About a month ago, the day Go Kaisho became No Kaisho, a bunch of people decided that it would be fun to simply show up at the Eastwood Mall instead of waiting for an excuse to cosplay. Since it was also Children’s Day at the park, this led to some rather amusing consequences. Among the cosplay guests at this so-called ImpromptuCon: Jagi-sama (Romeo), Hatsune Miku (Sese), and an off-duty Geisha Girl (Monique).

As I was laughing my head off watching Jagi-sama get thrown off by an mechanical bull, I wondered: Why do people need an excuse to cosplay, anyway? This convention-centric view of cosplay doesn’t seem to be shared by Akiba itself. Every Sunday the main road that cuts through Akiba, Chuo-dori, is closed to vehicular traffic and becomes a stage for cosplayers. No entrance fees, no cramped venues with poor ventilation, just miles of concrete serving as the ballroom for a weekly fancy dress party.

(more…)

In the forum post I allude to in the comic Divide By Zero, I get accused of politicizing the cosplay scene when all anyone wants to do is ‘have fun’ — but apparently everyone’s idea of fun is bashing other people while furthering their own agendas for supremacy.

Now, I like to think that cosplayers aren’t dense or stupid. (If you disagree, bear with me, I like my rose-tinted glasses.) So how can people who are deeply immersed in the backbiting and name-calling that pervades local cosplay claim that everyone is one big happy cosplaying family?

(more…)

I had a great time at Komikon 2010, held at UP Diliman! Got a lot of loot, hounded Gerry Alanguilan again I’ll scan in excerpts from my stack of loot soon!

(more…)

The funny thing is that the writer of the forum post didn’t really seem to have anything against me aside from the fact that I got along a little too well with someone he dislikes. Rival courtier, apparently, for the favor of the lady. Funny considering where the post was. Playing both sides, cheers mate.

(more…)

Read Part 1 here! Part 2 here!

(more…)

(more…)

[This is Day 2 of my Ozine Fest 2010 report! Read day 1 here! All pictures are by my friend Ksolaris, as you can tell from the watermark -- not that it's stopped some very high profile scrapers from swiping her pics and posting them on their Multiply without attribution before. And what's with those uniformly crappy captions?]

(more…)

I attended an Ozine event (O-zeen? O-zayn? No one I’ve talked to seems to agree…) the year before, but only during the final day. I wanted to get a sense of the entire con this year, so this year I decided to attend all three days of Ozine Fest 2010.

(more…)