Animecon 2016

Last weekend was quite an adventure, since we visited yet another anime convention! This time we journeyed to Animecon in Jyväskylä :3 At first we thought that we would not be able to attend this con, since all the hotels seemed so expensive and a one-day trip would've not been nice (8 hours in a bus in total for one day = hell no), but a friend came to the rescue and promised we could stay over at her place! ♥ This made it possible for us to travel to Jyväskylä on Friday evening, attend the con on both days (Saturday and Sunday) and then leave on Sunday evening. So much easier without all the hassle of checking in and out of the hotel, etc.

Saturday

We woke up at 8am to get ready and then got to the con venue at around 10am. It would've been possible to exchange our tickets to the wristbands already on Friday at 4-6pm, but sadly our bus arrived at 6:50pm so a little bit too late. It's okay though, the line wasn't that long on Saturday and we got in pretty fast.

While we were waiting in the line, a few reporters from a local magazine came to talk with us and took some pictures for an online article ^^;; It was quite awkward... I have no idea why they decided to come to us, there were so many awesome cosplayers everywhere and all XD I guess they really liked my lolita outfit, lol... In the article they had mixed up the things we said; Sarg said that this is her 3rd Animecon, but in the article they wrote that I was the one who said that :D

The thing that really infuriated me was that they had written that I came to the con with my "friend" Sarg >.< Such a heterosexist assumption, two females = must be friends. If one of us was a male, I bet they would've at least asked if we're a couple or just friends... But they definitely didn't ask us, nor did we say that we are friends. They could've left the whole "friend" word out of the article and just said that "this person came to the con with this person". We also could've been relatives, like cousins or something, lol. But yeah, if you're writing something for a magazine, don't write things based on your own assumptions, thank you =_=

This is what I looked like on Saturday. I recently bought the skirt (Angelic Pretty Milky-chan) second-hand and wanted to create a deer themed coord around it~ I don't wear lolita that often nowadays, but I couldn't resist buying this skirt since it's one of my all-time favorite prints and I found it for a good price! Everything else in my outfit is off-brand, Sarg made the hairband and decorated my shoes *3* 

The first thing we did after getting in was going through the sales hall and artist alley! We took quite many photos...

Pokémon goodies~ You could really see that Pokémon is quite popular in Finland, there was a lot of merchandise everywhere and on Sunday most of it had been bought :D

Cute plushies ;3;

This pink squirrel was adorable! ♥ But I've been trying to avoid buying more big plushies and didn't see a smaller version of this one :c

I've seen these Pokémon Kuttari plush at some online shops, but only now after seeing them in person I fell in love with them! ♥ Would love to get Sylveon, Espeon and Vaporeon! And maybe Eevee too! XD

I nearly screamed when I spotted this bag, it was so cute! ♥ I've been looking for a small brown bag, so this one was an instant purchase :3 There was also a darker brown version (you can see a little bit of it in the top right corner), but I liked this lighter one more.

Besides anime related merchandise, there was also stuff from some games and movies!

These little Marvel plushies were adorable XD 

Moving on to some cosplay photos. We didn't go to see the cosplay competitions this time, so unfortunately we don't have any photo material from those. And overall, we only took photos of a few cosplays :/

A lovely Tiana (The Princess and the Frog) cosplayer~ When I spotted her I was like "omg she's so pretty, I want a photo!", but then she came to me and was like "omg, you're so cute!" XD

Fairy Maki *w* Love those wings~ Seeing a full fairy cosplay group of the Love Live girls would be awesome! ♥

Ciri from Witcher 3!

Belle from Beauty and the Beast ♥ This dress was so gorgeous and detailed~

After taking the first look at the sales stuff, we met with Petunia and went to Teeleidi, a cute little tea shop :) It wasn't far away from the Paviljonki building, where the con was held. 

The building is beautiful both from outside...

...and inside!

They also had a bunch of cute tea pots for sale~ ♥ Me and Sarg were tempted to buy one, but in the end decided not to take the risk of it getting broken :c

They had cute candy, chocolate and honey for sale as well :3

Their tea selection was INSANE, there were so many different tea flavors to choose from!

In the end we (or I...) chose mango sencha tea :) I also ordered a piece of blueberry pie, with some vanilla sauce ♥

If you look veeery closely you can see a glimpse of little Miu on Miku's lap XD (Miku belongs to Petunia)

After getting back to the con, we walked around the sales hall again and after a while decided to go to get something to eat before the next programs start.

There was a restaurant at the con venue, we ate ramen soup there :) I usually hate mushrooms, but I was so hungry that I didn't really care hahah... I guess mushrooms are not so bad ^^;

The first actual program for the day that we wanted to see was a Moomin metal performance by Tolkutonta! Here's one playlist with his covers :) Combining Moomin OST and metal music is such an awesome idea. Sarg has been listening to it more than me (I tend to prefer lighter stuff nowadays), but the performance was still fun to see and hear. My only complaints about the program are that the time and place were suddenly changed, and even then the program started like 15 minutes late >.< People waiting in the line grew quite impatient.

Next, I went to see the Pokémon musical, which is a fan-made project. We missed it once when we didn't attend Popcult in April, so I made sure to see it this time! Sarg had wanted to see it too, but she had a terrible headache and decided to go grab something to eat instead. Petunia was sitting next to me, so I didn't have to be completely alone! \o/ Unfortunately I don't have any material to show from the musical. It was forbidden to film it (it'll apparently be available on Youtube at some point) and I couldn't take any photos in the first place, since the camera was with Sarg

The musical was absolutely amazing, much better than I had expected! All the costumes looked gorgeous (especially Lapras' dress and the Gyarados!! ♥) and the actors were great. My favorite was Persian, such great acting and being true to the character~

After the musical, we left the con to rest and watch Zootopia :D Which was a great movie! If you haven't seen it yet, I do recommend watching it asap >:3 Me and Sarg had to buy it on DVD afterwards, hahah.

Sunday

On Sunday we slept until 10am and weren't in a hurry, since there wasn't really any interesting program in the morning. We got to the con venue at 12pm and went to get our seat tickets to the piano concert, thank god there were still plenty of tickets available!

Miu with Petunia's girl~

The main event of the day was the piano concert performed by the guest of honor, Animenz. His channel is full of amazing piano covers, so do check it out! I was really looking forward to his performance. There are those people who can play the piano well and then there are those people who can play well AND put emotion into their performances. Animenz is definitely one of the latter. 

He played a special Madoka medley~ I loooove this series and the OST so much, hearing a piano medley in a live concert felt amazing! ♥

I also managed to record some of it as a video! There's a bit of the beginning missing, since Sarg didn't know which camera button was used for taking videos and I was still trying to get back to Earth from my cloud nine, hahah XD

I have no idea why the video quality looks so shitty in Youtube, there weren't even any settings for choosing higher/lower quality when I uploaded the video D: I've been thinking of uploading some doll/figure related content (like box openings) on Youtube, so I definitely need to do some research on what causes these quality issues.

Here's a comparison of the original vs. Youtube quality :'D

Anyway, then at some point he started playing a song that "everyone would surely recognize" - it was Dango Daikazoku, the ending theme from Clannad ;w; It's such a cute song! ♥ I admit that I was silently singing along in my head, hahah. Although I generally have a bad memory, song lyrics tend to get stuck on my head very easily so I remember the full lyrics to like hundreds of songs ^^;;

He played many other great songs too, like Colors from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Sword Art Online medley, Main Theme from Howl's Moving Castle, Unravel from Tokyo Ghoul, Secret Base from Ano Hana, and Butter-Fly from Digimon Adventure!

Although the concert was awesome, I was slightly disappointed that he didn't play Brave Shine from Fate/Stay Night: UBW, which was listed in the flyer as one of the songs he would play in his concert :( I had really been looking forward to it. Some other songs in the list had been changed as well, I wonder why... Well, at least I can listen to it through his Youtube channel!

We had planned to go to see the cosplay competitions after the concert, but since it was a bit late from the schedule we were afraid that we might not make it in time to our bus (especially since we would still need to pick our stuff from the cloakroom, etc.) and decided to leave the con already. We went to  buy some candy and ate at Hesburger :D Then at 6pm we left back towards Helsinki in the bus~

Animecon loot~ Sheep plushie and cat bag for me, sloth plushie for Sarg. Aaand a few Overwatch art prints and a sticker from Kiwii :3 I try to avoid buying too much stuff at conventions, as I know that I can find most of the stuff for a cheaper price online.

Miu also found something from the con - her first own Miku figure! She's really proud of it x3

All in all, had a great time at the con! :)