Misa-Misa's Supercon of Power Rangers, Test Pilots and Hugs

This weekend, my sister and I attended the South Florida Anime Supercon, our fourth convention together. Naturally we were perfectly adjusted to the crowd of fans and freaks frollicking around in costumes of their favorite characters (or in the case of people like Man Faye, irony for irony's sake. And no, he wasn't there, God be praised) along with the treasure trove of merchandise that hungers for our meager savings.

The difference in this particular event, however, is that my sister finally mustered up the insanity....er, courage, to dress up for the event. After months of pondering and practice, she settled with cosplaying as Death Note's Misa Amane. I tried to warn her about the potential stalkers or freaks that might take photos of her and would later post online for unspeakable reasons, but she seemed almost entranced by the attention.

As for whether or not she managed to complete the illusion, I'll let you decide for yourselves.





Pretty well, from my point of view. The wig was a bit obvious and thick, but otherwise she captured the character rather well. The question though was whether fellow cosplayers would immediately recognize her.





"It's Misa Misa!" exclaims the first person to greet us outside. Similar costumed fans (including this L cosplayer tempting fate as he gropes my sister while I have to manage her camera) approached her, two actually asking if they could give her hugs.

I really don't get why some of these people want to give and receive hugs. Actually, it's best if I never find out.



Final Fantasy VII is still, to this day, the preferred repository to which costumed fanboys and fangirls draw inspiration from. These four people came in seperately, but all joined in for the photo when they caught wind of my first target.



The FFVII love didn't stop there, though.





Anyone see the Steven Segall sketches on Mad TV? The guy on the left is either that guy, a fat Tseng, or Steven Segall dressed like Tseng. The latter would have been a perfect combination if he spoke with the Segall accent and snapped necks wherever he went.



Yes, that Cid is holding an umbrella. Somehow he thought wrapping it in tin foil would shield this budget choice in costuming.



Here we have Aerith and....Link. I just wanted a picture of Aerith, but Keebler insisted on being included.



Yuna was a highly popular costume choice in the first convention I ever attended, but her popularity seems to have died down over time.



Meanwhile, Yuffie Cosplayers seem to be picking up in momentum.





Despite the continued popularity and devotion of FFVII, the Kingdom Hearts cosplayers almost overwhelmed the convention with their sheer numbers. Of course, originality doesn't play quite a factor here, as the Organization XIII outfit can be easily purchased on Ebay and/or other online costume vendors, so I only took pictures of anything besides them.







As for the rest...



The Katamari crew drew a big crowd, but I believe Katamari cosplaying grew out of style about a year ago. It's been done.





He....Still....Functions!

Too bad he immediately removed his helmet afterwards, sweating heavily. He ran one of the vendors, which would have made for some additional amusing photos. Regardless, the first picture should be a hit on 4chan.





Wii Girl. Yes, she's wearing the remote and nunchuck on her head. To quote an online exchange with a friend...

"What a waste. That's like $50 on her head."

"Dude, it's not like she can't take them off and play with them afterwards."

I wonder if the same could be said for Ms. Croft here.



My sister insisted that it would be very mean to post this person online just for the humiliation. I insist that she most likely wanted the attention dressed like that.



This Orochimaru was pretty freaky in person. He must have been at least seven feet tall, and had the enlonged tongue to boot.



Sanin Showdown.



"What costume?"

This guy had ruby red eyes. Contacts? A soul binding contract with Satan? Who knows.



At first I thought I was taking a picture of a zombie schoolgirl of some sort. Several hours later, it finally dawned on me that she was cosplaying Saya, from Blood+.



Gundam Box. It was funny the first time, not so much the second or third time.



I'm very tempted to make an inappropriate joke here, but I'll leave this poor guy to the 4chan jackals.



Same idea. These girls might actually be underage, so I'll spare myself the restraining orders and move on.



Here we have a sort of conflict. On the one hand, he has a very cool and detailed costume. On the other hand, there are hundreds of Samurai characters in Japanese fiction, so it will be impossible to guess which one he's supposed to be. Too bad.



This is an even more obvious budget outfit than Cid's tin foil umbrella. Your eyes do not deceive you, these two are indeed wearing body paint. It's not like black spandex is hard to acquire these days. Maybe these two just have a fetish going on, although it would be normal compared to some other cosplayers.



If it's any consolation, the Haku pictured is cosplayed by a girl.

That doesn't make this any less disturbing, however.



There were probably even more Bleach cosplayers than Kingdom Hearts. It was impossible to get all of them, but these two were the most amusing of the bunch.



I recorded a good 45 seconds of this little dance number. Expect the video to go up on Youtube once I figure out how to do that.



Our primary motivation for attending these conventions is always the sheer amount of merchandise available, which is always far cheaper than online vendors. As usual there was quite a number of things to choose from.



....moving on.



There was a small booth of fan-made sculpts and figures that were pretty well done.





The Mega Man figures were even better sculpted than the official ones made by Capcom. Unfortunately, none of them were for sale, and were instead shown off by an amatuer 3D artist in training. He has a signature sheet were people can fill in requests, but what's the point if you can't actually purchase the toy?

This event was particularly noticible for us, as we mustered up the courage to converse with a couple of the guests attending the event. Normally I shy away from such encounters for fear of geeking out, but both conversations went very well.



First up was Tiffany Grant, voice actor for Evangelion's Asuka. Miss Grant was very polite to talk to, as I briefly inquired about how she received her job as a voice actor. Turns out she was attending a drama school a few years back when she was approached by AD Vision's director Matt Greenfield, who asked her to audition for a job. She didn't even speak any lines; A brief conversation and she was hired immediately. It felt weird hearing Asuka's voice coming from this person, especially considering how short she was (but then again I'm a giant, so don't consider that a criticicm). As an amusing thought, I recalled a magazine review from GameFan just before the release of her debut episode, in how she was criticed for having an awful voice and terrible Germanisms, but how I thought differently once I actually heard her in action. She grimaced for a bit then laughed afterwards.



The real highlight of the day, however, was meeting up with former Power Rangers Rocky (Red, then Blue) and Ashley (Yellow). Power Rangers was very dear to my heart when I was younger (and it still is, as far as nostalgia goes), so it was pretty weird seeing these two childhood actors again, years older (and in Ashley's case, chunkier; I couldn't say anything to her since that thought kept leering in my head).

I basically just said whatever came to mind. I told "Rocky" how I preferred him over Jason (he was more fun, while Jason was a bit of a jock), and how he broke my heart once he broke his back (in the story). I stopped watching once they replaced him with that stupid kid. He was a real nice guy, we shook hands, and that was that. I would have gotten an autograph too, but it wasn't free.

As for what I purchased this event, I made off with a smaller haul than usual, due in part to one vendor that was selling some slightly used games I was interested in; Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was a mere $30 despite being released a week prior, and I also made off with Metal Gear Portable Ops ($25) and Portable Ops + ($15). Afterwards came the decision of acquiring one of the new FFVII PlayArts figures: Kadaj, Yuffie, or Reno. After about three hours of pondering, I decided "chicks before dicks." My sister is a big Yuffie fan, but she wasn't impressed by the quality of the figure.

Instead she made off with a spiffy looking Unit-02, a small Cammy figurine, and an even smaller Orihime figurine. We probably would have spent a little more, but the $20 admission fee sought to that. I did, however, manage to haggle a few bucks off a beautiful minituare PlayArts Shera/Sierra model airship. I just need to pick a good spot in my room for it.

Not sure when the next event will occur, but you can rest assured we'll attend it. My sister plans to use the Misa outfit a couple more times, and might consider dressing as Yuffie afterwards.