Minami Con
Mar. 20th, 2006 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailsa_chanFor anyone who wasn't aware, I spent Friday to Sunday in Southampton at Minamicon, an anime convenion. It is a small con, around 350 people, but this means its a much friendlier and closer con. I have to say this
was by far the best con I have ever been to. I strongly suggest anyone else who wants to go to a con try and get into next years: Regestration online is opening in 2-3 weeks I believe, keep checking
www.minamicon.org.uk for updates.
I've cut the rest of the entry up so it doesn't eat friend pages, cos I am lovely like that.
We arrived after getting a bit lost leaving Bath at about 1.30. Having set ourselves up in the lovely Abbey Lodge B&B (hotels much more expensive and breakfast is far inferiour!), we gathered up costumes and set off. The con is about 5 mins walk away, but I'm not walking over Southampton Central in cosplay. Once at the hotel it was get changed and then spend the next couple of hours chatting and photographing the cosplayers.
I made costumes from Damekko Doubutsu (lit useless animals), a cute 5-minute-episode series about a forest of animals exactly unlike their real world counter parts. I was Chiiko, the slow and clumsly cheeter, and Joe was the delinquant chain-smoking rabbit Usahara. See below for an image, Usahara is centre left and Chiiko is centre right.
Click on the charecter for more details
There will be pictures of us cosplaying, but I need to get the pictures onto anime-europe and I can't because they are too big. I don't currently have anything to resize jpgs grr. Anyone know if GIMP is worth installing? Keep checking www.anime-europe.com photo galleries, or come round and see the piccies here.
Later in the evening was the opening party. They've had a party for the last 2 years, but got the format for this one spot on. There was free food and games like Pokemon Pinjata, pin the tail on the catgirl and Pen-Pen skittles. After that, there was a game-show style event, with a stage. Things like noodle eting contest; iron cosplay (dress up a volenteer in Blue Peter-esque materials to make them a robot, or a farie etc). Also Chinese whispers pictionary. That was inspired. 4 people, seperated by screens. First person gets told an anime charecter, and has 30 seconds to draw it. Then next person gets 5 seconds to view the image, and then 30 seconds to draw from memory and so on. After the last one, someone has to guess what it was from the last picture.
After that was an anime disco. Much fun was had, but fur costumes get quite hot!
Due to anime studios in Japan clamping down on fansubs at events, the video schedual was much less than it had been in previous years. However, this meant that there were more events to go to. We spent the morning shopping in the dealer's room and got much stuff, including a Kamichu figure that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
same_difference will probably like, and a Bleach sountrack.
Lunch was sushi hand made by me in the sushi making workshop. The guy runnign it was a chef turned proffesional photographer. He was very good at explaining and demonstrating, so i was able to make so fairly decent nori rolled sushi. It had cucumber, apple and pepper in it, and worked very well, surprisingly!
Later on I tried and failed to make origami - I blame the instructions! Then there were jsut a few hours to get changed for the Masquerade. This is the main event on the Saturday, and probably the main event of the con for a lot of people. Those who choose to, parade their cosplay for the audience and judges. Some cons are competitive, others are not. This one was. Wessex Anime are known for their skits - short comedy sketches done in costume. 2 years ago with knocked a hole in the ceiling with our 12 foot high cardboard bad guy! You cn probably find the skit on the web somewhere I'm sure.
Our skit wasn't going too well in planning, as the two people who were responsible for the last few weren't around. However, in the last half an hour, it all came together. We had a plan and it would scare the crap out of everyone! You see, everyone loves Dragon Half, and live action versions of anime are taking off in a big way. So, we thought we would combine the two ideas.... but how to do SD (Super Deformed)?
Well, we had me, a 5 foot 7 woman (nearly 6 foot in my boots)as normal Mink. And then we had Rich as SD Mink. Rich is short, fat, hairy and oh yes. Male.
We had people screaming and crying in laughter. It went down very well. Then got a bit messed up, but it still worked. People were horrified. Especially at the wardrobe malfunction on SD Mink (I ripped the top off). It is an incredible ego boast to run through 300 people, dressed in practically your underwear and have them scream and cheer at you like you were some sort of pop star. I recomend it to all :)
Wessex anime got the "Please wait another year before subjecting us to anything like that again and no bikinis!" award (can't remember the exact wording.
After we had watched the auction (I don't need a limited edition FF7 soundtrack box set so I don't mind losing out on it really. Even if it was lovely), and had had our photos taken by numerous people, we ended up staying the rest of the night in the kareoke room. Was lots of fun, and the guy who runs it is a lovely person.
The weekend was also the weekend of our annivesary, so we were both fairly emotional that night. I've been with Joe for 4 years now and I love him so much. I would never have done any of the things I did at the weekend if it wasn't for him. He has helped me to walk with my head held up, to be proud of myself. He is my world and I will love him til the end of time.
"And if you and I are ever torn apart
I promise I will change the world"
It was hard to get up on Sunday (though not as hard as on monday :), but we did and headed off to the hotel to munch japanese snacks. Discovered Wasabi peas as just as unpleasant as they were last year.
Then I got changed and spent an hour waitressing as Mink in the cosplay cafe. See past lj entries for info on cosplay cafes in japan. This was similar, but on a smaller scale. And we didn't call anyone 'goshujin-sama' (master). Surprisingly hard work, especially with a tail. The tail was a bit awkard in other respects too. Because it was quite heavy, it pulled at my pants, which was bad. So inorder to stop this, I had to stick the pants to the base of my spine. The only thing I had was superglue. This gets very hot when it sets.
Perused the dealers room a bit more, watched a cosplay workshop, and then had Benoist tea. This is tea made by an english tea company, that you can only buy in one posh store in Japan (think Harrods). Its what the queen drinks. General consensus was that it wasn't terribly nice!
Then it was pretty much the end, went to the closing ceremony, where Wessex Anime bought a lifesize pin the tail on the cat girl game. (The one used on friday night.) Its a very nice piece of art, unique, and we can bring it out for parties and possibly the fresher's fayre at uni.
Well, that was a long post....
Was the best weekend I have had in a long time, if not ever, adn a very good way to spend our anniverary. We'll be doing it again next year :)
was by far the best con I have ever been to. I strongly suggest anyone else who wants to go to a con try and get into next years: Regestration online is opening in 2-3 weeks I believe, keep checking
www.minamicon.org.uk for updates.
I've cut the rest of the entry up so it doesn't eat friend pages, cos I am lovely like that.
We arrived after getting a bit lost leaving Bath at about 1.30. Having set ourselves up in the lovely Abbey Lodge B&B (hotels much more expensive and breakfast is far inferiour!), we gathered up costumes and set off. The con is about 5 mins walk away, but I'm not walking over Southampton Central in cosplay. Once at the hotel it was get changed and then spend the next couple of hours chatting and photographing the cosplayers.
I made costumes from Damekko Doubutsu (lit useless animals), a cute 5-minute-episode series about a forest of animals exactly unlike their real world counter parts. I was Chiiko, the slow and clumsly cheeter, and Joe was the delinquant chain-smoking rabbit Usahara. See below for an image, Usahara is centre left and Chiiko is centre right.
Click on the charecter for more details
There will be pictures of us cosplaying, but I need to get the pictures onto anime-europe and I can't because they are too big. I don't currently have anything to resize jpgs grr. Anyone know if GIMP is worth installing? Keep checking www.anime-europe.com photo galleries, or come round and see the piccies here.
Later in the evening was the opening party. They've had a party for the last 2 years, but got the format for this one spot on. There was free food and games like Pokemon Pinjata, pin the tail on the catgirl and Pen-Pen skittles. After that, there was a game-show style event, with a stage. Things like noodle eting contest; iron cosplay (dress up a volenteer in Blue Peter-esque materials to make them a robot, or a farie etc). Also Chinese whispers pictionary. That was inspired. 4 people, seperated by screens. First person gets told an anime charecter, and has 30 seconds to draw it. Then next person gets 5 seconds to view the image, and then 30 seconds to draw from memory and so on. After the last one, someone has to guess what it was from the last picture.
After that was an anime disco. Much fun was had, but fur costumes get quite hot!
Due to anime studios in Japan clamping down on fansubs at events, the video schedual was much less than it had been in previous years. However, this meant that there were more events to go to. We spent the morning shopping in the dealer's room and got much stuff, including a Kamichu figure that
same_difference will probably like, and a Bleach sountrack. Lunch was sushi hand made by me in the sushi making workshop. The guy runnign it was a chef turned proffesional photographer. He was very good at explaining and demonstrating, so i was able to make so fairly decent nori rolled sushi. It had cucumber, apple and pepper in it, and worked very well, surprisingly!
Later on I tried and failed to make origami - I blame the instructions! Then there were jsut a few hours to get changed for the Masquerade. This is the main event on the Saturday, and probably the main event of the con for a lot of people. Those who choose to, parade their cosplay for the audience and judges. Some cons are competitive, others are not. This one was. Wessex Anime are known for their skits - short comedy sketches done in costume. 2 years ago with knocked a hole in the ceiling with our 12 foot high cardboard bad guy! You cn probably find the skit on the web somewhere I'm sure.
Our skit wasn't going too well in planning, as the two people who were responsible for the last few weren't around. However, in the last half an hour, it all came together. We had a plan and it would scare the crap out of everyone! You see, everyone loves Dragon Half, and live action versions of anime are taking off in a big way. So, we thought we would combine the two ideas.... but how to do SD (Super Deformed)?
Well, we had me, a 5 foot 7 woman (nearly 6 foot in my boots)as normal Mink. And then we had Rich as SD Mink. Rich is short, fat, hairy and oh yes. Male.
We had people screaming and crying in laughter. It went down very well. Then got a bit messed up, but it still worked. People were horrified. Especially at the wardrobe malfunction on SD Mink (I ripped the top off). It is an incredible ego boast to run through 300 people, dressed in practically your underwear and have them scream and cheer at you like you were some sort of pop star. I recomend it to all :)
Wessex anime got the "Please wait another year before subjecting us to anything like that again and no bikinis!" award (can't remember the exact wording.
After we had watched the auction (I don't need a limited edition FF7 soundtrack box set so I don't mind losing out on it really. Even if it was lovely), and had had our photos taken by numerous people, we ended up staying the rest of the night in the kareoke room. Was lots of fun, and the guy who runs it is a lovely person.
The weekend was also the weekend of our annivesary, so we were both fairly emotional that night. I've been with Joe for 4 years now and I love him so much. I would never have done any of the things I did at the weekend if it wasn't for him. He has helped me to walk with my head held up, to be proud of myself. He is my world and I will love him til the end of time.
"And if you and I are ever torn apart
I promise I will change the world"
It was hard to get up on Sunday (though not as hard as on monday :), but we did and headed off to the hotel to munch japanese snacks. Discovered Wasabi peas as just as unpleasant as they were last year.
Then I got changed and spent an hour waitressing as Mink in the cosplay cafe. See past lj entries for info on cosplay cafes in japan. This was similar, but on a smaller scale. And we didn't call anyone 'goshujin-sama' (master). Surprisingly hard work, especially with a tail. The tail was a bit awkard in other respects too. Because it was quite heavy, it pulled at my pants, which was bad. So inorder to stop this, I had to stick the pants to the base of my spine. The only thing I had was superglue. This gets very hot when it sets.
Perused the dealers room a bit more, watched a cosplay workshop, and then had Benoist tea. This is tea made by an english tea company, that you can only buy in one posh store in Japan (think Harrods). Its what the queen drinks. General consensus was that it wasn't terribly nice!
Then it was pretty much the end, went to the closing ceremony, where Wessex Anime bought a lifesize pin the tail on the cat girl game. (The one used on friday night.) Its a very nice piece of art, unique, and we can bring it out for parties and possibly the fresher's fayre at uni.
Well, that was a long post....
Was the best weekend I have had in a long time, if not ever, adn a very good way to spend our anniverary. We'll be doing it again next year :)
