Desucon Frostbite 2017

I spent last weekend at an anime convention, Desucon Frostbite! Sarg didn't want to come this time (she prefers the summertime cons), so I traveled and stayed the night at the hotel with Tiinyan & The Dudes (also known as her brother and one of her brother's friends) :3

Unfortunately, this time I didn't take many photos... Partly because I wanted to focus on just enjoying the convention myself and partly because I don't have any good lens for photographing at indoor events with bad lighting, it's been really bugging me lately x_x I should do some research to see if there's an affordable lens that'd suit my needs...

Tiinyan took more photos than me, she has written about Saturday on her blog so check that out as well!

We arrived at the convention at around 10am on Saturday, just after the doors had been opened!

Naturally the first thing we wanted to do was to check out the sales hall! We had planned to go to listen to a choir performing anime songs right after that, but ended up being too slow at the sales hall and the performance had already started when we had seen only half of the sales stuff... So we decided to skip the performance and take our time going through the sales stuff. The hall was quite crowded every time we went there during the weekend!

There was also the "artist alley" where people had their own table for selling self-made art, like stickers, key chains, magnets, etc.

Took a photo of the salad that I ate on Saturday :D

The Finnish anime conventions usually have a Guest of Honor from Japan, someone from the anime/manga industry. This time it was Toshihiro Kawamoto, who is an animator and also the co-founder/director of the anime studio Bones. He has done character designs for series like Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain and also Noragami (which is my latest anime/manga obsession ♥). I really enjoyed listening to him talk about how the process of character designing goes and he even showed us some character design sketches from Cowboy Bebop and Wolf's Rain! On Sunday he also showed photos of Bones' studio.

On Saturday evening, there were cosplay contests - European Cosplay Gathering preliminaries for solos and groups (which included a performance), and a "smaller" solo contest where only the costumes were judged. We sat quite far away, so I didn't even try to take photos with my camera... But luckily I found some videos from Youtube afterwards :D (None of these were taken by me)

This was one of the funniest cosplay performances that I've yet seen XD I grew up watching Disney movies and this brought back so many memories from my childhood ♥ They placed 2nd in the group category.

I also really liked this performance, even though I'm not familiar with the characters or even the series that they're from.

I'm not even a fan of the Hobbit or LOTR stuff, but thought that this was a good performance (and their costumes looked awesome as well). Sadly they didn't get placed :(

None of the solos for the ECG preliminaries really caught my attention, but my guess for the winner did go right!

The halftime show (titled "Anime on low budget") was the best thing ever, so many laughs XDD Most of it is in Finnish, sadly.

Couldn't find separate clips of the costume contest, but here's the whole thing in one video. Ultimate Madoka was my absolute favorite, the details on that dress were so gorgeous! *o* ♥ She placed 2nd in the contest.

There was only a short break before the AMV contest started :D So many hours of sitting, our poor asses were screaming, hahah... But still, didn't want to pass on seeing the AMVs! I really like them, not only as a form of art, but also because they can be a great way to find out about some new anime series or movies that you haven't watched before.

The judges chose this one as the Best Video!

This won the title of "Most Impressive Video" and actually got me interested about the anime it was about!

This was voted as the Audience's Favorite Video. Yuri on Ice, of course :'D But it's also a great and humorous video! (Song is in Finnish)

We also attended some panels during the weekend, this one was called "Anime, adulthood and mortgage and for me it was one of the highlights in this convention :D Basically, the person keeping the lecture talked about how the anime hobby changes when you become an adult. There were many humorous moments, but everything was also so true!

Me and Tiinyan both had a Pureneemo girl with us, here's a photo of them together ♥ Tiinyan's Fuuka on left, my Emi on right ^^ I also had little Miu with me. If you follow me on Instagram, you might've seen me post some photos from the convention featuring her, but I didn't take any proper photos of her with my camera.

The convention ended on Sunday evening with the ending ceremony, where the Guest of Honor for summer Desucon 2017 was announced.... And it's Yuuki Kaji! He's a voice actor, probably best known for voicing Eren from Attack on Titan. Following the announcement there were around 20 seconds of excited screaming and clapping (and some "NO WAY" yells as well hahah), so I guess many people were happy about this announcement XD It's awesome that Desucon managed to get such a big name as the Guest of Honor!


As for my con loot... I got such a cute plushie, some stickers, keychains and a notebook as a souvenir for Sarg ^3^ There were surprisingly few tempting plushies this time, but that was only a good thing for my wallet, hahah...

Overall, the convention was great and I enjoyed being in the company of Tiinyan & The Dudes :3 And actually, our next convention (where Sarg will be coming to as well) will be after just two weeks! ♥

Desucon 2015 experience

Hi guys, I'm back~ I didn't have time to blog about Desucon before leaving to the Nightwish concert cruise on Monday and during the cruise while I did have time, there was no working Internet connection X'D I had so much fun, but I'm absolutely exhausted now and have many posts to make and photos to edit...

I apologize for the image heaviness, but I wanted to write down my con experience in detail and share lots of photos as well ^^; This'll be a fun entry to look back to in the future and also works as a sort of diary for myself.

Saturday

We had to wake up at 5am on Saturday to make it to the bus in time... There would've been some programs on Friday already, but nothing too interesting and worth paying for the extra night at the hotel. The bus trip went fast and our hotel was right next to the bus stop, so we went to leave our stuff there. We couldn't check-in yet, but at least they were nice to let us store our bags in a locked room, so we didn't have to carry everything around at the con. The hotel seemed to be aware of the convention, as they had a lovely sign saying "Have a nice Desu-day!" I forgot to take a photo of it, but had to mention it as we thought it was so thoughtful ^^

While we walked towards Sibeliustalo where the convention was held, we received a lot of weird stares X'D Most of them were probably wondering what the heck are these weirdos (which is no wonder actually, considering that I had an unicorn horn on my forehead lol), but some also seemed fascinated. A lovely lady in her 70s came to talk to us and complimented our outfits, saying that Desucon was mentioned in the TV news and that she would love to attend such events if she wasn't so old. She even said that she supports gay people (without us mentioning anything about the suspect) and we were like thumbs up right away XD Such a sweet person~

After reaching the con, we met with Tiinyan, her brother and friend and went to check out the sales tables and art street first. Even though they just opened, there were a lot of people ^^;; Especially the art street was so crowded that it was hard to move... Me and Tiinyan chatted about it and she told me that the art street has been in the same place during the earlier conventions as well >.<

A BJD spotted!

On Saturday I only bought a pack of strawberry Pockys and an adorable Alpaca keychain from the art street, but on Sunday I made the luckiest find ever! I'll be making a separate post for that figure, so I won't reveal what it is just yet ;3 For now I'll just say that it's a figure and damn pretty!

Pocky love ;3; Here you can also see a glimpse of my dress~

My new camera mascot! ♥

Sarg found an A4 size art print of Geralt XD

And Sarg also found this cutiepie, a little Numera/Goomy plush ♥♥♥

Next we went to listen to an interesting lecture of 3D in anime, it was actually the only lecture we attended during the con ^^; After that we had some time for general hanging out, eating and taking photos. At this point Spica and Nolluska joined us and we spent some time outside with our dolls~

Tiinyan brought her beautiful Smartdoll Mirai! ♥ Just look how pretty she is ;3;

And this is the other cutie she brought, Pureneemo Yuuta :3 I fell in love with this one as well... I've been safe from the Neemo boys so far, but this one is so damn cute and would also make a cute girl ^3^ (No offense to Yuuta, you're an adorable boy too, of course! *hugs him*)

Nolluska's beautiful Unoa Elder Sister!

My and Spica's Alpacas (Pinki-chan and Aobaca) had a little date XD I've seen Aobaca in person many times before, but I didn't realize that he's actually smaller than Pinki-chan lol... Looks like the two Alpacas got along just fine though!

The convention was filled with awesome cosplays and outfits! ♥ I wish I had taken more photos of them, but I was quite nervous and shy to ask people if I could take a photo of them... ; //// ; I'm definitely more of a still-life photographer, people have always been my weak point. Hopefully I'll get more courage in the future conventions though!

Sarg took me a photo of a pink army guy XD

Saber! ♥

Kirito-kun! ♥

There was also little Yui along, so adorable ;___; 

One of the main events during the con was definitely the cosplay competition! We reserved our seat tickets right after arriving at the con at around 9.30am and I believe all the seats were taken by 12am or so. It was a wonderful show, all the cosplays and performances were incredible!

We got quite good seats in the 3rd row! :)

First there was the Euro Cosplay contest were each of the contestants had prepared a short performance and the judges chose who gets to represent Finland in the Championships held in October in London! I tried to search for a video of the show from Youtube so I could've added it to this post, but couldn't find one yet :/

This was the winner! The outfit is very detailed and the performance was super funny, so unexpected XD

All of the Euro Cosplay contestants

Then there was the Hall Cosplay competition where the contestants were randomly chosen from the cosplaying con visitors! I wish I had gotten more photos of the outfits or at least of the group, but the official photographers in the front row were in my way ^^;

This Kotori cosplay was one of the cutest I've ever seen! ♥

After the cosplay show, I took a photo of this beautiful Cinderella cosplayer~ ♥ I saw her many times during the con, but didn't have the courage to ask for a photo earlier... What a coincidence that she actually sat right next to me at the cosplay show, so I finally gathered enough courage to ask her if I could take a photo after the show >////< She seemed so nice and I think she looked stunning as Cinderella, definitely one of my favorite cosplays from the con! ♥

Then we went back to the hotel to check-in and rest a while before the evening party. We ended up being super lazy and not going there even though we had planned otherwise. We watched some TV and went to bed early =3=

Sunday

On Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel and then walked to the con again and attended a Dollfie Dream meet-up :) It was fun to meet new people and see all the lovely DDs, though now I'm more and more tempted to get a DD of my own...

Spica's Yumeka with a new Alpaca friend :3

Tiinyan's lovely Mirai again ♥

And little Yuuta posing with my Chizu x3 So cute that I just can't... 

A group photo of the DDs + Mirai ♥

And another group photo of the smaller visitors XD

Before the AMV contest we had some time to grab something to eat, though the lines in the shop were so long that we ended up not having time to eat before the contest started... There were over 30 videos, but all of them were great to see. Wanted to share some of them:

This won the prize of Best Storytelling and no wonder, such a touching story and well-made video!

The prize of Best Technical Execution. Everyone laughed so hard at this, just hilarious XD

Honorary award for the Most Touching Drama. I'm usually not a fan of Yaoi, but boy, this was such a perfectly made video and made me cry... ;___; I really want to watch this series now to see if it's as good as this video made it seem.

The judges gave most of the awards, but the con visitors were also able to vote for their favorite... And this one won XD It's a Finnish song, so it probably doesn't seem that funny to people who don't understand Finnish :/

This didn't win any awards, but I thought this was one of the best ones XD It's also in Finnish, but it has subtitles (though I don't think they're as funny as in Finnish).

After the AMV contest we left to the hotel to grab our bags and wait for the bus. Tiinyan & co. came to the same bus, so we had a great drive while talking about dollies and stuff ^^

***

Overall, the convention was a great experience and we had so much fun with our friends~ Thank you all for your company! ♥ We're hoping to be able to visit other conventions this year too ^3^