AX 2006 Costumes!

[furtech]

There was a poochload of costumes at the Anime Expo. There was no end to the parade of Incredibly Hot Girls In Skimpy Costumes and Bisho-guys. Incredible craftsmanship. But...because I have weird hobbies, I only have pics of big fuzzy monster costumes. I got damage.


Here's a group being interviewed. As expected, the press had a field day. Fortunately, they tend to focus on the pretty girls in the skimpy outfits rather than the freakish more unique costumers. This can be frustrating for other cons: once the press finds a focus, that's the reputation that con will have forever. SF fans=geeks; furries=freaks; LARP=sad. In anime fandom's case, this works in their favor, as the cons are portrayed as just a lot of fun.

In the dealer's room, there was a huge line: I found out that they were waiting to me a pair of J-Rock idols . J-Rockers have huge, scary fangroups. I'm surprised to find that the same mindset can be found here in the US-- though it could be part of the "trying to be MORE Japanese than the Japanese" mindset of some anime fans. It's ironic that by imitating the Japanese fans in ultra-fanatic, screaming, berserker glomping -- that they are kind of imitating the Japanese who are imitating the Americans who are...etc. Crazy.

In my wanderings I came across a fellow creature-cosplayer , hoshikage! She has corrupted convinced another cosplayer that playing creatures is fun! It doesn't hurt that she won a craftsmanship award in the masquerade!

This guy had a REALLLY BIG SWORD!

Okay, so this does count as a (visible) pretty girl, even if she's in a monster costume.


Here is a very fuzzy Red 13

Sentai! This is a very cool costume! He's playing a villain from Gaoranger-- the Japanese version of Power Rangers. Very nice job! All craft foam as far as I can tell. Nicely on-model. Too bad neither he nor his friend spoke much English or I'd have dragged them to the Sentai gathering on Tuesday. I think they were from South America.

Here's a very nice Vampire Hunter D.

Cool idea of the con: Someone made a giant MUSUBI costume! The cool idea is that they used those packing peanuts to simulate giant grains of sticky rice! Gotta use that for -something-!

I'm not sure what the giant orange cat is. He looked like Bill The Cat, but I was informed that he's a thingie from Final Fantasy. He was hanging with a Moogle, so that makes sense. Kind of neat in a skanky orange cat way.

There were a bunch of costumes that I thought were really cool, but I had -no idea- what they are or what show (if any) they are from:

So sleek and cool, but no idea what he/she/it is. They were with the bad guys in the Kingdom Hearts gathering, tho'.

Totally tribal and cool, but I have no clue at all what it's from. There were two of them, the other was more animal-like but still colored and decorated in the same theme.

Another colorful character with pointy things and lots of buckles that looked cool. No idea.

These two win the WTF-but-cool costumes. They were always in motion, all a-wiggle and wavy.


Next: "My Costume Was GARBAGE!"

Comments

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I love Animagic-- I really try to get to that one because it's like a cosplayers' relaxicon. AM is a nice place to see all the great costumes from over the year in a casual, relaxed setting. The hotel/city is a hole, but the con is a lot of fun.

I still get kind of lost at PMX, though I'll still try to make it this year.

[burmecian-storm.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about AM. The weather could be a bit better, too, but... if we suffered lived through AX's weather, we can live through that, right?

I only went for a day last year (didn't go the first year). And since it's only two days this year, I thought I'd give it a try.