Touken Ranbu Tsurumaru Kuninaga photoshoot!

Good day everyone!

I bring to you today a photoshoot of my Tsurumaru Kuninaga cosplay! ♥

I got a chance to review a cosplay costume from the awesome store Cosplaysky earlier and, after a lot of thinking, I decided to bring Tsurumaru home! I love his design to bits and he's just so pretty anyway, I couldn't resist waaah! ;u;

I will include some links after the photos on where you can get a Tsurumaru cosplay costume like this – or any other costume you desire! Be sure to check them out, eey! ヽ(*´∀`)ﾉﾞ

But now...
Fruits of the photoshoot featuring our favorite crane boy, enjoy!

Cosplayer: Shiro Samurai (Tsurumaru Kuninaga)
Photographer: Frozen Angel
Photo editor: Shiro Samurai

Link to CosplaySky's main page: CosplaySky Online Cosplay Store

Costume link: Tsurumaru Kuninaga Cosplay Costume (includes armor)
Costume link: Tsurumaru Kuninaga Cosplay Costume (without armor)
Alternate color version: Tsurumaru Kuninaga Cosplay Costume (black version)

Please note that the reason why the prices appear to be expensive is because the default currency option on the site is set to AUD, Australian Dollars, and NOT American dollars!!  
You can change the site's currency display settings at the top right upper corner of the site to USD, EUR or GBP on the drop-down box. :)

I just want to say a few words about this costume as well! ^.- 

It's really nice and comfortable to wear, except that the kimono top is a bit slippery and needs some safety pins (or double-sided tape) to stay properly in place, haha. I also had to do some small modifications to make some costume parts fit me better – nothing hard to do! Overall I'm really pleased with this costume and I'd warmly recommend CosplaySky to my fellow cosplayers and costuming fans alike! 

Pssst, be sure to check out my detailed and 100% honest review about them here ~

~ Bonus photo ~

#thuglife

The story behind this picture is that it was originally from another earlier photoshoot (the first one, since this current shoot was actually the second try) me and Frozen Angel had... or well, tried to have. I have different makeup too. The thing is that it fell through because of a strong wind of approximately 8 meters per second; the wind tossed my wig out of place all the time and it almost broke my armors too! D: We had to quit the shooting because it just didn't work out and yeah, ironically the only "useful" photo we managed to get was this silly thug!Tsurumaru. xD It was completely unintentional, lol. Can't be serious all the time ~

That's all I have to say for this time! Thanks for reading my blog!

A big thank you also goes to CosplaySky for sponsoring me! ♥

~  Shiro Samurai says sayonara.

[Sponsored] CosplaySky review: Touken Ranbu Tsurumaru Kuninaga cosplay costume!

Hello there all awesome geeks and cosplay fans! ヽ(*´∀`)ﾉﾞ

I have some exciting news to share! An online cosplay shop called CosplaySky contacted me a while ago and asked if I was interested in reviewing one of their costumes. I was super excited!
I've been oogling their site for over a year now and some of my friends had bought from them before so yeah, I had gotten prior non-biased knowledge that they were a trustable and good quality online shop! Needless to say that I was so so happy when they wanted to sponsor me a costume for review purposes!

For those that do not know – CosplaySky is a big, established and well-known online costume store that has been around for a while and is selling mainly cosplay costumes, but also props and wigs for affordable prices. They sport a handsome collection of costumes ranging from TV-series to movies and all the way to anime, Vocaloids and even video games!

My reviews are always 100% my genuine opinion, no matter if the items were sponsored or bought with my own money. I never compromise my honesty and true thoughts to my readers. 

With all of that said I want to welcome you to a really detailed, full and honest review of CosplaySky! I hope you will find it helpful and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions after you're done reading! ^_^ Let's go ~

I also want to sincerely apologize for how horribly late this review is posted; I've been super busy with school, hospital visits etc. I've also had a lot of issues with getting good weather when a photographer actually was available (to get the fullbody photos). ;-; I hope you can understand.

~ "Forewords" ~ 

I feel like I should mention that personally I am very picky when I browse online cosplay costume shops – I have a habit of always scrutinizing even the smallest details (I'm a perfectionist!) and comparing them with official reference photos to see how accurate they really are. I do often try to find the most accurately made costume possible but I also keep realistic expectations in mind – you can't get something that's 100% accurate, well-made and with high-end quality fabrics for cheap. The simple and often true saying of "you get what you pay for" is something that I always keep in mind. :)

Most cosplayers do agree on that quality goes before price, meaning that they are willing to pay more for a nicer costume and yes, I am one of those too. I do believe though that CosplaySky has a fair price versus quality standard, meaning that considering the price you pay you do get some surprisingly solid and good-looking costumes! There might be a few flaws but it's really nothing that detracts from the costume as a whole.

~ Contact, packaging and shipping ~

Okay so, CosplaySky contacted me on 25th December last year and asked for my interest to review a costume from them – my answer you know already because I'm writing this post, haha. I took a look at their online store and I must say that it was really hard to decide on what costume to pick! So many tempting ones! *A* In the end I decided to give in to my current swordboy craze and so I chose the Tsurumaru Kuninaga cosplay costume from the popular Touken Ranbu online browser game.

I don't know when exactly they began the making of the costume but it would make sense if the dates set on my costume information sheet, that came with the package, were the start and end dates; I can't say for sure since I can't read Chinese/kanji but yeah, it would mean that the costume was started on 31st December and finished on 7th January – that's pretty dang fast!
Regarding shipping I got a slower option than the default one on the site (which is crazy fast, by the way) but it didn't really matter for me since I wasn't in a super hurry. CosplaySky said that shipping would take a couple weeks and that held true; it arrived in my country on the 28th January, if I recall correctly.
I went to pick up the package on 30th January and I must say that I had severely underestimated the size of the package. xD I went to pick it up with the thought that it would fit into my shoulder bag (it's one of those that fits a laptop and all your school stuff) but lolnope, when I saw the huge cardboard box it was obvious that my bag would need to triple in size to fit it, lol!

I walked home with the huge cardboard box – I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve! (╯✧∇✧)╯ I opened the box and was met by... another box. The second cardboard box was a lot flatter and smaller though and it was obvious that the armors were inside it, for protection. Good choice!
The costume itself was in one of those nice-looking costume bags (one side clear plastic and other side some kind of rough fabric with small holes) with a plastic zipper to open it. The actual costume was nicely folded inside the bag. With the costume also came the aforementioned costume information paper sheet that had a stock photo of the chosen costume, my included custom measurements with their modification scribbles added on top (very handy!) and identification barcodes, along with my country and other information in Chinese that I can't make out. I still can't read Chinese.

Shows the costume bag and the cardboard
box that the armors came in.

~ Costume thoughts, fabrics and sewing quality ~

My first thought when I pulled out the costume from the bag was that the fabric felt pretty okay. On the store it says that the fabric is "uniform cloth" (which is a very common term used in costume online shops) but it feels like a medium to lightweight synthetic fabric, likely polyester or a polycotton blend – maybe polyester twill. The fabric is smooth and matte but it seems to be of the kind that, once wrinkled, the wrinkles will be there until you iron them away. There is no stretch/elasticity to the fabric, save for the gloves which are made of some kind of tricot fabric.

Regarding the sewing it seems to be sturdy and I don't feel like it will rip or that a seam will tear when I wear the costume and do those daily things that humans do. The stitching is straight, neat and doesn't do any weird jumps and the threads used are always of a matching color etc. There were some loose threads poking out of some seams but those were super easy to just cut off.

One thing that I noticed early though, that just made me confused as of why anyone would ever skip such an important part of sewing, was that seemingly all seams that are hidden by lining are left completely raw and untreated?! I was shocked when I saw it. ∑(;°Д°) I honestly didn't expect it at all!
I understand wanting to cut corners out of laziness (or lack of time) because it's being covered and thus won't show on the outside but hey, it's important for the long-term durability as well. Sealing the raw edges really shouldn't be skipped, no matter what.
I just don't understand since I was taught from a very early age that it's an essential and very important thing to seal the edges, unless of course you're sewing some kind of fabric that simply can't fray – like leather, for example.

I'll admit though that I might not have noticed it at all if I had picked a costume that wasn't mostly white but yeah, the thing is that with white fabrics the "inside" easily shines through (especially on thinner fabrics) and you don't even necessarily need to hold the clothing piece next to a light source to reveal it; I actually noticed it completely by random chance because I saw a lone loose thread in a place that wasn't close to any seams and then I decided to check the actual seams and was met with an untamed jungle of fraying threads. It's unprofessional and it just makes me wonder why a big established business would do such a thing? ლ(´Д`ლ)
Good thing at least is that the fraying edges don't show when the costume is worn but yeah, it doesn't magically make the problem disappear either – I know that they are there and it bothers me. :/
I also worry that if I wear the costume a lot then the edges might fray enough that I will eventually have to take off the lining and correct what was left undone. Then again, most times you don't wear a costume as often as everyday clothing so yeah, it might not even get to that point for many...

"Hidden" non-treated fraying edges.

I'd feel like I was lying if I kept quiet because I can't pretend that I didn't notice the raw edges early on and, besides, I think this is important enough to mention and I hope CosplaySky would change their ways (although I can't assume that they always skip this part of sewing) – ignoring to treat the raw edges is unforgivable and is a blow to the overall quality, sadly. :/ It's such a quick, basic and important part of sewing that there really is no reason not to do it; it's crucial for the durability of the costume, general neatness and to uphold a professional image. I seriously hope they don't purposely add the lining just to skip treating the raw edges but, if that's the case, then I'd take the costume without the lining any day. Even things that don't show on the outside do count.

I honestly feel a bit bad for bringing this up since this is a sponsored costume review but yeah, it's very very important for me to tell the truth in my reviews, in both good as well as in less good. I always thought that those flawless "everything's perfect 5/5 love it!" sponsored reviews some others do seemed overly fake and thus were not actually trustable nor helpful so yeah, I don't want to be one of them; I value honesty the most when reviewing.

What is included:

• White kimono top (incl. blue collar)

• Hakama-style pants

• Belt

• Hooded cloak
• Embroidered emblem "brooch"
• Chain necklace

• Gloves

• Armors

What is NOT included:

• Sword 
•  Wig (sold separately here: [link])

• Shoes (sold separately here: [link] or [link])

~ Detailed description of costume parts ~

Additional information: I am someone knowledgeabe about authentic traditional Japanese clothes and their basic construction, since I collect and wear wafuku as a hobby and have a great passion for them – you can check my kimono blog for proof. I am very aware that it's probably close to impossible to find an online costume store selling kimono, hakama, haori etc that is sewn traditionally and/or "correctly". I have browsed countless costume stores and never saw a cosplay kimono with an okumi panel and no shoulder seams, for example. With this said I want to mention that CosplaySky is no different, but it's all okay since their stock photos show the costumes very accurately – you can see in advance what you will get. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: All detail photos below show the clothing pieces in their original condition, aka before I did any modifications. Some costume parts I needed to modify slightly (pants, belt, gloves, necklace) for a better fit. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

Kimono-style top: I say styled because while it looks the part it's not constructed as an authentic kimono should be, as mentioned above – aka it has shoulder seams, no okumi panel and no back seam. This piece of clothing is actually fairly similar to a keikogi on some points though, so yeah, if you ever did martial arts like kendo or karate you know what I mean. :) Basically this is a short (hip length) wrap-around kimono-styled top with roomy "western sleeves" (non-square sleeves with fully open arm opening) and with a silk tie to keep it closed at the lower waist. The top is fully lined too. Oh and yeah, the sleeves are actually supposed to be shaped like that (aka non-traditional), surprisingly enough. Another thing is that because the top is lined it's very slippery so you might want to use an additional sash to keep the lower half in place (since the silk tie doesn't do much) and, more importantly, you will very likely need to use either a safety pin or double-sided tape to keep both collars where they should be – they seriously move around a lot.

Silk tie to keep it closed. (I tied a ribbon knot for demonstration)

The blue collar is sewn on to the white collar, to give the illusion of a second layer, but I personally would have wished for it to be a bit longer, aka run down the whole length of the white collar. It's actually very short and, while this is not a problem for Tsurumaru because of how he's (properly) dressed, it doesn't give you any option to wear the collars crossed lower down since the blue collar is too short to accomodate it. So yeah, basically saying that if you want to do fanservice photos then you're screwed, lol. 

Showing the blue collar that is attached to the inside.

The ends are left unattached! (it's a good thing, see text below)

A good thing with the blue collar is that approximately 5 centimeters on each end is left unattached so that you can cross them in a way so that the blue collar is hidden under the white collar properly and not suddenly, you know, ending on top of it.

One thing to note is that what is supposed to be the "inner blue sleeves" are actually just a blue fabric sewn to the ends of the white sleeves, aka it looks the same as what you see on all those online Bleach shinigami costumes with a white trim running along the sleeve's mouth/opening and then there's black inside the sleeve. Personally I would much have preferred that there would have been an actual fake layer beneath, in the sense that there would have been a blue sleeve attached together where the white sleeve is attached to the body to give a 2-in-1 sleeve look – I hope I make sense!

But yeah, I was 95% expecting it to be just a "blue trim" so it's not like I'm disappointed or anything. :D

Sleeve.

Hakama-style pants: Again I'm using the "-styled" addition as a way to make a difference that, while these look like hakama on a first glance when worn, they are not constructed like one at all. This is basically a pair of very wide pleated pants with a zipper in the middle (it's hidden once the belt goes on) and a low crotch. All the signature traits that makes a hakama a, well, hakama, are missing: side openings, long ties (himo) and the backboard (koshiita). These hakama-like pants basically look like what would be the outcome if your western pants and your hakama had a child, haha!

Showing the top and the hidden zipper.

The pants when worn, with belt on top.
(excuse my nerdy Angry Birds slippers)

They look pretty cool when worn and I definitely appreciate that the white parts aren't just flaps that you velcro in place at the top (I've seen that on other online Tsurumaru costumes and it bothers me). The white parts aren't actually attached to the gray part though – it's like, imagine that the white parts are like two rectangular capes hanging over each leg of the gray inner "hakama". That's how it is and yes, it's only attached at the top which means that the rest hangs freely. 

A small mention about the "hakama" fabric is that while the white parts are lined the gray insides are not; this basically means that the gray fabric feels thinner (even though it's the same thickness) and because the pleats are not starched or stitched in place they will likely disappear after prolonged wear, unless ironed regularly. 

I, by the way, tried to wear the "hakama" so that I'd tuck the pant legs into my split-toe (tabi) socks but it didn't work out for me, mainly because the tube part of my shoes are too narrow so that I couldn't close the zipper after all the extra fabric was there.
I had to modify the pants slightly by adding elastics to the top and bottom so that they would gather below my knees and fit me a bit better.

Belt: The belt that comes with the costume is an one-piece with an easy velcro closure at the back. All the details –including the cross tie– are sewn on. As a side-note I want to mention that the cross tie might look complicated and fancy but it's actually possible to tie in real life – it's worn with hakama for a formal look. I don't know if I just got a more carelessly sewn than usual version but it bothers me slightly that the tie ends are all sewn on in a way so that none of them are the same length; it's a small thing, yes, but I would have hoped for it to be symmetrical since I know that it's worn in real life for high-end looks and thus should be neat and as perfect as possible.
I did take in the belt some centimeters because it was a bit too big for me, I also centered the knot while I was at it. The knot on the belt actually consists of several short separate pieces that are just sewn, on top of each other, in the right positions.

Belt, unmodified.

Hooded cloak: This thing is seriously so so beautiful – it's exactly what I hoped for! It's by far the highlight of the whole costume and I love it so much that I'd want to wear it everyday. ヽ(´ω｀○)ﾉ.+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+

It's fully lined with really long wide square sleeves and golden chains that make a lovely soft rustling sound when I move! I love it loads. ♥ The hood is great too and that little fluffy ball on the right breast is very soft and attached securely.
Oh and yeah, the chains are attached by a little string of white thread that is tied on the cloak's body – this means that, if needed, you can easily move and relocate the chains by just cutting the string that holds them in place and hand-sewing on a new string on another location; I actually cut off the string holding the chain on the back because it has been revealed in the art book (and the Tsurumaru figure) that the chain hangs freely on his back.

Original positioning of the chains on the cloak. View from backside.

As an extra tip, for those interested, I can say that if you want to be reaaaaally accurate you can modify the square sleeves so that they have the right shape, as shown in the art book to be a really pointy elongated triangle – something like this: ◥.

Embroidered emblem "brooch": Even though this is a detail of the cloak I'm listing it separately since it wasn't attached to the cloak by default. It's basically an embroidered patch with Tsurumaru's signature emblem (kamon) on it. There's a safety pin in the back to attach it to the cloak but I need to mention though that the tiny metallic cap –that keeps the pin closed– came off when I accidentally, very lightly, brushed my hand against it when I moved stuff around. Luckily it was easy to put back in place but yeah, seems like the safety pin is not of the best quality since I honestly barely touched the pin and it came off – and I hadn't even used it yet. Then again, it shouldn't be a problem to repair/replace so it's nothing to fret about, really.
The embroidery is nicely made, it looks clean and has no loose threads etc. :) The only thing I would have wished for would have been that the patch itself had something under it –a supporting layer, sort of– so that it would be a bit more sturdy, aka less soft and floppy. It's no big deal though.

Embroidered emblem, front and back.

Chain necklace: At first I didn't realize that the necklace was a separate part because it came attached to the safety pin of the emblem; I originally thought that it belonged to the emblem. Derp. The necklace consists of a golden chain that's smaller than those that are on the cloak. It has two additional short hanging ends in the front. It's really simple but it looks fine.
The only problem is that there is no way to open it (there's no locking system like on normal necklaces!) so yeah, unless your head circumference is ridiculously small then there's no way to put it on – and by small I mean that your head would need to be smaller than 45 cm in circumference. I have a bigger head than average, sizing in at approximately 60 cm around so yeah, there was no way that I'd be able to put it on over my head without having to get some tools, open the ring link and either add a proper closure system in the back (so that I can put it on directly at neck level) or do some other quick-fix solution, like adding an elastic thread. I don't understand though why there was no closure system whatsoever because really, who has a head that small? :S

Tsurumaru's necklace.

Gloves: The gloves are made of some kind of fairly thin, soft elastic material that is likely some kind of tricot, I think. The gloves consist of two parts – the glove itself and an accompanying "wrist band" of the same fabric. They look like they should, except that the wrist bands are missing the thin white border on the other end, but that's a really minor detail and I'd be nitpicking if I put much weight on it. Actually, I didn't even know about it myself until I checked my reference photos closely, lol.

I did modify the gloves a little (after the photo was taken of course) to have a more precise fit for me since I have small hands for a man and, well, I forgot to specify that. That's probably my fault, haha.

Gloves and "wrist bands". (before modification)

Armors: I'll be honest – the armors don't look like I expected them to, based on the stock photos. While you can still obviously tell that they are Tsurumaru's they are made differently and of different materials than what the costume image suggests on CosplaySky's site. On the images of the store it looks really nicely made and the material seems to look like some kind of sturdier plastic, I don't know? The armors that I received –while they look okay from a distance– they don't quite hold up to a closer check. The blue base seems to be some kind of really stiff and durable cardboard-like material (I seriously don't know what it actually is, forgive me) but the details are definitely white craft foam that has been painted gold and, quite frankly, give a cheap impression when looked at closer. :/
These are not that bad (they are definitely usable) but I just want to say that the thing is that I wouldn't have been as disappointed if the stock photo had shown the actual product. It's just that my expectations weren't met. ^^" I would have appreciated these a lot more if the stock photo hadn't been misleading because it showed something that looked to be of better quality.

Armors. The white strings are so that you can attach them
to the belt, for example.

The armors consist of several pieces layered together, as they should, but I did notice that they break really easily; I actually broke one of them before I even got out of my apartment with the costume on! D: I accidentally bumped my side into the bed and the blue parts just cracked off clean from the top golden part. The thing is that it was a smaller hit – it can be compared to the same impact you'd get if you were standing in a crowd and someone pushes you enough so that you lose your balance but not enough to make you fall. Yeaaaah. But luckily, because it broke off so cleanly, it was super easy to just hot glue back in place without a trace that it had ever broken. Needless to say you need to be very careful with these because they are not very sturdy/durable at all, sadly. Avoid crammed places and yeah, if you trip or something you can be pretty sure that at least one of them will suffer some damage. I also want to note that, once when I was outside, I actually heard a loud creaking noise from the armors simply because the wind was toying with them. Please note though that the wind was blowing at 8 meters per second at most so yeah, the wind alone could technically have broken them off, if I had not held them tightly flat against my legs during all of the sudden gusts...
What drops the grade as well is that the chains hanging from the ends are just simple craft foam cut-outs. On the stock photos the chains look like the same golden chains that are on the cloak (which are seriously amazing) and I was really expecting the chains on the armors to match. But hey, nothing stops you from buying some golden chains yourself and replacing them; there is already a little string that you can attach the chains to!
Another small thing is that those little square dots are craft foam too, even though they should –in reality– be some kind of lacing and they do look like lacing on the stock photos.
Oh and yeah, these armors are heavy enough that you need to wear a support belt (I used a normal leather belt) under the costume's belt-piece to hold them in place, otherwise they will drag down the costume belt and it won't look good.

The armors are the only part of the whole costume that actually differs from the stock photo examples on the site, which means that I'd grade the "RECEIVED COSTUME VS. STOCK PHOTO ACCURACY" to be a HIGHLY RESPECTABLE 90%!! The 10% drop is for the armors only – everything else looks just like advertised. 
You can buy with confidence from CosplaySky – what you see is very close to what you will get, at least based on my experiences! ♥

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All photos of me wearing the full cosplay below shows the modified costume.
Photos taken by Frozen Angel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Front view.

Side view.

Back view.

Are you interested in getting your own Tsurumaru Kuninaga cosplay? ♥

Link to CosplaySky main page: CosplaySky Online Cosplay Store

Costume link: CosplaySky Tsurumaru Kuninaga Cosplay Costume (incl. armor)

Costume excl. armor: Touken Ranbu Tsurumaru Kuninaga Cosplay Costume (no armor)

If you'd rather be on the dark side wear black then you can also find the fancy black version of his outfit right here: Touken Ranbu Tsurumaru Kuninaga Cosplay Costume (Black Version)

PLEASE NOTE that the reason why the prices appear to be expensive is because the default currency option on the site is set to AUD, Australian Dollars, and NOT American dollars!!  

You can change the currency display settings at the top right upper corner of the site to USD, EUR or GBP on the drop-down box. :)

CosplaySky store & Tsurumaru Kuninaga costume rundown – Pros and cons:

+ Decent fabrics
+ Very accurate to store's stock photos
+ Mostly accurate to character*
+ Sewing quality is mostly good and consistent
+ Quick processing & making time
+ Shipping time as promised
+ Safe and good packaging
+ Professional and kind customer service
+ Affordable prices

+/- Some costume parts were too big (note: custom size)

- Fabric edges that are hidden by the lining are raw/untreated
- Armor is different from stock photos
- Necklace is way too small to fit over head (no closure system)

* = there are some minor differences, especially if you own the Touken Ranbu art book that shows Tsurumaru's outfit(s) in angles that were previously unseen. The main differences are the shape of the cloak's sleeves, how the chain goes in the back, some small details in general and the backside of the belt.

~ Sizing ~

I want to mention it separately that my costume was made in custom size, which costs a bit extra. What I want to say with this is that while most of the costume had a good fit there were a couple clothing items that I needed to take in a bit – it's nothing big though. The reason I put it as both a plus and a minus is because although some pieces were too big (except for the necklace which was too small) I would any day rather have a costume that is too big than one that is too small; it's easy to make a big costume smaller but it's really hard to make a small costume bigger. ;)
I also want to say that CosplaySky does add additional centimeters to your provided measurements (it even shows how much on the paper sheet that came with!) so yeah, you should NOT add extra centimeters to your actual measurements!
My measures might have changed a bit since I wrote them down but yeah, I mainly made the belt a bit smaller since originally it was so big that I could drop it over my head and it would fall to the floor with no resistance, lol. I also added an elastic ribbon to the top of the pants so that they'd fit me on the waist rather than really low on my hips; I added elastics to the bottom of each pant leg too, to gather the fabric below my knees. The gloves I also did some small alterations on so that they'd be more flattering. The necklace I just decided to open up with pliers and I added a small elastic ribbon to the back for closing. The cloak and kimono-style top fit me perfectly as is. ♥

Tsurumaru Kuninaga reference image.

~ Conclusion and final thoughts ~

Okay, so to conclude this review I want to make it clear that, contrary to what it perhaps might seem, I am indeed very happy with the costume that I received and I'm overall super pleased with CosplaySky!! ♡ I really enjoyed this collaboration with them and I'd definitely feel safe ordering from their store in the future!

Almost all of the cons that I bring up are, in fact, mostly minor and/or easily fixable if you just have a sewing machine and some basic tools so yeah, even though there were quite some stuff to modify I was expecting it and it was nothing hard to do either. (*^ω^*) The only bigger issues is that the armors aren't really durable, nor identical, with the stock photos and that the seams that are hidden by the lining are not treated to avoid fraying at all. But, if we look past those two weaker performances, what we have at hand is a solid cosplay costume store that has been around for years and that delivers fair quality costumes –that are mostly highly accurate to their photos– for a reasonable and competitive price and fast turnaround time. Just be aware that you'll likely need to do some smaller modifications and/or repairs yourself, for a perfect fit. Oh and yeah, their costumes can also serve as good 'bases' for those who like to buy premade stuff and then modify it to their hearts content!

I'd definitely feel safe recommending CosplaySky to all my cosplaying friends who are looking for a reputable online costume store with decent quality and good value! They are also really fast so yeah, if you ever need a costume in a rush then this store is a very good candidate to consider for your needs. They even take rush orders for a small extra charge!

Final Grade (from A-F): B-

Recommend to others: Yes

I think that's about all that I had to say! See you in my next blog post and thank you for reading! I hope this was helpful ~

Also, don't forget to check out CosplaySky if you want to buy a costume or know someone else who does! ^_^ A separate Tsurumaru photoshoot post is coming up soon so stay tuned!

A biiiiig thank you goes out to CosplaySky for making this possible! ♡
~  Shiro Samurai says sayonara.

Närcon Vinter 2016 – I'm addicted to bubbletea!

Good day all geeks out there!

I'm back from my trip with friends to Närcon Vinter in Sweden. It was held during 12-14 February in Linköping and I must say that I had a blast! Before the con I had been crazy excited about it and now that the convention is behind me I feel like it lived up to my expectations. This is the first time in a while when I've actually felt comfortable and free of worries at a bigger convention; I feel like Närcon Vinter made me feel like I can enjoy cons again – I felt safe all along and didn't get any anxious moments etc. People were very friendly to me (includes total strangers!) and I even got some new friends, wohoo!

The Närcon dragon logo outside Saab Arena during night time.

Yes, it changes colors!

Some of you might remember that in the cosplans post I mentioned that I'd travel with Frozen Angel (former Jäätynyt Enkeli), Sacchan, Hitsu and Ronya. The thing is that like a week before the con Ronya suddenly informed that she can't go because her mom decided to be an asshole. I won't go into details because it's personal stuff for Ronya but I'll just say that me and Sacchan tried to convince her mother, along with Ronya herself, but her mom was 100% impossible to deal with and we had to give up on getting Ronya with us. :(
So yeah, less than one week to go before the con and I have one additional con ticket, the hotel room is booked for 3 persons and the gasoline costs for the carpool have been calculated and divided on five. I was seriously stressing and panicking because I barely knew anyone who could replace Ronya on such a short notice; I mean, we would have to leave on Wednesday and it was already Sunday! I tried calling my good ol' friend Kiivi but they couldn't go and at that point I was lost. I called Sacchan and she didn't know anyone either – unless her little brother Joni would be up for it. I desperately called Joni and explained the situation; luckily he is gamer, has been to a few cons and has an interest in cosplay so yeah, the possibility was there. He told me that he'll have to beg for vacation from his school on Monday and, if that succeeds, then he'll come with us. I lit up and waited for the next day. During my school day on Monday Sacchan called me about the "get vacation for Joni" mission twice – the first call sounded like we were fucked. The school Joni is in has a strict principal and because his underage some paper work was required with his parents signature/approval and on top of that several days of processing the request. WE DON'T HAVE SEVERAL DAYS TO WAIT. GODDAMMIT. 8C Sacchan called me some hours later and came with good news – suddenly Joni could come! :DD I don't know what black magic he or his parents used but the whole paper processing thing got skipped completely and off we go! Hell yeah!

tl;dr – Ronya informed that she can't come with when there's less than a week before the con. I and everyone else panics and ask our nearby friends on a very short notice to replace her – no luck. Turns out in the end that Sacchan's little brother Joni could come instead.

★ Pre-con (Wednesday & Thursday) ★

On Wednesday evening we had decided to start driving after everyone in our company had finished school for the day. Because I'm a dumb fuck I do all my packing after school on said Wednesday. :)) I'm surprised I managed to get all my cosplay stuff into my gray bag, lol.
The hours pass by and I hear nothing from Sacchan. I try to call her several times and I call Joni too but no one answers. At this point I get really worried because the clock is already mighty past 16:00 Swedish time and we should ideally have left already. I try calling Joni a second time and this time I get an answer, omgyes! He tells me that his sister had accidentally left the cellphone on soundless mode after school, classic mistake. xD Joni also says that they are not done packing yet and that it will approximately take one hour before they are anywhere near ready to jump into the car. I call Frozen Angel to inform the situation and he informs me that he had already expected them to come pick us up so he had left his apartment already and dragged all his luggage to the entrance, lol.
When Sacchan and Joni finally are ready they drive from their home to me and Frozen Angel's town (it's a 30 min car ride) to pick us up and then we went to eat together at Max, a hamburger place. Gotta start the con diet! 8D And besides, I had a shitlot of coupons to use that I had picked up from school.
With our stomachs filled with burgers and fries we finally left our starting point and started driving southwards, towards Umeå. The reason why Umeå is because my good friend Hitsu lives there and she was to be our fifth carpooler and second driver; we had decided on sleeping over at her place the night between Wednesday and Thursday so that we'd have less of a distance to drive on the morning.
We arrived at Hitsu's later than I had thought but luckily she was still awake. I ran around the apartment and knocked on her window, she waved excitedly to me and came and opened the locked front door. The clock wasn't far from midnight and so we just talked some shit and then we all went to sleep.

I don't remember when exactly we woke up on Thursday morning but it might have been around 10 in the morning. I don't think I had any breakfast either but we all just collected our stuff and left for Umeå city to go buy some provisions and take-away sushi for the long drive ahead. The car ride took many many hours and I spent most of the time either playing Monster Hunter or Pokémon on various handheld consoles and, when I wasn't playing, I was talking about all possible things with the others and most times it was really silly topics. We had, for example, come up with some really detailed and thought-out shit about why there were over ninethousand trucks on the road screwing with us and how, why and where they were holding their secret meeting to plot hell upon Sacchan's Citroën and Hitsu's Volvo. I won't go into more details but let's just say that some of the reasonings had to do with Volvo being a tool and not a car and that French cars suck. xD
At Uppsala we stopped to eat dinner and guess were we ate? :DD Max. Again. Or well, I didn't eat because my stomach was hurting – but I shared my coupons once again lololol.
When we reached Norrköping I called my big sister, because she had requested me earlier to inform her when we're in Norrköping so that she'll know when we arrive in Linköping, which is a 30 min car ride from Norrköping. So many köpings. Oh and yeah, me and Frozen Angel were to sleep at big sister's place while Sacchan, Hitsu and Joni had booked a hotel. 

This is where I slept at big sister's apartment. The geek is spreading.

Our carpool company drove me and Frozen Angel to our sister's place when we arrived in Linköping and we got welcomed by sis and her boyfriend – it was really nice to see her again! ;A; I had never been to her new apartment and I must say that it was hella comfy and hey, I got to sleep on the tatami floor! 
She told me that I could eat some of the leftover Thai food and that was appreciated because I was pretty damn hungry. After that we played some Mario Kart 8 together all four of us and I had to try playing with Link! I've never played MK8 before so it was really weird and I... kinda sucked. :'DD Or well, I wasn't that horribly bad (highly depending on cup though, Star Cup showed me no mercy) but I certainly wasn't as much of a pro as I am on Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, lol.
Big sis had asked me and bro before the con to bring her good old Super Nintendo with us and of course we did. I grew up with that shit too so it was a bit hard to let go but hey, it's originally hers anyway. We all three had a huge case of nostalgy when we tried to get the old childhood console to work; it took several tries to get it to start but when it finally worked I think I got a tear in my eye – the old graphics, old musics, all the memories... THE CHILDHOOD FEELS WERE REAL. The only issue was that the start button was so worn out that it barely responded; big sister managed to fix it the next day somehow.
She also tried playing some Megaman X (the nostalgy!!) and she informed us that we actually had the sought-after Japanese version of the game that is wanted by speedrunners. Our console is PAL but we have one of those things for it that makes it possible to play games from other regions! She even told us that when the game was originally bought she just wanted it because it looked cool and got it after bothering mom and dad enough lol – she had no idea that the Japanese version would be valuable. So yeah, she played the first two stages of Megaman X (or Rockman X, as the Japanese version is called) and I was just sitting there on the tatami floor and enjoying myself.

★ Friday ★

The first con day!
I woke up 10 in the morning and was tired as shit, not gonna lie. The first con mornings are always so harsh; I'm really not a morning person, no matter how you put it. I stayed in bed for a while before I finally got up and ate some Havre Knas Fras for breakfast.

The first thing I saw when I woke up.
– Result? Megaman X selection screen music stuck in my head the whole morning!

Big sister's living room certainly belongs to a gamer – there's consoles from Wii U to Playstation 3 and 4 and now a Super Nintendo. She also has a Playstation 2 and the first Playstation somewhere. :)
Me and Frozen Angel started to put on our cosplays slowly after checking with the rest of our gang if we were on time with them. I need to mention though that I had some issues with the makeup, mainly the eyeliner because it was fucking up so badly. I have this kind of liquid eyeliner that dries in a way so that you can literally peel off the liner once dry; it has not been a problem before because I haven't done any thicker lines but oh lord, this time it was horrible to use!! I tried to build up a thicker line on my eyelid and the liner just crumpled and ended up looking like I had slathered fucking black latex on my eyelids?! It looked fugly, ruined everything and I ragequitted on it while a stream of swear words came rolling down from the general direction of the bathroom. Thank God sis was not home, lol. I spent way too long on the makeup and I ended up just borrowing Frozen Angel's liquid liner because I had no reserves with me and he had the same one I had before this current shit...
And as if that was the only problem I ran into – it wasn't. :) I also figured out that the violet circle lenses I had taken with me for Kenshin (without having tried them on before because lack of time) had one of the lenses defective and yeah, I couldn't wear them at all because of that. Thank lord I had taken with me a reserve pair juuuuuust in case. u_u My scarring liquid had also dried out but luckily I had taken with me an unopened bottle of it as well.
 

Kenshin is ready! (obligatory cosplay selfie)

I called Sacchan when me and bro were ready and they came to pick us up... after a truck was done blocking their way from the hotel. The mothertruckers go to attack! We drove to Saab Arena (the con building) and left our Volvo in the parking lot.

Saab Arena viewed from the front when we arrived.

We went inside through the main entrance and were quickly turned around by the entrance checkers/workers because we didn't have our tickets yet – they told us we had to go stand in line outside. We went outside to check the line and all I could think was "hell no".

The long line to get your tickets. (this is just a small part of it)

Me, Frozen Angel, Sacchan and Joni followed the line to see exactly how long it was and it felt like it would never end – I thought Närcon had solved the problem of mega-sized lines!! Oh well, I found a couple friends standing close to the beginning of the line and well, because I'm a sneaky bastard at times (and I was shaking terribly because of the cold) I stayed there and thus didn't have to wait forever to get in. #yolo

Närcon Vinter 2016 con ticket!

We got our tickets and instantly tried to find Sportcenter, aka the second building that had all the merchandise and the gaming room etc. We actually ended up going in the completely wrong direction and got fairly frustrated because there were no signs whatsoever showing which way to go!! When we got fed up with walking around cluelessly we went inside Saab Arena and asked for directions, but much to my annoyment the directions given were really unclear and vague – aka "go over the fence and continue forward". Excuse me but whut?? If I continued straight forward from where I saw the fence I'd cross the car road and enter the industry/school area on the other side which, clearly, didn't belong to the con. >_> Oh well, after some searching and looking for where other con goers were heading we finally found Sportcenter, yay.

Sportcenter ahead, the second building of Närcon Vinter.

What instantly hit me when we got inside Sportcenter was how crammed and narrow it felt. It was also really obvious that it was a... well... sport center. I didn't really like the entrance area because of the non-con cafeteria there (by non-con I mean that it belonged to the building and not to Närcon) and the big squared off area in the middle that made it so that if you wanted to get past the cafeteria area (with tables for eating customers etc) you had to go around it and well, the corridors/passageways were narrow and a bother for me to pass through because I had swords, aka people kept bumping into my swords and it made me crazy.

The entrance/main non-con cafeteria area, seen from one of the corners.

A big fabric sign showing a map of the Sportcenter.

The corridor you had to pass to get to the merchandise hall, foodcourt etc.

We all were so happy to see that bubbletea was available! I had heard rumors online that they would come but I wasn't sure if it was true. All four of us (excluding Hitsu because she was somewhere else) went to plow through the merchandise and I must say that I was pretty satisfied with the variety of goods, even though I nowadays rarely buy stuff at a con because most times it's grossly overpriced.

The foodcourt area. The Närcon cafeteria is next to the wall.

Bubbletea shop – my con is saved!

The merchandise ranged from the usual alpacca plushies to other cutesy stuff, figurines, t-shirts and other wearables along with accessories for alternative fashion, cosplay parts, posters, art books, DVD's and movies and basically anything that you can think of. C: There was even contact lenses but those honestly scare me and I stay away from them – they always seem to be of some kind of shady brands that I've never even heard of before and yeah, I'm quite the lens guru so that says a lot.

This was the view when you entered the merchandise hall.

A lot of small figurines...

The obligatory cute plushies seller. I keep thinking that someday
I want to buy an alpacca...

My Little Pony shop feat. show accurate plush ponies.

Pokémon League badges!

OMG Digimon! ;A;

Pokémon plushies.

Pokémon mascot keychain plushies.
I was so tempted to buy the Latias and Latios ones
because I love and collect those.

When we were walking around the merchandise area some random person passed us by and handed out Namco Bandai paper sheets. On a closer look they were basically lottery tickets to win a Sorey figurine from Tales of Zestiria and the only thing you had to do to enter was to write your contact information and fill in the boxes of what Namco Bandai titles you are a fan of. Me, Joni and Frozen Angel got handed those papers and so we headed off to the gaming room to fill them in because that's where the Bandai Namco booth was. Sacchan got a ticket at the booth and we were quite surprised when we learned that the girl sitting at the booth was actually Finnish, omg! :O We chatted with her for a short while and then when we gave her our tickets she gave us all two booster packs of some Tekken TCG; everyone who entered the lottery got two of those as a freebie. Awesome.

Tekken Card Tournament freebie booster pack.

When we were done checking the merchandise hall we had all gotten hungry enough that going and fetching some grub sounded like a good idea. But as per usual with cons the choices for food are limited to fast food, more or less, and so was the case with Närcon Vinter too. There would have been some kind of wraps and I guess tortillas but oh well, it was easy to go to that truck outside Sportcenter that was serving hamburgers, kebab etc for a fair price. Närcon's own food stands constantly had lines longer than life...

There's no con without fast food.

We all bought the kebab with bread because kebab felt more tempting than burgers (hell, we had eaten burgers two days in a row) and it only cost 55 SEK, which wasn't half bad. It was snowing when we ordered (the pic is taken on Sunday, by the way) so as soon as we got our kebabs we ran inside because we didn't want to have extra snow in our meals, lol. We went to eat our food at the cafeteria/foodcourt area; it was quite the challenge to find a free table and chairs but we managed.

Kenshin + kebab = Kebshin

In case anyone wonders I took off my tekkou before eating. Actually, they were such a pain in the ass that I spent half the con day without them, lol. They wouldn't stay in place for shit and just kept spinning you spin me right 'round baby around my arms and loosening up etc – really annoying. I actually used the tekkou that I made for Ichito back in the days because I wanted brown leather ones, instead of the black fabric ones I had been using previously and which I had bought from eBay years ago. The thing is that because I never wore Ichito longer than a few hours I hadn't really gotten to wear the tekkou long enough to figure out how they behaved and yeah, I had no idea they'd be so goddamn much of a bother to wear. I ended up just putting them on when someone asked for photos and otherwise they were swimming around in my bag. Frozen Angel accidentally almost broke one of the tying strings anyway when he put it on for me because yeah, it's a bitch to do by yourself.
Speaking of my Kenshin cosplay! I had a fair amount of people calling out "Kenshin!" when they saw me, one person fangirling and then –of course– one person asked me if my scar was real. I don't understand why it seem like that at almost every con I wear him to there's always someone who thinks that I actually cut myself in the face, for the sake of cosplay. I mean, it's nice that it looks realistic and all but hey, I'm not that hardcore! :'D

Had some matcha bubbletea for dessert!

I swear that bubbletea is like the nectar of the gods. One of my bigger reasons to go to Närcon Vinter was bubbletea – I love it so much! The matcha milk tea with cherry bubbles was godly, seriously. I bought it twice because it was that good.

Next to the Bubbletea shop was Gottcon, which sold candies, soda etc.

There was also a shop selling Japanese candies and sweets.

Next to the foodcourt was also the "crafting corner" where
you could draw and do those, err, "pärlplattor". Fuse bead pegboard things...?

You could also draw in one of these "con memory" things. :D

We went to the Skecon meetup at 20:00 but when we got there... there was like nothing to do. Four or so people were sitting in a ring on the floor and just chatting away and when me and my company came there we just said a quick hi to them and were left just... standing there. Awkwardly. I must say that it was lame as fuck and I felt like a completely outsider and thus very awkward. I really can't stand meetups when I just get ignored and don't feel welcome. There was some boring muted video with the Skecon mascot dancing Caramelldansen (which I'm really sick off, by the way) but that was about it; the whole meetup felt dead and there were like only that little friend group chatting with their own and not letting others into the fun. Ugh. Totally reminded me why I steer away from meetups. ._. We just awkwardly left after 5 minutes and well, those 5 minutes felt like the longest and most awkward minutes of my life.
I didn't attend any other panels or anything and yeah, I don't think we did that much more on Friday. We did spend some time in the gaming room but I didn't play anything myself; I just find it fun to watch others play. 

One thing though! At one point I reaaaaaally needed to take off my lenses (they suddenly started hurting my eyes and/or feeling really dry and uncomfortable) but I only ever found one bathroom in the Sportcenter building and there was always at least 5 people standing in line for the damn toilet!? I had no time to wait so I started freaking out because I didn't know where any other toilets were and then I had to rush all the way to Saab Arena and ask people there. Luckily I found a free bathroom there that I could use. But holy Christ, arrow signs for nearby bathrooms would be appreciated. During the whole duration of the con I only managed to find 3 bathrooms in total – what the fuck...?

I think we left the con late-ish, around 22:00 or something like that. Hitsu kindly drove me and Frozen Angel to big sister's as we had agreed on. At her place I ate some yummy leftover lasagne and then we watcher her play Until Dawn way too late into the night and, well, I think we all kinda shat ourselves. xD Jump scares goddammit.

★ Saturday ★

The main con day is here!
Me and bro decided on waking up earlier than the day before because bro had a Hetalia panel that he wanted to attend. We had breakfast and started putting on our cosplays – today I was to cosplay Kashuu Kiyomitsu from Touken Ranbu. I called Sacchan after I had put on most of my cosplay, to check if we were on schedule, and it turns out she was a bit behind us so I waited before doing the finishing touches.

Selfie with me as Kashuu my wig is derping
and Sacchan as Atago from Kantai Collection. ♡

When we got to the con we headed straight for the Sportcenter again. Actually, we spent most of our time in there because Saab Arena only had the Artist's Alley, info desk, the visitors' second-hand table, the cosplay competitions and some external events that I didn't care too much about.
We went and chilled in the gaming room but all along I was hoping that those few Touken Ranbu cosplayers I had seen on Friday would be here on Saturday too – I had seen a Tsurumaru, Kogitsunemaru and Heshikiri. But as my luck is crap I of course saw none of those, or well, I saw some of the cosplayers (the previous Heshikiri cosplayer came and talked with me) but they cosplayed from other series. :( Damn. I was honestly expecting to see more TouRabu cosplayers but during the whole Saturday I only found another Kashuu and a Yamato no Kami Yasusada, whom I by the way ended up bonding and chatting a long time with. Oh, and it seemed like no one even recognized me, save for those three; I honestly got more comments about having painted nails (by fellow guys, nonetheless) than I got about my cosplay, LOL.

Some people playing the new Naruto fighting game. Joni is the one closest
to the camera by the way. :)

The geek is strong in here. (gaming room)

I actually spent most of Saturday doing nothing... or well, hanging with my friends. XD It might sound boring as all hell but I actually enjoyed it a lot. It was a lot of fun just walking around and seeing all the cool and happy cosplayers; there was this one Saitama cosplayer from OnePunch-Man who was such a natural joy pill that spotting him immediately put me in a happy mood!

Monster Hunter figurines!

More MonHun figurines!

And one more.

I was happy to find Monster Hunter merchandise but I didn't buy any; I thought they were way too expensive. Some MonHun items were literally three times as expensive as what I've paid for mine directly from Japan so.... yeaaaaah. No thanks. But it's still a feast for the eyes to see the stuff on display!

I was also looking for Touken Ranbu merchandise but, much to my surprise, there was barely anything to be found! I thought it would be a lot more popular but it felt weirdly obscure...?

I'm not sure what these were...

TouRabu posters. There were several different designs.

The posters are self-explanatory but those small figurines I'm a bit confused of what you are supposed to do with them. They all had their arms up and under the arms ran a small groove, almost as if you were supposed to fasten them by the groove on something. I have no idea, I never saw anything like it before. For some reason, when I checked back on those later, only the Mikazuki one was left; the rest sold out. And here I was expecting that Mikazuki would disappear first...

Närcon had these awesome "NärConsent" signs
up here and there. I approve!

This one was outside Sportcenter.

I don't have so much to say about Saturday since I didn't even go watch the cosplay competitions or anything. I guess I should but I'm just not interested enough to stand in line for hours and then sit still more hours on a chair and stare at costumers so far away that I can barely tell what characters they are cosplaying, lol. I hate when all the tall people sit in front of me too. I don't like to sit still for long when I'm at a con because I feel like I miss a lot of what's happening around me; I guess that's the reason why I'm so bad at attending panels too...

This is my Saturday in a nutshell – sit and
chill in the foodcourt area. :D

At some point our gang gathered and we just sat in the foodcourt area and drank bubbletea together. I bought the matcha one again but Hitsu did things better than me – she was so savage that she bought two bubbleteas and drank them both on the same go!

Hitsu wins at life.

When the clock was nearing eight I suddenly got a call from big sister's boyfriend; he told me that he'd come pick us up after eight. This meant that I had to cut my con day shorter than I had planned and I didn't have time to discover everything there was to offer. But the trade-off was not bad at all – me and bro got treated to some super-amazing sushi from one of Sweden's best Japanese restaurants!

So yeah, we spent the last 45 minutes exploring the Saab Arena and, more exactly, the Artist's Alley. We found this one Norwegian guy selling amazing Nintendo characters etc in zombie designs! Me, Sacchan and Frozen Angel ended up talking and gushing over his art for a long time and of course none of us left his table empty-handed – his stuff was seriously way too cool to pass up on!
I also chatted with Jackocalypse for a while because he also had a table at Artist's Alley; he's such a cute and sweet person!

People are standing in line for something in Saab Area's main entrance.

Artist's Alley area.

Also Artist's Alley.

Närcon information desk.

I left the con a little bit past eight and it felt like it all went by so fast; we didn't have any plans on attending on Sunday because we had to leave early, thanks to the long driving distance back home. :( Sacchan, Hitsu and Joni stayed at the con after me and Frozen Angel had to leave. Big sister's boyfriend picked us up and we drove back to their place.

Saab Arena seen from the front during night time. Rainbows!

I must say that leaving "early" from the con didn't feel all that bad once I saw the sushi feast. Holy moly was it delicious!! Best sushi in my life, no question about it. I got to try several sushis I've never tasted before and everything was sooooooo good. ♥

Family sushi dinner! #worthit

After the meal I spent several hours talking and asking questions about Japan with big sister. She has been there several times and talks the language fluently so yeah, I got a lot of information! She even asked if I wanted to borrow some of her language books but I forgot to ask for them when we left on Sunday morning, damnit.

★ Post-con (Sunday & Monday) ★

I know, Sunday is not actually "post-con" since Närcon is a 3-day con. But I decided to put it in post-con because I didn't attend the con, save for a quick visit to pick up provisions.

On Sunday morning I packed my stuff as soon as I woke up. At some point Frozen Angel called Hitsu and asked if we could do a quick stop at the con just so that we could go pick up bubbleteas for the trip or whatever else we wanted; Hitsu said it was okay but we had to be quick.
Me and bro said goodbye to big sis and her partner, I gave back the reserve keys and we left – I felt sad. :(
Everyone except Hitsu went inside Sportcenter one last time (in our normal clothes) and I bought myself one last bubbletea and also some merchandise that I had been pending back and forth with if I wanted to buy it or not; I ended up buying a Latias and Latios Pokémon plushie, they were too cute to resist. ;_; 
We got back into the car and left Linköping behind. The trip back to Umeå went without any problems, just like the trip down. We stopped to eat at Uppsala once again and yes, it was Max. Again. XD I still had coupons! They are neverending.
Once again I spent a fair amount of my time playing either Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate or talking with mostly Joni about how a jumping stick is the deadliest weapon.
But guys, I need to tell you one thing! While I was playing MonHun I did a rare G rank Expedition quest and well, I think I died a little inside when the following monsters showed up on my screen – the game decided to fuck me over, big time. MonHun fans will understand the pain. I had no chance and, even less so, because both of their timers started fairly close to one another. Fuck my hunter life. :)

DOUBLE SAVAGE DEVILJHO!!! #savageaf #rekt

We arrived at Umeå not too late but yeah, we had to sleep early anyway because Hitsu had an airplane to pass the morning after (she's a busy girl!) that she couldn't allow to miss. 
We woke up on Monday morning before the pigs had time to fart and Sacchan, me, Frozen Angel and Joni had to dig up Sacchan's poor Citroën from all the snow that had buried it meanwhile we were gone. It was a good thing that the thing even started because it had been outside completely in the cold...
The drive from Umeå back up to Haparanda and to Finland went fine. I cracked some hilarious Finnish puns that made everyone burst out laughing – success! Nothing else noteworthy happened except that we saw 5+ reindeers on the road, 60 km south of Skellefteå around 07:00 in the morning. One dead reindeer was lying next to the trench and the rest were scattered around the road, scaring the shit out of Sacchan who was driving slowly and trying to get past them. Luckily they didn't approach our car.
When we arrived at our destination we were hungry and we went to eat... one last time... at Max. :DDDDDDD

Before I end this con report I just want to show my convention loots! (aka merch purchases)

I bought these two on Sunday just before we left; I couldn't leave them. ;o;
Latias & Latios small Craneking plush dolls.

Sesshoumaru and Miroku rubber straps from InuYasha
and a zombie Yoshi necklace from Artist's Alley by Fredrik Edén.

I was seriously so excited to find InuYasha merchandise! You never find any merch from it nowadays because it's such an old series. I really love InuYasha because it was my first manga that I started collecting and Sesshoumaru is one of my all-time favorite characters. I actually bought the Sesshoumaru strap already on Friday (insta-buy!) but I bought the Miroku one on Saturday evening.

_____________________

And that pretty much sums up my Närcon Vinter journey. I had a pleasant experience and I'd gladly go to NCV again. ^_^ The only complaints I have is the general lack of direction signs, especially to Sportcenter because it took my group a while to find our way there and it was frustrating. I also never found the Pokémon Gaiden room because I never found any signs or a map that showed where it was. 

I'd also really appreciate it if there were more food options than the usual fast food. I'd love to be able to buy some sushi or other simpler Japanese foods, unless it's horribly overpriced. I remember Uppcon having had sushi back when they still existed and it was really cool so yeah, I don't understand why Närcon hasn't followed in their footsteps yet...?

Oh and yeah, this is not Närcon's fault but I want to mention it anyway – I only had nice and friendly encounters with people, except for this one cosplayer who was walking behind me and Sacchan on Saturday when we were about to enter the gaming room. I clearly heard her say in a really bitchy voice "why can't people walk faster??" and it really pissed me off. She maybe just carelessly thought out loud but what really grinded on my gears was that she clearly seemed to assume that, because we were speaking Finnish, then we wouldn't understand Swedish. Well, I'm sorry to break it for you but I'm completely bilingual and I totally understood that you were being a jerk behind us. Don't fucking go bitch about people when you don't know why they do what they do – in this case Sacchan was wearing high heels that were way too big for her –and thus troublesome to walk in– and her feet were hurting; I was walking next to her so that she could lean on me if she lost her balance or needed to put her shoes back on, in case they went out of place (which they did, several times). I also walked slowly because my cosplay restricted my movement (surprise motherfucker – cosplays sometimes do that! :D), aside from supporting my friend.
So yeah, if you're gonna bitch at others just because they are slow (and there was enough space so that you could pass us by, anyway) then kindly piss off; if you don't know the reasons –and let's face it, hindrances are not always visible– then don't open your fucking mouth and, especially, don't assume that those you refer to won't understand. I'm just as Swedish as you are so yeah, I'm sorry but you made yourself look like an inconsiderate and selfish asshole. Congrats. :)

But yeah, thanks for a great con everybody! o/

Shiro Samurai out ~

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Bonus pic!

This seal plush is super cute and all but yeah, the placement of that tail fin pippelihäntä hihi really fucks with my mind... XD It stayed as a joke between me, Frozen Angel and Sacchan during the con, lol.

Ciao! ~