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.

Kemin mangapäivä 2015 – I was there!

Hiiii ~

Yesterday, on 21st March 2015, I attended Kemi's manga day – the small local 4-hour event that has free entrance. Normally I would have made some kind of cosplay plans post prior to the event, but I thought it useless seeing how I didn't even plan to cosplay there. So eh, this time you'll just get a short summary and that's exactly what I'm gonna write now!

So, on Saturday morning me and Hasakitsuki woke up, dressed and headed for Jäätynyt Enkeli's place, where mom would pick us up and provide us a free ride to Kemi, huehuehue.
When we got to Kemi and saw the Sauvo-talo building from the car it seemed... weirdly dead. The clock was a bit past 10:00 Finnish time and there was not a soul to be seen on the outside. We got out of the car and walked up to the door; some guy with a security vest opened it and told us that there were some problems with the door – it was locked even though the rest of the building was open. So yeah, during the whole duration of the event there had to be someone holding the door open so that people could get in and out.
Inside Sauvo-talo we put away our jackets and noticed that very few were actually there. At first I thought that maybe people decided to come a bit later but then a bit later it hit me – I had remembered the time wrong and the event actually started first at 11:00. Oh well, it wasn't really a problem because the guy did let us in. Some people were putting up the selling tables and such and our trio quickly decided to go out in town, to fetch some snacks and provisions for the day.

...

But before that – we put on our Monster Hunter Tigrex plush hats and turned into the crocodile Tigrex bros!

Yo man, Immah eat your hunter ass!

Yep, none of us three could be bothered to cosplay this time because well, laziness struck – I mean, it kinda feels like a waste to wake up hours earlier to put on a cosplay to a 4-hour event were most people just go to hang out with friends. :-D Very few cosplay at Mangapäivä to begin with; most just go in their geeky casual clothes, do some kind of comfy/easy cosplay or do this kind of thing when you wear a character's wig and makeup but otherwise wear you normal clothes. Cosplaying feels a bit overkill, in other words. Unless you plan to compete I guess. So yeah, we all just rolled with wigs, circle lenses and our fabulous Tiggy plush hats!

Well well, let's move on.
We first headed for Citymarket because it was slightly closer than Lidl but, while there, both Hasakitsuki and Jäätynyt Enkeli had made up their minds and they wanted to go to Lidl anyway. Me and Hasakitsuki did buy My Little Pony chocolate eggs from Citymarket – Hasakitsuki has been trying to get all the three different rings from the surprise eggs to use for kawaii fashion styles. We had already gotten the Twilight Sparkle one twice but none of the other two. So yeah, we took one each and then we headed for Lidl!
At Lidl we bought some of the fresh bread and pastries, something to drink and some new Angry Birds crisps.

Back at the event we noticed that now there were a lot more people and most selling tables were up and running by now. I checked the one and only merchandise table at the second floor and found a small box with fluffy cat ears. Ever since I borrowed Moonbeam's ears at Desucon Frostbite I had been wanting to buy a pair for myself too; the ears they were selling were half price of the ones sold at Frostbite omg cheap and so I bought a pair of white ones with mint green on the inside. These had black satin ribbons and bells hanging too!

The merchandise table also had cool Pokéballs!

The clock was around 12:00 or something when we saw that the street fashion display thingy had started and so we went to watch it; it was mostly different lolita styles but also hime-gyaru, visual kei and some boy-style (ouji?) often done by girls. The outfits were really nice – ah, how I wish I had the money, time and dedication to dress in some street fashion style!
The display was over very quickly and most people stayed seated because the cosplay competition was to begin next. My trio wasn't really interested in watching the competition so we went and checked the Artist's Alley, which was placed in the cafeteria.

This shows what Kemin mangapäivä had to offer
and what happened where.

In Artist's Alley there was this one seller who had her table the farthest away from the entrance and she was selling prints and such but also some self-made anime themed decoration scarfs – there was Luna the cat from Sailor Moon and Haku's dragon form from Spirited Away. At first I didn't see that it was a scarf because both of them were folded in nicely, but when you took it up it was kinda obvious. I really liked the Haku dragon one, it was so adorable! I love dragons anyway in general and the movie is great too! I kept looking at it for a while, thinking the "should I buy it or not?" in my head over and over again. I left it there for a while to think over it, but I swear that as soon as I stepped out of Artist's Alley it was all over my mind. Whatever I went to do I kept thinking about it and so I came back some time later to the same seller and went all "I'll have this one" – I couldn't resist anymore. ;_; I'm sure I would have regretted it if I had left it there; it was telling me all along to buy it uguu. The Luna one had been bought by now already, by the way.

Artist's Alley tables in the cafeteria.

We had spotted Olli watching both the street fashion display as well as the cosplay competition but I had decided to wait until it was over before I went to say hello. Soon enough he showed up, we talked the talk oh god his jacket story was glorious! xD and then he wanted a pic of our trio because of the Tiggy hats. I then went outside to photoshoot his improved Bean Bandit cosplay again, while my other company stayed inside.
We decided to go to a different spot than last time and at some point we found a fitting car "prop" in the parking lot. But oh man was the wind freezing cold! D: My hands hurt to the point I couldn't really hold the camera properly and so we went back inside.
Getting back inside into the warmth felt so good. With Olli I went up to the second floor and there I found Hasakitsuki and Jäätynyt Enkeli sitting at a table. We went to sit in the cafeteria and Olli bought something to eat and treated me to a cup of tea.

The cafeteria also had some special bakeries!

There we sat then the remaining hour of the event and talked about a lot of things. But while we were chilling there I started feeling that my left lens was being a bitch; it had started making my eye red and teary and it kept feeling like there was something in the lens that stung my eye. Already when we got back inside after the photoshoot it had started derping but now it was to the point I couldn't stand it anymore and so I went to the bathroom and took it out. I inspected it quickly for damage but didn't see anything – the right lens had felt perfect all along so I don't know why the left one was such a bother. *shrugs*
Oh well, I went back to the others –without cool blue eyes– and then we played some Monster Hunter. Hasakitsuki and I were showing Olli the game and then we went to kill a Khezu with our trio. But before long he had to go eat with his friends and so our Bean Bandit left. :'( Well, at this point there were only maybe 10 minutes left of the event anyway.
Me and Hasakitsuki ate our chocolate eggs and seemingly Kemi is our lucky town – we got both the pony rings that Hasakitsuki was missing! :'D I got the Fluttershy one and she got the Rarity. I happily handed mine over so that her collection would be complete since they are too small for my fingers anyway -kid size- and I wouldn't have use of it. She's a much bigger MLP fan than me, haha; I'm just helping her out and getting my dose of chocolate on the go. xD
After this we slowly went down to the first floor, called mom to pick us up and then Mangapäivä was wrapped in and over for us this time.

All in all I think this time Kemin mangapäivä was a bit bigger than before – they had both floors of Sauvo-talo in use and it felt like perhaps there were more attendants than before, but I'm not sure. Then again, the main hall on the first floor was blocked. Whatever it was I found myself enjoying the event more than usual – it was comfy and even though Mangapäivä provides very little entertainment I didn't find that I got bored at any point, which normally happens after 30 minutes lol. Then again, having a new friend to talk to and company is a great way to stay entertained. Also, going casual saved me all the worries that comes with cosplay; it was a good decision.

In the end – have a photo of my purchases!
A Haku dragon form decoration scarf from the Artist's Alley and
a pair of white-green cat ears from the merchandise table.

That's all for this time, bye bye!

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
1
RUN!!

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD...
Ei helvetti, that crazy face.

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

Kemin mangapäivä 2014 – Hurry up man! Cosplay plans!

 Yo peeps!

As some of us polar bears might or might not know Kemin mangapäivä, aka Kemi's manga day, is just around the corner – and by corner I mean 11th October. Yeah, it's very soon. We don't have to hibernate just yet. höhö :-DD
Said event is a small local one for me –duration 6 hours this year– and I attend it mostly to meet friends and have some geeky remoistening for the oh-so-dry late autumn's early winter's lack of anime events. I mean, I'm totally not the type to say 'no' to some quality time with my trusty pals in a free-entrance event that *le gasp* isn't even far away! ;) Whooooouu..

Okay so, mumbo jumbos aside, what will I cosplay there?

*suspense*

 ...

......

Umm, let's take it from the beginning, shall we?

So, I've fairly recently bought a wig (from another cosplayer) to use for my soon-to-be-revealed Kemin mangapäivä cosplay. Gotta love cheap second-hand wigs!

But first, I had to cut it...

It's thick, fo sho!

Yeah, look at that hair curtain. OTL Too much hair in the front; I don't see shit. My wonderful hair-baby needed to be trimmed down. I took out my scissors on 3rd October and trimmed it into a better shape.

Starting point – wig before cutting.

So yeah, I cut and shortened the bangs to look more flattering and also thinned them down slightly. Easy peasy. I've noticed though that my scissors don't cut as well anymore; maybe should start consider replacing them.. then again, they were dirt cheap so I wasn't expecting quality either.

With the wig fixed I headed for town on 8th October. My mission was to find a toy gun at a second-hand store for cheap and then modify it. I ended up finding one but it's still unfinished COSSI EI OLE VIELÄKÄÄN VALMIS so I'll just do a post about it afterwards. Hang on, hang on!
What I did do today though was a quick test to get an idea of what my cosplay will look like when worn. Yeah, finally it's time!

Supah editing skillz! selfie

Some small details are missing on the picture: pointy ears, pink contact lenses and the gun. I just won't have time for a proper preview, so this will have to do for now. Yeah, so the character I will cosplay at Kemin mangapäivä is an Original Character named Taregard Frir. I won't bore you with a character description now and I'm too tired for that but I might write one later when I do a photoshoot post. Hopefully.

But there we go for this time, see ya!

Kemi's manga day 2013 - Hakuouki: Sweet School Derp

On 5th October I attended Kemin mangapäivä (Kemi's manga day), a local small 8-hour event. As far as I can remember the past years it has been only 4 hours but seemingly this year they decided to add another 4 hours, booyah! 

So me and Hasakitsuki had my mom drive us to Kemi on the morning and we arrived a little past the opening time (10:00 Finnish time) and just when we stepped out of the car a wild Sairu-chan appears! She cosplayed SSL!Chizuru and with her came Cissydella who cosplayed SSL!Harada. So we chatted a short while and then headed inside and soon enough I noticed that -at least in my eyes- it seemed like there were less people around compared to earlier years. Then again it was rather early so I assumed more people would show up later... it didn't. We just hung around for a while, checked the con merchandise and went to sit in the library (yes, there's one in the con building) to wait for our Shinpachi to arrive. How else to kill time than to geek Monster Hunter on PSP?

When our Shinpachi Jennysja showed up we decided to go outside to photoshoot. Noh.. ei siitä tullut helvettiäkään. :-DD So yeah, needless to say every picture was something of this caliber:

Basically always someone (or everyone) cracking up left and right xD

It didn't help that it was windy and that a random old man in a car drove by and stared with these huge eyes - that was enough to completely kill my pokerface for the rest of the photoshoot. Durr.

Oh well, we figured it was better to move inside and photoshoot and so we headed for the library again. We took some books and went to sit at the round table and.. well, the quality of the photos didn't turn out much better. lol At least not everything was utter and complete derp.

I love how that biking E.T. is discreetly photobombing.. xD

But then Hijikata noticed that Chizuru wasn't studying and took a closer look...

"What the hell is that supposed to be?"

It didn't take that long until the clock had turned 13:00 or something and we decided to go eat outside. Our journey took us to a nearby Chinese restaurant and we had some food.. and Harada had fun photobombing.

After eating a shitlot of food and having everyone wait for me we headed back for the con building and -surprise surprise- back into the library again. This time it was only me, Hasakitsuki and Sairu-chan. We tried our hands on a follow-up photoshoot...

... but it quickly escalated when Harada appeared and decided that it is way more

FUN

TO

PHOTOBOMB!!!

Yeaaaaah... no comment.

Oh well, we kind of split up after this and at some point I (and later Hasakitsuki) got bored and went to watch people playing those dance mat game things. It was surprisingly entertaining but while I was watching -and waiting for Sairu-chan's mom to come pick us up and drive home- Hasakitsuki decided to have a quick sort-of-photoshoot.

Cosplayer: Valkoinen Samurai (Toshizo Hijikata)
Photographer: Hasakitsuki

That's about all we did. We left one or two hours before closing time because there wasn't really anything to do. Sairu-chan's mom drove us three back to our apartment and of course Sairu-chan stayed to sleep over the Saturday-Sunday night so yeah, we totally had a follow-up party gaming night! 8D We also had a cosplay photoshoot on the morning of 6th October but I'll post about it when I'm done checking through the photos soooooooo, until then... smell ya!

PS.

I know you want them! Bonus derps! Like there wasn't enough already lol

I can has moustache

SMURFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFS