Anime Central: 2000


MOCHI > The Scrapbook > Convention Memories > Anime Central > 2000

There were many wonderful costumes to be seen in the halls. Aside from all the Utena costumes, there were lots of different Sakura (Card Captor Sakura) costumes. Sailors (as in Sailor Moon) are perennial favorites and the girls of RayEarth look as though they will soon become convention fixtures. One surprise this year was Vash. Vash, Vash, Vash! The man in the red coat was a mighty popular character this year. It was nice to see the increasing number of male cosplayers. Toasted Mochi even got into the act with his own "instant costume". With his kendo gear and his vivid green hair, he was often mistaken as being a cosplayer. [*grin* - Toasted]

Getting a meal at the convention was sometimes a challenge. What do you do when you've got one vegetarian, one vegetarian + prawns, one carnivore (on a weird diet), and two omnivores? Most of the time, we ended up going our own ways. There was a brief foray into the con suite to seek out some munchies, but it was tough going for those of us who are sensitive to smoke. The hotel buffet (when it was open) proved to be much friendlier. They were nice enough to bring out a vegetarian soup option even though there wasn't officially supposed to be one.

For this year's masquerade, we were fielding one large entry, with characters from Bastard! Toasted Mochi acted as a photographer while the rest of MOCHI ran around like drunken chickens with their heads cut off. [The flash didn't work, so no blackmail opportunities! - Toasted Mochi] Henry came down from the staff hospitality suite (where he had been kept chained to the furniture) and assembled the last parts of his costume. A friend of Spiky's, Tom, arrived in time to try on the "quick and dirty" Abigail costume.

As it was, we all barely got down to the pre-masquerade line-up in time. The first contingent (the boys) went downstairs to secure a few seats. As you can imagine, the ferocious spikes and shards of Gara and Kall-Su did not exactly make them cuddly seating companions. [Sharp! Pointy! GOOD! - Henry & Spiky.] They also could hear any special instructions or take note of any last minute changes to the masquerade. The second contingent (the gals) stayed behind to finish a last round of makeup and wig adjustments before heading downstairs ...

... where there was a zoo of people waiting in line for the masquerade. Daifuku was entirely too pleased by the person who called out "Arshes! Arshes! Can I take your picture?" as she and Angie made her way into the main room. This made her very happy. The rest of MOCHI thanks you since this helped saved us from becoming collateral damage when other people thought that she was Priotase (of Lodoss Wars). [*waves a large hammer menacingly* Move along! There's nothing to talk about here .... - Daifuku]

This masquerade definitely leaned towards the long side (due to the number of entries) and those of us in the masquerade were happy to be near the head of the line. That gave us a rare opportunity to get a better view of the other cosplayers. There were sets of wonderful costumes, like the group from Five Star Stories and Laumne, that were probably not going to be seen for the rest of the convention. [It made us even sadder that camera shots were hard to come by. - Sugar Bomb.]

[Day Two]