Northern Lights Anime Party 2024 – Forgot my flippin' camera!

 Hello fellow north-dwellers!

I was in Rovaniemi last weekend and the reason for that was Northern Lights Anime Party, a tiny manga event held in Monitoritalo Monde on the 14th December. It felt quite crazy when it sunk in to me that probably the last time I was at Rovaniemi was way back in 2017 when I went to my first (and only?) Mushucon. Despite living in the northern half of the country for roughly half my life I can count the times I've been to the "northern capital" on the fingers of one hand... and still have fingers left over, lol. Yeah, I haven't been to Rovaniemi much. xD

But hey, let's get this con summary started!

Entrance to Monitoritalo Monde.

I actually left from home already on Friday. Yes, it was Friday the 13th lol. I constantly had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I'm forgetting to pack something important and I just couldn't figure out what it was. Many times I went over all the stuff I needed for my costumes etc (almost forgot Yuuto's arm wrap!) and still nothing seemed off. Like I couldn't place the feeling at all, it seemed irrational like all the other times I've ever packed and panicked over forgetting something imaginary.
Well, Firith came to pick me up and dropped me off at Sallukka's and Dongrieg's place in Kemi for the night. The reason for these logistics is because currently Firith's apartment is so crammed two people can't possibly fit in there and, secondly, I had some business with Sallukka anyway so it was a two birds with one stone thing – namely I was well overdue to create a new Dungeons & Dragons character for our next campaign!

We had a nice evening creating my eagle D&D character and watching Dongrieg play Fortnite and some other games; it's quite mindboggling to me how much said game has evolved since the days when I casually played it a few years ago – I mean now there's some Guitar Hero-esque game mode and whatnot! I might need to pick it back up some day and give good ol' Fortnite a spin now that there's more to it than just the Battle Royale format, which is a genre that I'm not very fond of in general lol. The rhythm game stuff looked fun, not gonna lie.
Eventually Dongrieg changed games and started grinding something that I can't recall the name of but it vaguely looked like Grand Theft Auto or some crime-based game like that. There was a screen about a dead camera or something and at this point Firith looked at me and I looked back and then it dawned on me what I had forgotten at home. Yes, the bloody camaro camera! I fucking can't believe it, all these years and now is the first time I somehow forget the camera?! :'D The weirdest thing about this is that it never even crossed my mind, I mean I didn't even charge the camera batteries the night before like I always do and somehow my brain hadn't even reacted to that deeply ingrained con-prep tradition missing. Worst part is that my camera bag is always hanging out on my kitchen table so it is quite literally at plain sight 24/7 and still I didn't register that hey, that's the very obvious thing that I'm missing?? I'm dum-dum, there's no other way to explain this massive brainfart because yeah, the "I'm forgetting something" feeling was so stupid strong (more than my normal forgettance paranoia) and the camera was in hindsight so obviously the thing that was missing. I just can't. xD
So yeah, it was late at night and we weren't thus very motivated to drive 40+ km just to fetch the camera, especially because it was cold and we would have to cold-start the car. I figured that, if nothing else, I could always take the necessary summary photos with my phone and just live with the crappier-than-usual quality. Good thing though that there existed a Plan B that was a slightly better option –Firith's old Canon, which was already in Kemi unlike mine. Sure that it wasn't the best camera there ever was (there is some persistent dirt in the mirrors and whatnot; it needs professional maintenance) but at least it's a SLR and thus it's better than your average cellphone. So me and Firith agreed on taking the camera with us to the event the following day and that concluded the pre-con panic episode.

Con morning arrived and as per always I haven't slept shit. :') I was so nervous I couldn't fall asleep, which isn't anything new and groundbreaking for me lol. My original plan had been to change into cosplay before taking the train but by the time the clock was like 4 AM and I still wasn't sleeping I had a feeling that I wouldn't exactly feel fresh and invigorated on the morning. Well, I wasn't.
I'm also an awkward potato when sleeping at someone else's place, no matter how close we are, and I just don't dare to be the first one up and making noise by showering etc if I can clearly hear that everyone else is still sleeping. ;_; So I just snoozed past my early alarms and tried to salvage some snippets of shuteye. At this point I had already done the math calculations in my head and realized that I simply wouldn't have time to dress up anyway and would have to bet on the random card that is changing into costume at the event. The reason this was a big question mark is because we didn't even know if they had changing rooms at all. You see, Firith had tried to message NLAP's social media and email to ask about changing room options already a few days before the event but no one ever responded. Not to mention that for some unknown reason you can't even message them directly on Instagram, like why make it difficult to reach out?? So yeah, this lowered our already low expectations of the event even further – my expectations were so low at this point that I could probably have tripped on them lol. But regardless of the lack of information I still took the risk of going into the con completely unaware of if I even could change into costume on-site. It was stressful, no cap.

Eventually Sallukka woke up and I got a ride to the train station, with some time to spare. Sallukka and Dongrieg weren't attending NLAP by the way, they had other plans. While waiting for the train (and Firith) to arrive we brainstormed the upcoming D&D campaign and my character's background and such – I gotta say I'm very excited to play now and this talk left me on a good note when I left for the train to Rovaniemi. Thank you for the hospitality fren. <3

The train trip went by without any hitches. I honestly have no memories of it? Train from Kemi to Rovaniemi takes about an hour and a half so it's not like it's a long trip for us anyway. Fun fact is that we probably wouldn't even have ended up attending if it wasn't for the random chance that Firith had planned to go see Hant on said weekend after not having met him for literal years; Hant currently works in Rovaniemi (tonttutouhui :'D) although he's originally from the south. I was completely unaware of NLAP's existence and Firith only found out by a promotion on Matsucon's instagram. I got the impression that NLAP's marketing game hasn't been very strong. Heck, there's shortcomings on a lot of other fields too than just marketing, like for example the official website being woefully neglected to the point that the program schedule still isn't even published and it just says on the tab something like "closer to the event more details about the activities will be found here so stay tuned!"... umm... the event was a week ago... *awkward cricket silence*

Yeah I know, I sound a bit negative but NLAP didn't exactly radiate quality based on first impressions. I mean poor marketing, no response when contacting through more than one channel (instagram comment, email), odd limitations (no instagram messaging) and a misleading name that's annoying and inconvenient to say out loud. I mean you can't argue with me that Northern Lights Anime Party doesn't sound like a rave or a club event (think Neonya) or such. I do understand why they took an unconventional name in a way though, it makes you stand out and such but yeah, there's so many easier names one could have used that would have incorporated the same nordic vibes: Rollocon, Rovacon, Auroracon, Northcon, Porocon, Lumicon, Repocon, Revontulicon and so on and so on. And that's just from the very top of my head. There's nothing wrong with plain functional describing names like Rovaniemen mangapäivä/mangatapahtuma/animetapahtuma either – no room for confusion there!
I did learn afterwards though that apparently the name Northern Lights Anime Party is a relic from their debut year 2023 when it was seemingly only a 3h event with some snacks and programs and seemingly it even was age-restricted? In that light of knowledge I can understand the desire to hold onto the roots for sentimentality and to signal that it's the same people behind it, a continuation if you may, so whatever they do I am fine with it; but my honest opinion is that Northern Lights Anime Party is a very awkward name for an event due to its length and misleading mental associations.

Anyways, we arrived in Rovaniemi and the issue of getting to the con venue started. While it might have been only a 15 minute walk from the train station the issue was that it was blasting cold (-20 degrees celsius or more) and we just wanted to start the con day as soon as possible. Firith tried to get us a taxi but all the taxis already in place had some outrageous minimum prices that seemed borderline suspicious to me. Like I think they were all trying to bank in on tourists wanting to go to the Santa Claus village and for us who just wanted a short ride to centrum we were basically, well, fucked. :) Firith had to try several different taxis before finding one who was even willing to drive us, which seems absurd to me because isn't any paying customer a ride worth taking for a taxi driver? I mean our trip costs him like max 5 mins and then he could go right back to the station without hardly missing a beat? It just seemed hella weird to me with the whole "minimum 25+ €" fees like bro, isn't it required by law that the customer pays according to what the taximeter says and not what you come up with? :S Rollo has some highkey sus cabs man.
We eventually got a (still overpriced) ride to Monitoritalo Monde, the event venue. Much to our luck we immediately noticed that it had a Kotipizza quite literally in the same building, except on the other half of it. xD

Immediate view of the cafeteria upon entering the building.

Upon arriving we were a bit confused on where to find the proper entrance. You see, the street-facing side of the building had all these offices in it and it clearly didn't look like the right place. So we wandered around a bit until we realized that you had to go around the building to the backside or something to find the actual entrance (some signs pointing to the right direction would have been nice lol, not everyone is a local). Anyways, we finally get in and much to my surprise the building looks a lot smaller inside than how it appeared outside. I understand a lot of the "outer bulk" is used up by those offices and whatever other facilities that weren't a part of the NLAP's venue deal but yeah, I was a bit shook lol.

Cloakroom and info desk combo. Stairs led upstairs to the Artist's Alley.

Anyways, I immediately spotted the information and cloakroom desk (which had been combined) and went to ask if there's changing rooms reserved for cosplayers. I was met by this person dressed up as March 7th from Honkai Star Rail who said that technically there is changing rooms but they're for the cosplay contestants only and that, if possible, if we could change in the bathrooms instead. This was surprising to me, as a long-time congoer, because the norm for a while now has been that there's always public changing rooms somewhere in an event and that, oftentimes, it's even discouraged to use the bathrooms for changing into cosplay because it takes up so much space and might prevent others from using the very vital facilities for their intended use. I'll never forget that one Desucon years ago when some random young woman screamed for full lungs at a locked bathroom stall "cossaajat vittuun sieltä!!" :'DD (lit. 'cosplayers get the fuck outta there!!').

Oh well, after the confusion settled me and Firith shamelessly crammed ourselves into the biggest toilet we saw. Firith had already done Alicia's makeup before leaving Kemi and so only needed to put on the dress and wig and boom, done. I had to do everything starting from moisturizing my face lmao. Needless to say I took my time getting into costume, not because my costume is intricately complicated to put on or anything but because I'm not particularly fast at applying makeup. I almost felt like a criminal for taking so long in the invavessa and was waiting for someone to scream at me to get the fuck outta there lmao. When I was doing the base for my makeup I could hear Firith chatting outside with a male voice that I presumed to be Hant. I had a slightly trippy experience because even though Hant is a completely new encounter to me his voice sounds weirdly familiar? He either has a voice that is very similar to someone else I know, is very generic or I've randomly seen or heard him at some con before.

The main lounge area feat. pop-up library. Bathrooms were to the right.

So while I was taking forever putting my costume on Firith and Hant were going through years worth of not having seen one another while sitting on those black sofas seen on the photo above. The reason I took longer than normal (or at least felt like it to me) was because in the middle of doing my makeup I got a random panic attack out of the blue. I have no idea what triggered it, maybe it was stress, but whatever it was I ended up shaking so badly I could hardly stand up and even less finish my makeup! It was quite debilitating because due to the constant uncontrollable shaking I got eyeliner in spots where it shouldn't have been (like on the upper part of my eyelid, thank god it was hidden by the lid crease) and even managed to hit my blue eyeshadow brush on my nose and poked my mascara applicator into my eyeball too. ;_; I did take some medicines I had been smart to pack with me just in case, although in said panic I accidentally chewed them instead of swallowing the pills whole and oh my lord the taste was disgusting!

Somehow I managed to calm down after a while and salvage whatever I could of my makeup accidents before exiting the bathroom. To my relief Firith and Hant were still sitting there. I barely had time to put my stuff down on the sofa before seemingly a con volunteer came to ask me if I wanted to participate in the cosplay competition. This caught me offguard because I was under the impression that the cosplay competition was starting in like less than 10 minutes and they were still trying to get contestants like what's going on? I told the recruiter that I'm cosplaying an OC and "it's probably not allowed" because the common rules are that OCs are almost never accepted into competitions. The recruiter answered something akin to "yeah that's probably not allowed" and then when they were an earshot away from me I overheard them saying "I guess..?". Not gonna lie, this uncertain remark baffled me, I mean it's safe to assume that said person was the cosplay competition organizer (and, as I learned later, probably also one of the two main organizers) and it just came across as unprofessional – as in, it gave me the impression that they don't even know their own rules? I understand being young and inexperienced but yeah, you don't want to appear unsure and doubtful within earshot of attendants because it immediately gives off an unprofessional look regardless of how casual the event might be. At least make sure to try to uphold a professional front even if there's crises or difficulties behind the scenes, aka be mindful of what you say when there's visitors nearby. #protip

I gotta say though that I'm honestly not surprised by the contestant recruiting issue because like a day or so before the event it was informed on NLAP's social medias that they would extend the cosplay competition application which usually translates to "panic mode: not enough contestants" for those in the know of how organizing works. I kinda saw it coming though because let's be real – a tiny, new, poorly known event in the north that has a cosplay competition with a ruleset that has high requirements to participate; requirements so strict they're basically in line with what big, established anime conventions use. There's an obvious mismatch and slight delulu here at play – you can't run a small convention with big-scale competition rules (80% self-made cosplay requirement), especially not in the north because all the competitive sweats are in the south and those in the south extremely rarely bother to come to the north. You will get next to no entries because the rules are too strict. A more realistic cosplay competition rule would be something like 50% self-made or, if you want to be low-threshold and focus on beginners (and making sure the quota gets filled), then allowing bought cosplays but that some aspect(s) of the cosplay has to be self-made or modified and that can be anything from styling the wig to having made the props. The latter example is what Mericon uses, where I've been one of the judges and co-organizers for two years now – and while Mericon is in the south and bigger in scale than NLAP it's still a small event and is of equal age (debuted 2023) and yes, getting enough contestants even with such lenient rules still isn't a guarantee. The newer generations just don't seem to be as interested in competing as the people from my generation (millenials) and bought costumes are on the rise too. So yeah, already when I saw the cosplay competition rules I knew that they would have to resort to last-minute rule changes (basically went from strict to almost anything goes) and recruiting on-site. It was so clearly out of touch. This was apparently their first cosplay competition but still, please do your research lol.
But hey at least they managed to get 6 contestants in time for the contest so it could be held! Would be a shame to have to cancel one of the few activities there was.

View of the main stage. Matsukirppis (second-hand) table to the left.

I did not watch the cosplay competition myself but I heard that it had some difficulties and oddities with it too. Firith's summary mentions a bit more about the experience as a contestant so you can check that one out, if interested!
While Firith was busy with the contest I took to my duty to take the general con photos for our summaries. I also ended up upstairs in a room where this one guy was sitting next to a table with some D&D stuff around him. This was part of one of the planned activities – a beginner-friendly oneshot campaign with pre-made character sheets to fit the theme of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, unless I remember wrong. Please don't stone me I haven't played the game. xD So the dude was the DM and I got the impression I might have very well been the first person to show interest in attending. I went through the character sheets, asked some questions and eventually did a preliminary reservation on the orc character. The DM guy was very chill, easy to approach and assured me that it was noob-friendly and he had the patience to deal with a lot of hand-holding and guidance because yeah, to date I've only played one small campaign with a group of friends and Sallukka as the DM.

D&D room and a friendly (but lonely) bro.

I told him I'd be back for the start of the campaign and that hopefully more interested people show up during the day. There was one slight problem I noticed though and that's that the campaign was to start pretty late at 16:00, aka roughly the time when we had planned to go eat pizza. This realization made me scurry down to meet up with Firith and Hant and ask for some re-scheduling to free up the time slot for the campaign. This ended up being a very good idea anyway since neither me nor Firith had had breakfast on the morning and it was about 13:00 already and we were moderately hungry. Hant didn't mind an earlier pizza break earlier because who in their right mind does? No but really, moving the dining time forward ended up working in our favor because it gave us a very convenient opportunity to play the Necrozma raid hour in Pokémon Go without having to stand outdoors in the cold!

Kotipizza group selfie!

So yeah, we waddled our way over to the nearby Kotipizza and ordered our foods. While waiting we took some group selfies to pass the time and Hant told us that he'd keep tabs on where the local Pokémon Go gang was raiding so that we wouldn't miss when they arrived at the raid just outside the Kotipizza we were at. It was such a blessing that Hant happened to be part of the local player community because otherwise we'd have no way of keeping track of when it was time to do the raids!
Oh and I find it kinda fitting that Hant cosplayed a Christmas version of James from Team Rocket. xD

I spoiled myself with Sienimestari in lankku form, om nom nom.

Yes, we were totally extra slow so that we could fit in two raids on the same gym. I even got a shiny, lucky me! Shame the IVs were shite but that's to be expected lol. Classic Pokémon Go. xD

Oh, I forgot to mention but before I entered the D&D room before the pizza raid I checked through the Artist's Alley. It was upstairs just like the D&D room was, although I gotta say that the corridor the artists were placed in was quite narrow. Functional yes, but narrow. I can understand that this was probably the only viable place to put it because the event had so little space to work with and so every free meter counted. The only other option I can think of would have been in the main hall where the stage was but that would probably have come with too dim light conditions and being subject to noise and distractions from other activities like the aforementioned cosplay competition and the Mario Kart tournament.
I'll admit that there were more sellers than I expected there to be at an event of this meager size. Some were familiar from before but there were I think two or so whom I didn't recognize! I sadly didn't buy anything this time, it's this time of year when my limited money is already spent on Christmas presents. :'(

View of the first half of Artist's Alley.

Located in the same corridor as the Artist's Alley was also the local Seta ry table highlighting LGBTQ+ rights, which are very relevant in pop-culture subgroups because it feels like the norm is that everyone is queer in at least some way. :'D A great place to promote inclusivity and equality, in other words. I mean you will find your target audience lol.
I'm not sure what other organization or promotional booths there were? I know that NLAP had some collaboration partners with some shops and such and one of the bigger ones was the local library. Libraries are a rather obvious collab partner for anime events because of mutual interests like expanding youth activities and presence in the city and motivating people to borrow books and media for the upkeep of literacy and creative skills, be it through reading manga or developing artistic skills through "how to draw" books.

A closer look of the pop-up library on the main floor.

Rovaniemi's library was present in the shape of the pop-up library as mentioned before yes, but they also had a "make your own free pins from delisted comics" workshop which seemed like a really cool idea for repurposing and recycling old and worn out manga pockets etc. I lowkey regret not checking it out at least, I honestly didn't really notice it at first and when I did I didn't really have time anymore rip. :'( But I know that at least Hant used it to make a pin and it seemed to work well?

Oh and when it comes to random side activities there was this "vote for husbando of the year" competition that was a playful take on a popularity contest with fictional character. What you did was that you voted by drawing a heart on the blank page next to your chosen husbando's portrait and at the end of the event the winner was announced.
Honestly when I think about it I'm surprised that I haven't come across this formula before given how easy it is to set up and how fun and engaging it is for the visitors?

My favorite husbando Neuvillette was there so of course he got my heart. <3

I'm not entirely sure if there were any rules, I couldn't find any? But I assumed it was one vote (aka heart) per visitor. I felt bad that Wriothesley (on the other half of the list) had zero hearts for a majority of the event and that was just not right because Wrio is a king and deserves love too – thankfully Firith agreed and gave Wriothesley one heart!

Before I knew it the clock had ticked its tocks and I had to run back to the D&D room after having had a coffee break with the group. I gotta say that befriending Hant was very organic and easy, he's so chill and we immediately hit it off with our dumb humor lol. But I'm not too surprised because a friend of Firith's is by extension most likely a friend of mine (to be). I had a feeling though that the DM guy might not have been able to bag other interested players and so I managed to talk Hant into joining me because he showed signs of being interested and had nothing else to check out, the one thing making him hesitate was that he had never played D&D before. I comforted him by saying that if you're a super noob then I'm the noob who's only one step less nooby lmao.
So we went up in tow and my prediction was correct – there was no one else there. I was the only one who had signed up to play for the whole day. I couldn't help but feel a bit bad for the guy because he had clearly put a bunch of effort into doing all the necessary preparations and even handwriting skills and attack papers for all the character sheets to make them as accessible as possible for beginners (color and symbol coded etc), not to mention sit the whole day in that room and just hope for people to show up. Good thing I had dragged Hant with me (hyvä et joku on yllytyshullu eiku) because you need at least two players plus the DM to be able to play and now we could play! I mean.. during the whole day it felt like I kept seeing the same 20 or so congoers in the venue so it felt like there weren't many unique visitors to begin with and, honestly, no one really gave me the vibes of being tabletop bros; I kinda felt like I needed to secure myself a playmate or the whole activity would have been cancelled.

I'm not gonna go too much into detail on what happened during the mini campaign because that would take way too long (and I'm getting tired of writing this post, been at it for 7h now lol who said blogging isn't hard work) but let's just say that it was combat-focused and had to do with a portal appearing and evil entities coming out of it and later we met a NPC old man who was a bit sus but tagged along us and then we went inside the portal into some hellish landscape and there were more enemies. I played an orc berserker and just ungabunga'd my way forward with a bigass maul and Hant was a cleric. The NPC old man was a sage (well, actually a warlock in disguise #spoilerbroiler) and it was kinda hilarious because he tried to assist us by attacking some enemies across the bridge with smaller fireballs but he hit crap rolls and missed every single attack – my man has some skill issues lmao. :'DD I gotta give some props to the DM, he was super accomodating and funny and did fun voices and showed us images of the characters etc on a tablet to increase immersion and such. Really 5/5 guy when it comes to taking care of your players, would definitely play his campaigns again if I see him somewhere. Only sad thing is that when we were roughly halfway into the game I got a message from Firith asking if we were done soon – that's when I checked the clock and realized that the con was closing in 30 minutes and I needed to take a taxi in 15 to catch the train, sos! We had been playing since 16:00 and the clock was roughly 17:30 already, I don't think the DM had expected it to take so long either! So much time had passed in the blink of an eye! Well, we managed to speedrun that second map we were doing and then the DM just resorted to putting on his story-mode voice and telling us what happened and how it ended because yeah, no time left to play through it properly. I found it funny that somehow I sneaked past some intimidating tower guard in my bulky heavy orc armor without alerting anyone. xD

With the campaign wrapped up I speeded downstairs to grab my belongings from the cloakroom (no time to even take off my cosplay) and hurried outside to catch the taxi that was parked in front of Kotipizza, Firith had gone ahead and was already waiting for me. I felt a bit bad because I didn't even have time to say goodbye to Hant. *sniff*

The train trip back home went okay, except that we both were so tired we bought overpriced Red Bull at the restaurant cart in the train lol. Monitoritalo Monde had some weird rule of no energy drinks in the venue so we were running on fumes half the day due to poor sleep.  If there's anything that grinded my gears during the trip back it's that there was this one very obviously sick woman on the same seat row as us (classic us luck), just on the opposite side of the corridor, who kept coughing and doing these very moist inhale-the-snot-back sounds during the duration of the whole trip – like ffs, if you're down with the flu or whatnot then at least wear a fucking face mask if you have to travel or, even better, stay home. It's a minor inconvenience for you but might save someone's life in a worst case scenario so yeah, what happened to the lectures the pandemic taught you?
Guess if we both got sick immediately after the con? Of course we did. :)) My money's on her being the spreader and yes, I'm kinda salty because we both belong to the immunocompromised risk group and had things we needed to do and now we've both been sick for almost a week due to some selfish rando... :C #bigmad


And that sums up my first Northern Lights Anime Party experience. I know this summary might sound a bit harsh but despite the palpable inexperience showing through with the running of the event I have full understanding of the fact that apparently there were only two people in charge of organizing the whole event and all the roles and one of them was seemingly a teenager (based on what I heard, can't confirm the accuracy), so not even an adult yet. I mean yeah, it explains things and the people whom I assumed were the organizers both looked young to me. It's actually pretty wild even when you stop to think about it but nevertheless it's an achievement in itself to host an event of any size at such a young age and whoever the organizers are they should get a standing applause for taking on the daunting task of arranging an event with little to no prior experience – a lot of people wouldn't have the balls to even try or would give up once it got too overwhelming.
We need these people, these firesouls who have the will to actually try and do stuff for the geeks in the north, even if what they produce isn't perfect. Nothing's ever perfect. I mean yeah, Northern Lights Anime Party had a lot of minor hiccups and things to improve on but it's already a win that the event started and ended and, as far as I know, nothing had to be cancelled and no major disasters happened? Sure that the opening ceremony was late by one hour and the cosplay competition award ceremony started before its scheduled time slot because the organizers apparently thought that the people had already left (what kinda reasoning is that, trust your visitors!) and so probably felt a panicked hurry to salvage what might have looked like a premature ending of the event (when odds are that people were outside eating or taking photos etc). I can understand the stress and panic when the venue looks near empty but hey, stick to the schedule and if you have to do changes then make sure that said changes are informed to the visitors via social media, info desk notifications or such. You got this, GG for the effort and the courage. <3

That's all for the last con summary of the year. I honestly had a great time and would attend NLAP again if it's hosted next year. It has all possibilities to grow better with time!
~ Shiro Samurai out.

Northern Lights Anime Party 2024 cosplans!

 Hello fellow geeks!

I gotta admit, I honestly thought that Gingacon would have been my last con for this year but alas – that wasn't the case. A little bird whispered to me that there's a small-scale anime event in Rovaniemi coming up soon and of course that got me interested! I've never heard of it before but it's called Northern Lights Anime Party and apparently it debuted last year so yeah, it's still very new!
In my opinion the name seems to be a bit misleading though because, based on the information I can find, it seems to not be a party at all in the typical sense of the word but rather another anime convention, especially if we use the confirmed activites as measuring tools (cosplay competition, Artist's Alley etc). Not saying that I'm disappointed – I totally get why they'd go with a funky, unconventional name because obviously that brings attention and makes you stand out from the others.

The event is held on 14th December, which is next weekend. It wasn't too difficult to figure out what to wear at NLAP (yeah, I'll just shorten it koska nimihirviö) because I don't have a lot that I can currently choose from – even less when we factor in what costumes are even moderately winter-suitable. So yeah, it didn't take long before I had made up my mind. After all, I really don't have time to repair nor make anything new with such short notice so yes, I'm shamelessly reusing a costume that's ready-to-wear in its current state!

(art and © by me, KaamosWolf, aka Shiro Samurai)

Character: Yuuto
Series: Original Character

I finally bothered to draw a character art reference of Yuuto's current design. He's one of my many OCs although not related to my bigger project. I originally made the first version of him already in 2011 but remade his design in 2023. I'll avoid info-dumping for now and will just say that Yuuto is a benevolent youkai.
Yes, I omitted his shoes completely despite what I said at Matsucon, it felt more fitting tbh. This also means that I will just wear whatever weather-appropriate or style-appropriate shoes I have, depending on time of year.
I want to note here, to clear any confusion, that KaamosWolf is the handle I go by for all my other main hobbies (gaming, arts and crafts etc) that aren't cosplay. Shiro Samurai is exclusively my cosplayer identity. There might be moments when there's some overlap (OCs I end up cosplaying being one of the more obvious cases) but art stuff will always be signed under the KaamosWolf name. 

Oh and by the way, I do accept art commissions. I just don't have the information up yet but you're welcome to email me if interested! 

I think that's all I had to disclose for now, see you maybe at Rollo Rovaniemi? :D

Bye bye~

Matsucon 2023 – Gamer panic and gamer bliss

Hello geeks, spooks and cheeky pumpkins!

 

I was at Matsucon this past weekend and I'm here to tell you all about my latest con trip, woo! For those not in the know Matsucon is an annual anime convention in Oulu, northern Finland, and this year's edition was held on 28-29th October – which makes it coincide with Halloween. This mashup was visible in the decorations like a Gengar plush at the info desk, pumpkins on promotional material etc and added an extra layer of fun and festive atmosphere. After all, most people with a geeky bone in their body also tend to enjoy Halloween because of reasons (dressing up, dark/creepy aesthetics, supernatural stuff etc) so there's a lot of overlap and yeah, I personally find it a good call that Matsucon incorporated Halloween elements into their set this year.

But enough ramblings so let's go~

Matsucon information booklet.

I left for Oulu on Friday afternoon and my travel companion for the con was Firith. We had booked a Sokos hotel room for the weekend and that meant I didn't hijack my aunt's apartment this time lol. The hotel room was tar themed and quite nice and we spent Friday night just destressing and preparing for the con. Oh, and eating the dinner buffet at Itsudemo aka stuffing our faces way too full with sushi and honey cake.

Our tar themed hotel room. Me like.

I had applied for a con volunteer position prior which meant I was part of the work force and I just so happened to have the first morning shift so yeah, I had to be at the con 9:30 in the morning. My original plan was to cosplay on Saturday and go casual on Sunday. Yeah I know, I didn't do a cosplay plans post before the con and that's simply because I didn't decide until last minute on what to wear. ^^" Oh well, when Saturday morning came I felt quite uncomfortable with the idea of cosplaying because of practical, physical and mental reasons and so I ended up going casual.

Thanks to my phone's GPS flipping its shit around (and messing up my efforts to use Google Maps for navigation) I ended up taking detours through Oulu's centrum while I tried to waddle my way to Pohjankartano where Matsucon was held.
I found my way inside the building, claimed my worker's badge and scurried up the stairs for the work briefing before my shift would start at 10. I had applied to work at the gaming room, which meant my shifts consisted of a lot of nostalgy-fueled sounds Tetris music rentfree in your head anyone? and assisting willing gamers in any way needed – sometimes it was just inviting curious onlookers to come play, sometimes explaining how a game works or assisting in how to play 8-bit Super Mario and other times just being there for company or playing versus games with a lone gamer. It was a very nice, feel-good job and not too stressful.

 

The gaming room, my workplace.

My first shift ended at 12 and after that I was free to roam the con for four hours before my second shift for the day would start. Somewhere around this point I contacted Firith to ask if he was already at the con because there had just been an announcement that the Saturday tickets were sold out at the door. This surprised me because of how early it happened but yeah, thankfully Firith reminded me that he had pre-ordered his tickets already a long time ago so there was no panic.

 

My original plan was that I wanted to attend the Studio Ghibli concert that started at 12 but when I found the room that it was held in a few minutes past it was already locked. That was quite the bummer as I remember other cons where you could still enter if you were a bit late. Oh well, no can do.
I went back to buzz around the main area and quickly checked through the sellers and did a first run at the Artist's Alley by myself. I did run into Sallukka and their boyfriend Dongrieg and we swapped some words and after that I soon found Firith as well. Both friends were about to participate in the cosplay competition and were waiting for their turn with the judges so I left them to vibe together while I hurried over to the Green Room. I had gamer responsibilities to do.

Near entrance view of Matsucon. Dealer's Hall area.

Dealer's Hall.

More Dealer's Hall. There was this seller with only Genshin merch!

MION's booth, the Guest of Honor. There was always a line to meet her.

Dealer's Hall view from upstairs.

Before Matsucon I ran into a huge issue. A huge dilemma for a gamer. You see, I've been playing World of Warships: Legends almost since it launched (I'd call myself a better than average player, I currently hold the world record for highest damage game in premium battleship Nassau #flex) and these past 4 weeks there had been a daily event with simple tasks that you need to do and if you completed every day without missing any you'd get an exclusive new commander and of course I had put a fair share of effort into completing these tasks... until I realized that the final two days of the event fell on the Matsucon weekend and if I missed these two then I'd miss out on the main reward and would basically have wasted 4 weeks of effort. *insert panik meme here*

I tried to think of all kinds of solutions before the con but everything fell through last minute (and I can't exactly drive 100 km home every day to go do my dailies and then drive all the way back to Oulu, especially when I don't even have a driving license) and I was desperate. So desperate I asked in the discord if I could somehow borrow a monitor at Matsucon if I brought my own PS4 with me to do the dailies during my off-time. It looked bleak at first but then I was recommended to ask Marko privately if he could bring a small screen to the Green Room. And it turns out that besides being the main technician he is also the Guardian Angel of All Gamers in Distress™ and said it was no problem to bring a monitor as he lived close. Bless his heart!

A gamer's gotta do what a gamer's gotta do.

Once I got done with my dailies I packed away my console and left it at the Narikka (cloakroom) for storage for the rest of the day. I gotta say I really enjoy being a worker nowadays because it also gives you access to the Green Room where you can go whenever to have a quick bite, drink tea or coffee and such and it just helps to make sure I don't get nauseous during cons because yeah, I have a bad habit of forgetting to drink and eat sufficiently. >_< Besides, to me it's fulfilling to volunteer because it's meaningful and so important –  if no one was willing to donate their time to make the con run smoothly then we'd soon have no cons because usually the organizations behind them are non-profit and are reliant on the goodwill of people to function and well, I find it very important that these kinds of events are held because a lot of those who have an interest in this kind of pop culture also often deal with difficulties to fit in elsewhere and might be vulnerable – cons might be their only safe spaces and where they feel they belong as their geeky, most authentic and colorful selves. This is based on my observations and experiences over the years and, although I'm not here to generalize, it does seem to me that groups that are minorities in society are the majorities in these pop culture spaces; cons seem to attract certain types of people who often share life experiences.

Okay, enough deep thinking there. Back on track!

My second work shift started at 16 and that of course meant that I couldn't go watch my friends at the cosplay competition. I did make sure to check on Firith multiple times during the day to make sure that he was okay as I knew he has been in a rough patch lately. I did hear later that Sallukka had won some honorary mention award at the competition for best accessory (I think?) so congrats to that!
My shift ended at 18 and that's roughly when the con closed and the party moved over to the night club (tickets were sold separately). I didn't have the mental energy nor interest for the afterparty so once my workday was over I met up with Firith and we called a taxi back to the hotel. Once at the hotel Firith peeled himself out of his cosplay and then we just relaxed for a bit before we met up with Sallukka and Dongrieg for a cup of coffee at the nearby Coffee House.

Lemon meringue cake, yum.

I had a pumpkin spice latte (yeah I'm slowly starting to enjoy some sweet coffees but the ordinary stuff is still yuck as fuck lmao) and a yummy cake with lemon curd! We just hung around for a while and talked about the day and such, just the whole chilling with the bros vibe ya know? After the coffee we wanted something more spicy and so went to a nearby karaoke bar and had a few drinks. Something funny happened at the bar too! So we had a table near a more quiet corner and were just having fun chats when suddenly this middle-aged lady appears out of thin air on my right side. I'm quite shook by the time I register that she's way into my personal space and she's like bending down slightly and tilting her head in this very observing-but-drunk-granny way (it's almost comical I tell you) and then she suddenly says "I have no idea who you all are, I've never seen any of you here before but I love all of you" and then she just up and leaves and we're all just sitting there like "????". XD

After the bar episode Sallukka and Dongrieg left for their hotel while me and Firith raided the Hesburger around the corner. Or more like Firith activated his unquenchable thirst for nuggets and I just tagged along. Then again, he had not eaten anything warm since the hotel breakfast so I can't blame him. xD

Back at the hotel we played on our Nintendo Switches and leisurely watched a movie on TV; it was a Finnish movie about a blind man and it was quite unsettling at times but the way they implemented the reality of blindness throughout the whole movie was genial. It's called The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic in English, do look it up if you're intrigued.

Sunday morning came and I slept rather poorly. I was quite anxious on the morning and debated whether I wanted to cosplay at all but I managed to get my shit together and cosplayed anyway. My outfit for the day is actually one of my very first cosplays but just reimagined – it's my original character Yuuto. I kept the main colors of his outfit the same (white kimono and indigo hakama) but compared to the first version I added more pieces to his outfit and changed the wig from a white bob to this silver-blue gradient wig in a similar cut. I did look for the original wig but could not find it anywhere, I think I might have sold it years ago. Anyway, this was a comfortable and simple cosplay to wear and, although I want to tweak it a little before I wear it again, I'm quite happy with the overall look. During the con I didn't wear the correct shoes though because yeah, it had snowed and I did not want to wear geta clogs in the snow.

My Sunday cosplay, OC Yuuto.
(photo by Firith)

On Sunday I also had the early morning shift at 10 but this time me and Firith could leave for the con together as he would not have to wait in the cold for 30 minutes before the doors open in a sleeveless dress that isn't even full length, like the case would have been on Saturday if we left at the same time.

I headed straight for the video games room again while Firith went his own ways. It was quite nice that some visitors from the day before came over on Sunday to play some more. But overall I can say that Sunday was a much more quiet day in the room and our assortment of Nintendo consoles also decreased by one around midday as the NES left the building, leaving the gaming room with a Switch, SNES and Wii. So yeah, there was 100% Nintendo dominance this year. And for those curious the games that were played the most were the Wii and Switch versions of the Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart series along with Tetris on the retro consoles.

At 12 my first shift ended and I had a spontaneous idea to go check out the "Kiss, Marry, Abyss" Genshin Impact program. I watched for a while while the panelist explained the rules but there were quite a lot of people and the whole setup looked rather overwhelming and so I lost interest and left. It seemed like the rules was that the room were split in three halves, one for each option (kiss, marry and kill) and you had to go stand in the right spot according to what you would do to the multiple characters shown on the screen. I was expecting it to be done by like a phone app or something and you would just click on options and then have the results shown on screen what everyone voted. Moving around the room might have worked, I don't really know cuz I didn't stay to watch how it actually unfolded but to me it looked like it would quickly become chaotic cuz there was a ton of chairs and other furniture everywhere (the room was a lecture/auditorium style room). The game's idea seemed fun though!

Artist's Alley view.

This little tip jar amused me too much!

I now did a more proper Artist's Alley run and I was so excited to find that someone actually had somehow had time to do Neuvillette merch! He's my new favorite character in Genshin and I wasn't expecting to find anything featuring him and I just afjdsfdfs when I saw the charm. ;_; I'm posting a con loot photo at the end of this post~
Artist's Alley was located on the second floor and split into two halves, one on the left side of the building and the other on the right side. I felt like it worked decently well but there was quite a lot of crowding on Saturday, hence why I did most of my shopping on Sunday as it was easier to move around and browse the tables. I also gotta say that I liked the variety in sellers – there were both familiar and new faces to me. I wish I could have bought more and supported more artists but I don't have a lot of spending money right now as I'm still unemployed.

Of course I did my dailies in the Green Room again once my shift ended (and I got the final mission reward, yay!) and at some point me and Firith went outside quickly to take some photos of my cosplay. I mainly just wanted a proof picture for now but I will do a proper photoshoot later. :)

During my second shift I was witness to the tragic human tale of a man who bought too many mystery lootbags. I bet this was the best laughs of the whole con lmao. So there was this group of guys in the gaming room (I think they were friends of the other guy who was working at the same time as me, not sure) sitting around the table in the middle of the room and at first I didn't really pay attention to their conversation until I sat on the same table and they were talking about something that apparently caused hilarious regret. And I was curious and asked what they're talking about and apparently I had now pressed the cursed button because one of them said something like "now you have to do it because you asked about it" and I was like "oh no what have I gotten myself into" and this guy then pulls out this tiny rotating fish game for kids where you have to fish up the fishies with a magnetic rod while they open and close their mouths and I just had no way to back out. I had to accept the challenge like a man. And so I fished up like half the fishes and some I got real fast, which earned me some impressed 'oohs' and 'aahs' and then I had integrated myself into the group. They then kept talking about the lootbags and how shit they were and the conversation got wilder and wilder (somehow Rovaniemi's tax money was relevant to this, I guess bro's unemployed too and that's what the sponsor joke referred to xD) and it was absolutely hilariously unhinged crylaughter-fueled regret and the guy who was the one cheated out of his $$$ was laughing like a human siren with his face turning bright red – you ever have that thing where you feel sorry for the poor soul but you just fucking can't stop laughing because he's laughing too? That was how I felt, basically schadenfreude with consent. x) At least he could see the humor and laugh at the whole situation (although it was on his expense) because yeah, not everyone is a champ like that and someone else might just have broken down in a corner because of the huge waste of precious money.

After my second and final work shift ended at 16 (it started at 14, I worked 4h/day so 8h in total) I went to find Firith again and we did a final Artist's Alley round together before we were satisfied with our con experience and then we headed back to the hotel to rest our legs and wind down. Our budgets were almost used up so once we got back to our hotel room we had to brainstorm a bit on the topic of dinner. I happened to check Burger King's website and there was a really affordable campaign and what's even better is that the restaurant was located almost just around the corner from our hotel!

Läskeillään koska soli halp. :)))

And that about wraps up my summary of Matsucon. After the burgers we just returned to our room for the night and on Monday we parted ways and our Oulu trip was officially over; Firith went back to the south and I continued back up north.
Overall I had a great time at Matsucon and would definitely visit it again. I've been to Matsucon twice before (2017 and 2019) and I've always felt that it's quite well organized and an inviting anime con to attend for anyone even moderately interested in what it has to offer. I would say it's worth your time if you live in the north and why not if you live further away as well because yeah, Pohjankartano is a solid building for this type of events and Oulu is a lovely city well worth a visit!

Here's a photo of my con haul:

Square magnets by SaQe-Art, dragon charm by Sysirauta, Beidou
by si3art. I don't know who Neuvillette was from sorry. ;-;

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!
~ Shiro Samurai

Lens review: I-Codi Funcle F207

 Hello ninjas and geeks~

It's time for another Sharingan contact lens review and yes, this one is also from the Funcle series! Today I will share with you a review of the I-Codi Funcle F207 and without further ramenblings let's get started!

 

Base curve: 8.6 mm
Diameter: 14.2 mm

Water content: 55%

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

 

This lens design is very clearly styled to look like Sharingan (lit. Copy Wheel Eye) from the popular Naruto anime series. I can't guarantee these being 100% accurate or canon as there's a lot of different evolved and advanced forms of Sharingan eyes throughout the Naruto manga and each character tends to have their own Sharingan designs too. Oh and yeah, for those unfamiliar with the Naruto series Sharingan is one of the Three Great Eye Techniques (the other two being Byakugan and Rinnegan) and it's a special type of doujutsu (pupil technique) that is most famous for being what makes the Uchiha clan renowned. The Sharingan's main ability is to copy any ninja technique that it sees the opponent using. It's pretty cool if you ask me!

One lens in.

 

This is a very eye-catching lens when worn, it's impossible not to notice! It's a bold print, similar in design to how a Mangekyou Sharingan might appear in Naruto – it has the signature red and black color and pinwheel design that is typical for the look. 

There is a medium thick black rim around the edges of the lens which brings added intensity to the design. The color coverage is very opaque, my real gray-blue eye color doesn't show through the red at all! Of course it shows a little bit at the pupil hole in the middle but it's honestly not distracting at all as the opening is smaller than on your average circle lenses anyway.

Oh and yeah, these lenses have this curious little thing that despite being animation lenses they appear to almost 'glow' in certain bright lights, when not worn, due to the red color letting a tiny tiny bit of sunlight or such pass through it! It's really hard to describe but as someone who has worn a lot of super opaque crazy lenses over the years I just noticed it. It's like there's this ever-so-slight transparency that shows up in specific light conditions and yes, it's one of those things that you see with your naked eye but it's almost impossible to catch on camera lol.

One thing that I should also mention is that these lenses do spin a little (as most lenses do, although it's much more noticeable on lenses with certain designs) although, in my opinion, it's not as obvious as on the F105s I reviewed earlier. Could be just me but I felt like the F207s were less prone to spinning overall and if they spun I didn't notice it as much.

 

Lens photos incoming!
All photos taken by me during an afternoon with a mostly clear sky.
There's no color filters or such on the close-up photos and that's so that the colors would be as true to real life as possible.

 

Natural room light, indoors.

Bathroom light.

Facing a window, backyard view (not sun side).

Flash photo indoors.

Outdoors, back against the sun (facing wall).

Outdoors, facing the sun while under the roof's shadow.

Outdoors, facing the sun directly.

 

Just like with most lenses I've reviewed lately these were part of the set that I had tucked away and forgotten about years ago. The sad thing is that I only found the lenses a while back and by then they had all expired in their unopened packaging. But instead of just throwing everything away I wanted to at least do reviews, in case it helps someone out there. This means that I only wore these lenses for the time necessary to take the review photos and then immediately discarded them, regardless of how comfortable they felt to wear. Please do not wear expired lenses for anime conventions etc because you want to save money or whatever, it's not worth the risks.

Based on my first and only time wearing these cool cosplay lenses (which was about 10-20 minutes) I can say that they were especially comfortable. I mean so comfortable that I literally did not feel that I even had lenses on! They were thin and so comfy and much better than I expected. Of course there were the typical red corners at the edges of my vision, which is pretty much always the case with this type of lenses (due to the pupil hole being smaller than on your average circle lens). In my opinion it's not particularly disturbing or anything and you honestly get accustomed to it rather fast. Of course if you move your gaze around a lot, especially in places with poorer light conditions, it can make you feel a bit nauseous with the "red tunnel" effect at the edges of your field of vision, especially if you're not used to wearing lenses that do this.

Summa summarum is that I wouldn't be all that surprised if I could wear these lenses for at least 4-5 hours (without eyedrops) if they had been fresh; it might not sound like much but that's a long time in my book, considering my eyes are naturally really dry and quite sensitive.

 

Bonus! Comparison of F207 (viewer's left) with F105 (viewer's right)

 

I personally think that these Sharingan inspired lenses are really cool and I would totally repurchase them if I could find them somewhere; ifairycon used to sell them back in the days but don't anymore. I think these are great for Naruto cosplayers and especially for original characters where it's not crucial that your Sharingan lenses have to look a really certain way (as is the case with existing characters). These are honestly really badass and if you're a nerd like me you won't be disappointed with the effect!

Distance photo!

Unnamed Naruto OC for review purposes, yay. :D

Short summary:

Color: 10/10 

Great red color and overall vibrancy, gives the desired effect.

Design: 9/10 

Might not be 100% accurate to existing Naruto Sharingan designs but very recognizable and awesome regardless!

Opacity: 10/10

I have no complaints, great coverage and does its job.

Enlargement: 3/10 

There's a slight enlargement effect but it's not much, really.

Comfort: 8/10 

Very comfortable it seems, thin and I don't even feel that I have lenses on.. except for the red corners.

Naturalness: 0/10 

Don't even try to convince me that you were born with Mangekyou Sharingan in this mortal world.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this review!

~ Shiro Samurai out.