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