

I'll admit I'm probably not the target audience for this because as far as my Vocaloid knowledge goes I only know some of the characters and only barely know some of the most popular songs. Thankfully that did not stop me from having a good time because the Miku cosplayer, who was the sole performer, was super adorable and energetic. She seemed to be a minor but had impressive theathrical talent for her age, which was most apparent in the funny short skits between the dance episodes where she would act out typical teenager scenarios with believable use and range of different voices and emotions. Very charismatic! I didn't catch what her social media tags were but if you see this just know that you did a great job and you have talent for acting! The dancing and lip sync were well done too and seemed to be the correct choreographies to the featured songs (according to Firith at least, I have no knowledge about this haha), it looked like she knew the lyrics by heart because the lip movements didn't seem random at all. We sat in one of the first rows so had a pretty close view to pay attention to that kind of stuff. x)

After the show ended we sat down near the cloakroom for a moment and contemplated our lives. Or more like what to do now. Originally Firith wanted to watch the cosplay catwalk, which was one of the last activities and would start in like 30 minutes. I wasn't really interested and soon enough we both agreed to leave because we realized we were rather tired and yeah, getting out of cosplay and grabbing something to eat was more enticing.
We called a taxi back to the hotel and left Konekocon behind. I don't remember much from the rest of the evening except that my eyes were so dry ngl they were dry already on the morning before I even put lenses on that I joked something about feeling like that flat fish that has the weird migrating eyes and Firith said "eli meno vitun punakampela" and I think that's something I can live by. xD

We went to grab pizza nearby in a place called Green House (yes it had a lot of plants to make the name legit), I honestly recommend because it was cheap and the pan pizza was delish!
The rest of the night we watched some more National Geographic and had some coctails and sweets. Our train home was on the following day so we got to enjoy another hotel breakfast buffet no daim chocolate cake :c.

Iltakevennys.

I have somewhat conflicted feelings about Konekocon, to be honest. It wasn't a bad con per se but it just felt bland and lowkey uninspired I guess? There weren't a lot of decorations (and what existed was Nekocon's stuff, so it didn't even feel like Konekocon had its own identity/branding) and this is probably gonna sound weird, because it's more commonly the opposite issue, but with Konekocon it felt like the building was too big for the con – almost all areas were so spacious that it felt half-empty. I know that they only sold roughly half of their tickets so there were like 500-ish attendants but yeah, I constantly had that feeling in the back of my head of "wow there's almost no one here". Don't get me wrong though, Lumit is a good building for hosting a con. It just felt barren and I really think more decorations would have helped with mitigating this. I can also make an educated guess that Desucon Frostbite being the weekend before ate up a lot of potential visitors, putting Konekocon at a bad time slot.
Perhaps I had too high expectations (partly due to Nekocon and also other winter versions of cons like Närcon Vinter) but I digress, it just felt lackluster and there wasn't really that much to do either. When I looked around it seemed like a lot of people appeared bored and like they were just sitting in groups scrolling on their phones waiting for something to happen instead of socializing. I think having some non-stop workshop activities like a drawing room, manga-reading corner or some kind of casual competitions (gaming tournaments etc) etc would have made the experience a lot more whole.

Honestly, if you live far away like me then I'd say don't bother with Konekocon and save your money. If you live close or are new to the scene then by all means go and support it! At least I can now personally cross Konekocon off my list of events to try out and not be bothered by that pesky "what if" voice anymore. It's not good but it's not bad either, it's just meh. For now at least, and that's only my opinion and experiences. I hope Konekocon grows better in the future, hopefully into its own boots and away from being just a shadow under Nekocon.

Thanks for reading, remember to not eat yellow snow!
~ Shiro Samurai