Animation On Display 2012 Cosplay Report

Photo by Kei Tsubasa Cosplay Photography

(Read my full convention report here.)

I cosplayed Time-Skip Yoko from Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann to Animation on Display on Saturday, February 18th 2012. While my cosplay still needs some fixing up, it was met with an overwhelmingly good response. I had my photo taken quite a lot, by both guys and girls, and I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was with my friend who was dressed at Simon from Gurren Lagann. People respond more to people cosplaying in pairs or groups.

I did endure a notable amount of dirty looks from parents who were with their daughters. It was a hurtful, but not surprising, I understand that they were protective of their daughters, and that's actually a good thing, I just wish that people, adults especially, could hide their distaste better. I wasn't bothering them, most of the time, I wasn't withing five feet of them, but they felt the need to shoot me a dirty look. That level of hate is very hurtful, no matter the reasoning behind it. This was all made up for by the end of the day though, one girl's mother talked to me for quite a bit of time about my costume, asking if I made it, and telling me that I did a good job on it when I told her that I did. She seemed apprehensive of me at first, but by the end of our short conversation, after seeing that I am very sweet and polite and not a threat, she seemed much more comfortable around me. I'm so glad that she talked to me and took the time to get to know me a little, regardless of how I was dressed. Of course her daughter was also very sweet and took a photo of me. If I could tell the parents who gave me dirty looks one thing, it's that I don't dress like that every day, it's a costume that I wear only a few times a year out of love for the character and series.

Photo by Kei Tsubasa photography

My rifle broke yet again, as I expected, the scope came off. Despite the valiant effort of another cosplayer to help me save it by letting me use the hot glue he had on him, it came completely apart. Throughout the day, and before the convention, I was given lots and lots of different suggestions on how to make the scope more stable, which I did want to try out, but by the end of the day, I decided that the scope is just not stable enough for large crowds and being carried around all day. I decided quite a while ago that I wanted to add a Dai Gurren Dan flag to my rifle, and I'm going to do just that and leave the scope off. In the series, both the scope and the bipod are removable pieces, so I don't feel bad not having either of them.

In addition to my rifle falling apart, I also apparently left a trail of studs from my belt wherever I went. Apparently the way the rifle hit the back of the belt rubbed a lot of them off. I have yet to figure out a better way for them to stay on, but it was recommended that I use E6000 glue for my rifle, so maybe I'll look into it and see if it'll help with my belt.

I had a photoshoot with Weise Studios and my friend who was dressed as Simon. It was very short due to the cold and the lack of light (mostly due to the cold though, I think). We were told by staff not to sit on the rocks outside because the hotel didn't like it, which was disappointing, but we're not ones to be delinquents, so we couldn't get many photos on the most dynamic terrain, but we did get a few. We also took a few photos under a pagoda-type structure (I'm sure there's a more proper name for it, but I don't know it), but it was really, really cold under it because it was in a canyon-type area and the wind blew straight through it.

This was my first time wearing contact lenses to a convention. They were uncomfortable, despite wearing them for an hour or so a day in the week leading up to the convention, but not unbearable. Had they been unbearable, I would have just taken them out, I don't suffer that much for cosplay. My eyes got pretty dry a couple of times during the day, but I just took a break to put eye drops in, which helped a ton. I'm not sure how often I'll use contact lenses, since they are uncomfortable and make my vision pretty blurry. Also, they were pretty expensive, so I don't want to buy any more, haha. (I'm not wearing my contacts in the photos by Kei Tsubasa Cosplay Photography, those were taken at a time when I had taken them out for a couple of hours.)

Overall, my Yoko cosplay mostly survived Animation on Display 2012. There still needs to be some changes made, and some things fixed of course, but that's just the nature of cosplay!