Photoogling at Cosfest X.1 2011

Yes, I totally invented a new word there. It’s such a painstaking breath to say “Photographing and Ogling at Cosfest”, so Photoogling it’ll be. Sue me.

Ikamusume seeming scarcely bothered by the masses of unconquered humanity milling about her

Picture spam after the break, obviously :)

So ’twas Cosfest time again, and while the nature and details of the event isn’t much different than last year, that’s not a bad thing when you’re a nice and cosy little con with pretty stellar cosplay quality. It’s held at the same place at Downtown East, and this time around I managed to drag two pals – hoa and zw – into coming with me. Oh what an improvement over the old ronery days of solo con-going :)

So pretty much just like last year, there’s an indoor dome-ish thing with the big stage:

…embraced by a fantastic lawn of grass and sunshine:

But this year they opened up another indoor location, a little tent-hall next to the main-stage dome where all the artist booths are now placed, the nice effect of which is the main dome becoming noticeably less congested this time around.

We only went down on the afternoon of the second day, and as usual there’re a bunch of elaborate cosplay “reenactment” competitions going on on the stage, but we didn’t check too much of that. Those are amusing for awhile but I feel the larger part of the charm of Cosfest lies off-stage, amidst the frolicking, milling masses of cosplayers. Cosfest I feel is still the most unwired and homely of the three major yearly cons I attend here. Less elaborate sponsor booths, less heady celebrity events, just lots and lots of freely interacting cosplayers. And also, imo, the best cosplay quality overall.

Due to some timing mishaps and last-minute stomach-ache attacks, we were late to the party, and only hung around for a couple of hours. It was still enough to exhaust us though – photoogling is srs bsns :P We had a lot of fun, and here on out I’ll just do a picture spam with some photo-by-photo commentary to complete the coverage.

Starting off again with the awesome Ikamusume cosplayer in the OP, cos you know you’d take a second look too ;)

She was one of the first cosplayers that caught our eye coming into the venue, and whoa were we fawning over her. I guess this alongside Azunyan last year cements the wise truth that it takes a real-life loli to effectively cosplay a loli character.

Still, she’s got that right mix of cheek, pompousness and cute for a convincing portrayal of our oceanic invader. Very nice.

Author note: we are not lolicons mkay?

We are not lolicons mkay?

There better. Something interesting we noticed is the relative lack of Naruto cosplay this time round. All the cons I’ve been to last year were littered with multiple copies of Naruto’s with broomstick hair-wigs as well as all manner of random Konoha ninja prowling around the place with their creepy Akatsuki counterparts. Much less this year. Are we finally getting over it? Can it be?

Oh, so effective. I fail for not knowing what character she’s doing, but that’s a phenomenal quality girl-in-uniform right there.

and dat zettai ryouiki, DAT ZETTAI RYOUIKI

*Cough* moar!

While Naruto appears to have suffered a popularity dip, Macross Frontier

As well as the usual collection of frolicking Vocaloids

are still going strong. Inexplicably K-ON cosplays were also in pretty short supply. What gives gais? I thought folks were naming K-ON as their raison d’etre? Or wait, do those consist mainly of hikkikomori kimoi otaku?

I KID! I KID!!

We did find a lone Mugi wandering around

In all seriousness I’m a little disappointed. Back around the airing of season 1, the Don’t Say Lazy costumes were pretty much the rage. Why do people not like the costumes in the new EDs? They’re great!

Only found one ;_;

Another cosplay in constant short supply – Clannad! I rushed so fast to snap a pic when I saw them that my photo ended up so crappy.

(And I love how Sunohara’s all like “sup”)

And now another staple – Final Fantasy cosplays! I challenge you to find a con without any of them. And then I challenge you to find many cons with an epic TONBERRY cosplay:

Good memories of the bucketloads of Tonberries I fought playing FF8 while trying to get that stupid hidden GF :P

Speaking of weird cosplays..

Elizabeth! I just started watching Gintama, and it’s funny to think that I wouldn’t have recognized this bumbling figure if I had come just weeks before. Speaking of Gintama, we found Kagura hanging around the courtyard too, probably looking for sukonbu.

Not bad

And then there are the “giant-wing” cosplays, that I noticed have also been making consistent appearances in local cons.

Gotta be pretty hard to set up and balance

Dat wingspan!

Also: Long live Evangelion!

Moar!

This quiet Yuki caught my eye while we were shopping around among the doujin booths. She was sitting at the end of a table near the edge of the hall, amidst the noise and chaos swirling around her, hunched quietly and demuredly over her work. Very nice. I had to walk around several times to find a good clear angle to take this shot amidst the milling crowd. Sorry I had to photograph you behind your back Yuki!

I feel like my combined con-going experience so far has caused me to level-up. While I had been timidly poking around the edges of the photographing crowds in my first cons, I now decisively squeeze in to try and get a good distance/angle, and have also acquired the chutzpah to boldly ask to take a picture of cosplayers who aren’t already posing. Hopefully that translates into somewhat better photos in the post compared to previous ones :)

Incidentally, Hoa was talking about doing a cosplay the next con we go to, so… I dunno. Another level up imminent?

Showing t3h love!

Defining GAR

Fumino: “You put your hands like this, yes. Now you say ‘Nya!'”

Nice pic. Did Lord Vader decide to try and take over the galaxy with moe after the death star blew up? Can’t say I disagree with the choice of hiring Fumino as coach ;)

Now that I’m looking closely at this, are the Chobits duo traps? Looks like they might be..

And these… aren’t traps, right? If they are, well… O_O consider me trapped.

Moar con sights…

… and that about covers it I think :) My bros despicably held on to their wallets, leaving me to end up the only guy parted with his money at the end of the day ;_; Well, it was still a calculated purchase – I needed an extra bookmark as well as a mousepad, and had been holding out until I could buy them in a con. I got a Black Rock Shooter bookmark easy, but for some diabolical reason, almost all of the limited amount of mousepads on sale featured either Uchiha Sasuke or Kurosaki Ichigo. What gives? Finally at the very end, we discovered a lone, singular K-ON mousepad, sporting some somewhat shoddy print quality and a little too much pink for my tastes. Well, what can I say, I was pretty desperate for a mousepad.

At least the damned thing works like a charm. Till next time :)