Haruhi, you're doing it wrong. Festival time is definitely not supposed to be the same thing over and over again.

At Cosplay Mania, I wandered convention hall, no longer Cliff, lawyer, obedient son, Filipino citizen. For that moment in time, I had become Lelouch: deposed Britannian royalty, student, revolutionary, enemy of the state.

It was awesome. It was liberating. Festivals are supposed to be liberating. If festivals were just like every other day, if they demanded that you acted the way society demands that you act every day, then they wouldn’t be festivals, would they?

So why is cosplay turning into work?

I had been urged to cover the opening of a cosplay photo studio, to show the growth of cosplay as big business. As an added incentive, the Gosiengfiao sisters would be there. Which means the crowds would be there too.

Not that I blame them or anything.

Now I’m no cosplay ‘purist’. I had my costume made by someone else. The first time I cosplayed as an anime character at a public event was Cosplay Mania. I just happen to be a dude who likes wearing costumes and playing characters, and hanging out with like-minded people.

But this ribbon-cutting thing was at 11am, and there didn’t seem to be anything else going on aside from this. Maybe a contest — but I’m not a big fan of joining cosplay contests either. So what was my incentive for going? Aside from, you know, gawking at pretty girls in costume?

It wasn’t festival time. It was work. And I decided not to show up for work.

The Greeks had a balance between Apollonian and Dionysian time. Apollo was the god of the Sun, of Music, of Philosophy, of success and excellence. Apollo is the god of applying yourself to the fullest in your intellectual or athletic endeavors.

Apollo is the God of SRS BZNS.

Little known fact: Apollo is also the god of 'kouros', which is basically Greek for bishonen.

Dionysus is, on the other hand, the god of wine, and parties, and waking up in the morning with someone you don’t know lying on your arm.

Dionysus is the God of Festival Time.

Even Baby Dionysus can drink mere mortals under the table.

Our modern, clockwork post-Industrial society seems to have forgotten how to party properly. Geeks, especially, who have plugged into the Apollonian current of academic and career excellence, don’t seem to know how to drop their school or workplace personas and just let it all hang loose. The non-geeks understand the need to let loose, and get intoxicated “on wine, on verse, or with virtue, as you please,” as the Baudelaire poem goes, and have many outlets for their Dionysian drives.

I personally like getting wasted with my geek friends. Getting drunk while playing tabletop RPGs while J-pop and game music and grunge is blaring over the speakers, dancing like a maniac to Initial D Europop and Maximum Tune trance, being able to drop the socialized facade and just be the drunken maniac your friends all know and love. It’s my festival time.

Cosplay is festival time for me. When I am in costume, I don’t want to be talking about the New Civil Code, or the rising price of oil. I want to be Lelouch, or Gendo Ikari, or Kintaro Oe. I want to pretend to be someone else for a while. I’m not there to impress. I’m there to party!

On second thought, maybe Kintaro's idea of fun isn't for me.

Am I alone in this? Is cosplay for fun dead?

EDIT: I’d been told that the cosplay photo studio opening has been moved to October 17. Maybe I’ll go. Maybe.

EDIT 2: I originally intended to post this two days ago, but one computer mishap after another has kept me from getting online. And here I thought the retrograde was supposed to be over.

Marielle performs the only physical attack attempted on my person during the entire convention

(Read the rest of my Cosplay Mania 2009 report! Part I is here. Part II is here.)

By 4pm most of my crew were too tired to even attempt to reenter the convention hall and left just me and Marielle, my wife’s niece, to brave the crowds. I said I had to go back because I wanted to see the cosplay competitions, and Marielle wanted to go back because she was high on sugar, and she wanted to meet with her friends.

But I really wanted to go back because being in costume at a cosplay convention was… addictive.

Sese as Yowane Haku!

When we got back it was worse than when we left. A huge crowd had gathered around the stage in anticipation of the cosplay competition. I wanted to watch my friend Sese’s group perform but they seemed to be having trouble with their soundtrack for their skit — apparently they’d been told to submit their soundtrack on the day itself, but when they did they were then told that the deadline for submission was the day before, so they were in a bit of a fix.

We decided to escape the crowds by entering the Cosplay Museum, but before we did we had a short chat with Rotch at the entrance to the Mech Cafe.

Like a starship captain, Magnetic Rose commanded the entire operation with clockwork efficiency.

Rotch told us that they were still recovering from the previous shift, since apparently some rowdy customers ignored the queues, took a bunch of photos, and then left without paying. Although clearly harassed, everyone was still in high spirits by the time the last shift started and the crowds started milling in.

I checked out the costumes, adorning some rather plain-looking mannequins. Each costume was accompanied by a placard explaining who wore the costume, when it was worn, and why it was so significant to the history of Philippine Cosplay. The legendary Saito costume by JM Chua, the teeny Voltron outfit worn by Belldandy, all of the costumes served as a reminder that the organizers valued everything that had come before.

And yet… With the costumes on mannequins, I was struck by how plain the costumes seemed without the cosplayers who once wore them. Particularly the Saito costume, which seemed like a simple uniform without the razor-sharp portrayal of the man who for all intents and purposes WAS Hajime Saito, as long as he was in costume.

Gundam Girl without the Girl

Marielle and I lined up for our free studio photos that came with the Cosplay Museum tickets. Other cosplayers came in for their own photos: War Machine, the girl who cosplayed as Maka Albarn from Soul Eater, and Bumblebee. Marielle wasted no time in arranging a photo op with her and Bumblebee.

This Bumblebee probably transforms into an extremely tiny Camaro.

While waiting for our photos to develop, we watched the young mecha-headgeared maids and butlers of the Mech Cafe go about their business, to the sound of Initial D Europop playing over the sound system. Even though they were all tired, they all seemed to be having fun despite it all. They played games with their patrons, they cheered, they greeted new arrivals, they skillfully weaved around each other while serving tea and snacks. It occurred to me that these kids loved what they were doing. I doubted any of them really wanted to be waiters and waitresses, and yet here they were, giving up a Sunday to serve other people in costume.

Meanwhile, the mannequins and the once-famous costumes they wore stood silently, impassive witnesses to everything.

The silent Alucard mannequin in the foreground, the animated Mech Cafe in the back.

We stayed in the cool conference room for a little while longer, reluctant to subject ourselves to more push-and-shove. But eventually we returned to the convention center, just in time to witness a truly epic Valkyrie Profile skit. The technical excellence of the skit amazed me. The costumes were spot-on. The choreography (especially with the kurokos performing all the attack special effects) was breathtaking. If this was the benchmark for what could be accomplished locally then the mark was set pretty damned high. It didn’t surprise me one bit when they won. Their prize… a printer. Good luck divvying the loot, guys.

After this, we wandered around, checking out the cosplayers who didn’t participate in the competition.

You just don't mess with a guy who has a massive pyramid for a head and scratches all over his bare torso.

I spotted the Joker (Heath Ledger edition) posing for photos. I asked him if I could get a photo with him, and he agreed. I suggested a pose. “Kill Lelouch,” I told him.

“Gladly,” he replied as he put his knife up to my neck.

Look at how happy he is... and how distressed I am.

The facts of what happened next are in dispute. As far as I can tell, a girl and her mother went up to me and the girl asked if she could take a photo with me. Marielle swears that the girl said, “I’m a big fan of yours, I think you’re really cute,” and that I blushed beet red when she said this.

I have no recollection of these events, I’m telling you! (Plus I think she meant she was a big fan of Lelouch, not me, per se.)

At any rate, her mom took a photo of us, and then she took a photo of me and her mom. As she walked away, I gasped as I realized something.

She popped my cosplay photo op cherry.

The photo op requests kept coming after that, and I got more and more comfortable posing for them. I guess it’s only really hard the first time.

Why so serious? It's only a happy meal!

Something clicked inside me. When you’re in costume at a cosplay convention, it is everyone else who is out of place, not you. I felt completely at home, even though I was running on fumes at this point. I could strut around in costume without feeling the least bit self-conscious. It was, as I’ve asserted, but never actually experienced at this scale, as if I was someone else, as if I was freed from my everyday identity by pretending to be a fictional, two-dimensional character. If people gawked at me, pointed, took pictures, laughed, it only made them stick out more, as if they were tourists and I was in my home country, surrounded by wildly-different looking countrymen, but countrymen nonetheless.

It was truly Play, in Costume, like a festival. It was a Technicolor Mardi Gras. It was a rush. It was liberating. And as I found out too late, it was addicting. Because I want to cosplay again.

So when’s the next event?

This is a shot taken while I was holding the camera over the heads of the crowd. Because there were that many people.

(Read Part I of my Cosplay Mania 2009 report here!)

As soon as we stepped out of the relative calm of the Conference Room we encountered a mass of people denser than the crowd at Otaku Taiki, even if the venue was just as large as the Metro Comic Con. Every other person was in costume, some costumes more intricate or involved than others. Just outside the actual con area, next to the escalators, was an even larger crowd with even more cosplayers, a lot of them groups of friends dressed in theme. Six people were wearing the military uniform of the State Military of Amestris. Another large group wore the Vampire Knight uniform.

Welcome to Cross Academy!

This was the most massive turnout for a local convention I had ever seen. John (aka Seedsop of the dot hacker review) repeated the point he’s made time and time again: “We need a bigger venue.”

I’m not sure I completely agree with that, though. I mean, naturally I would like to be able to make my way around a convention without worrying about tripping over five other people. But getting jostled around by the crowds seems to be part of the entire convention experience, and taking that away might take away an intangible but important ingredient of what makes a successful convention.

Or not. I was getting dizzy from the heat, made worse by the coat I had on for my Lelouch cosplay. It was time to get lunch.

The artist and writer of The Vigilant

After lunch, we all met up with Shuu, the artist of The Vigilant, in a quiet little corner of an otherwise packed convention hall. The others started passing out the free bookmarks we were using to promote our webcomic. We joked that the corner was the unofficial Vigilant booth at Cosplay Mania.

Suddenly a little boy and his father took refuge from the crowd with us. He was tired but happy, especially since so many people appreciated his costume — just like we did, when I suddenly pointed at him and blurted out, “IT’S AANG!”

At least this Aang is Asian. Also, isn't that glider awesome?

I spotted Captain Jack Sparrow and Tia Dalma working the crowd. I knew Jack as Hank, the friendly bartender from my favorite bar Big Sky Mind. “Hank!” I cried out.

He turned to face me, looked at me for a moment, and then said, “Cliff! You cosplay?”

“I do now,” I replied, grinning.

Tia Dalma aka Calypso, who turned out to be Monique, also a bartender at Big Sky, was even more surprised to see me in costume. “Hey, it’s you! I didn’t know you cosplayed.”

“I didn’t know you did either.” Before I knew what I was doing I took her hand and kissed it. Was it the costume? Was it the festival atmosphere? For some reason it seemed like the natural thing to do.

Hank said, “This Saturday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!”

“I know, I celebrate it with friends every year,” I replied.

“Drop by Big Sky! Free rum cokes!”

“Can I cosplay?”

“If I can be your bartender while cosplaying,” he replied, “then you can drink while cosplaying.”

Why is the rum gone?

(to be continued)

Hi. We're cosplaying. Got a problem with that?

I was afraid.

Sure I’d dressed up as a few anime characters back during my college days, like Gendo Ikari and Trowa Barton. And I’d spoken in public a lot of times: speeches, oratorical contests, debates, and the occasional stage play or four. But I was afraid. I’d never done both at the same time. I mostly cosplayed at private gatherings. And it’s one thing to act out a role on stage, and another to come out and say, “I enjoy dressing up as fictional characters.” My employers would soon find something more than a little interesting if they Googled my name.

Costume was shaping up to be a problem child, too. The kindly old lady who had stitched it up was apparently a better dressmaker than a tailor. The collar didn’t close right, and the Velcro patches chafed my neck like crazy. The sleeves were too loose. The gold corners in front weren’t level. I had it sent back for repairs once, and then sent it to another place for more alterations. Rotch wasn’t kidding when she said commissioned costumes sometimes had major mistakes.

Wearing contacts was an entirely new and somewhat unpleasant experience, since I’d never needed to wear contacts or glasses. And wearing a wig was like wearing a hairy and unruly hat.

Also, considering the resistance my opinions have sometimes encountered, I was bracing myself for a battle. People had gone so far as to warn me of possible physical violence.

But that didn’t happen.

And a stranger thing happened: The moment I stepped into Megamall, I stopped being afraid.

Maybe it was because all around me were people in the same boat. There was a sea of humanity, some people in costume, some people there to support them, and some people to gawk and snicker. Or maybe the spirit of Lelouch descended upon me. Who knows?

I managed to obtain my Guest VIP pass without pain or hassle, although it did require me to stand behind a middle-aged couple complaining to Information about the long lines for a couple of minutes, while patient staff members listened to their suggestions. I decided to be as pleasant as possible. Little point in adding to their worries.

I was greeted at the Megatrade Conference Room by Mark Poa, who appeared to be as professional and efficient as the impression he gives off in his emails. In fact the entire operation struck me as professional and efficient. We arranged a few last minute preparations for my presentation (just my webpage and the logo of my webcomic The Vigilant) and then I shook hands with Marcelle Fabie aka Kel, whom my readers may remember as the host I had heckled back at Cosplay Fusion. He was passing the time playing Dissidia on his PSP.

After exchanging some friendly chatter, I said, “I wonder if we should expect any trouble. Especially from You-Know-Who.”

“Well, this is just a panel about blogging,” he replied. “Nothing controversial about that.”

What is it about me and controversy, anyway?

At this point the people started to file in, a lot of them avid readers of the blog. To those people: Hi guys! Thanks for turning out in droves to support me! I really appreciate it.

Rotch arrived after transacting business with my wife outside (business involving the exchange of cash and pinky:st dolls) and we all prepared for the panel.

Hmm, I wonder if I should've used less hair wax...

We were all told to give short speeches about our blogs. Which I didn’t realize was part of the panel format (having made assumptions in my mind about panel discussions), but since I was perfectly prepared to wing it it was no problem. Meann Ortiz from the New Worlds Alliance introduced us one by one before our talks.

New Worlds Alliance represent!

First up was Rotch aka Magnetic Rose, who had several orphaned mangas with her as an incentive for people to ask questions. Considering how rowdy the audience had gotten, she probably didn’t need to do it, but it was a nice bonus. As expected she was quite the firebrand. She talked about her experiences with UP Tomo Kai and studying in Japan. She clarified that anyone from the Philippines who wanted to join the Regional Cosplay Championships could do so, just that only one team would have their travel and accomodations paid for. (Which team would that be, though?) She talked about blogging for MTV. She defended blogging product endorsements, which I thought wasn’t really an issue since I firmly believe in getting paid for writing anyway, although I could see how some people would criticize such a stance. She took charge. She didn’t even need a microphone.

This is a woman who is used to being in charge. I totally respect that.

Next up was me. I pretty much rambled my way though my talk. I explained what an Otaking was, in the context of Otaku no Video. (Someone who has decided to play the role of otaku to the hilt despite societal pressure to conform.) I talked about Tags, not Categories. (Tags include, categories exclude.) I talked about Cosplayers vs. Cosplay Fans vs. Models (to some good-natured catcalling from the audience). And I talked about dealing with trolls. (Troll them back, and treat it as a game.) And I plugged my webcomic. (Read The Vigilant!)

All hail Britannia!

Finally Kel spoke. He talked about being a deejay and a magician. (He’s a mentalist by specialization, something that totally fascinates me.) I especially enjoyed the part where he talked about separating his personal blog from his magic blog. Also, he was apparently cosplaying as Ryan Evans from High School Musical.

Yep, I totally see it.

Finally the actual panel discussion started. We talked about blogging as self-publishing. I asserted that it blew the doors wide open for anyone with something to say to speak their minds, and that it was up to the Internet at large to vote whether your opinion resonated or not, by reading your blog instead of someone else’s. Kel made the interesting point that blogging allowed him to redefine his identity as a magician. And Rotch enlightened us on the perks of being a blogger for international media. There was a brief exchange between Rotch and Kel about wannabe political bloggers and blog event dilettantes that flew right over my head, since I don’t actually attend political blog events. And we all had a good laugh at a certain Boy’s expense.

The microphone was at Kel and my feet because we were the only ones who needed it.

This wasn’t so bad at all, I thought to myself! The discussion was lively and not at all hostile, like it seemed to be at the Mini-Summit. Or at the very least it was civil. That’s really the most you can ask for sometimes, and this was much more than that.

In fact the discussion was so lively that we went overtime, with the participants of the next panel (The Society of Young Voice Actors) milling into the conference room before we were done.

So after the panel ended, and after a nice lady whose name completely escapes me took my cell phone number in case she wanted to contact me for ‘voice acting’, Rotch hurried to the Mech Cafe which she was in charge of, Kel stayed for the Voice Acting panel, and I swallowed hard and stepped out of the conference room, in costume, and into the main convention hall.

And into utter chaos.

(to be continued)

Meet Kenji and Gizmo of the Reverse Engineers, two of my favorite secondary characters!

Hi there all! Have to head out for now, still writing my very lengthy Cosplay Mania post, stay tuned! Have a lot of photos to sift through, a lot of notes to process, and a birthday party to attend!

In the meantime, enjoy Episode 2 of the Vigilant, Radio Free Morningstar, now online!

Jaden's Nullspace sattelite, the Morningstar

Just got home from Cosplay Mania. Very tired. Have lots to write about: the blogging panel (which was a lot of fun), cosplaying as Lelouch, the Mecha Cafe, Cosplay Museum, and lots more!

I’ll also be uploading the next episode of Vigilant later tonight! Enjoy this sneak peek for Radio Free Morningstar!

…But first, I desperately need a nap. Catch you all later.

Grab your free Jaden Bookmark tomorrow at Cosplay Mania! And check out his adventures on The Vigilant!

By the time you read this post, my webcomic The Vigilant will have already gone live! Check it out!

Also, as previously mentioned, I’ll be at Cosplay Mania’s Blogging Panel at 11am, at the Megatrade Hall, SM Megamall! Hope to see you all there!

Now if you excuse me, I have a big day ahead of me. I need my sleep!

Come see me at the Blogging Panel at Cosplay Mania!

I’ve been invited to speak at the blogging panel at Cosplay Mania 2009! The event will be held on September 13, 2009, at the Megatrade Hall 2 and 3, and Function Rooms A and B.

From the site:

Cosplay Blogging Panel (11:00am-12:00nn) – Blogging and cosplay have both been around for years. Our panel of bloggers will take you through their own personal blogging experiences and share their insights into this phenomenon. Featured panelists include:

• Magnetic Rose/Rochelle Dumlao owns magnetic-rose.net: an interactive news and general information site dedicated to all things J-pop for Philippine fans — manga, anime, music, gaming, cosplay, toys, and BL. She also blogs for the MTV Asia Gadgets and Gaming Blog, where she is on a six-month assignment after winning a South East Asia-wide blogging competition.
• Otaking/Clifton Sawit of ProjectOtaking.com is a lawyer, writer, graphic designer, amateur cook, and professional otaku. He contributed to the August issue of Rogue Magazine, and is currently working on an upcoming webcomic entitled Vigilant.
• Mistervader/Marcelle Fabie is a magician, host, radio DJ, teacher, and blogger. This jack-of-many trades is a veteran blogger, particularly for his blogs Mistervader.com and Magikel.net. His trademark look is his white suit worn while hosting several cosplay competitions.

The panel will be moderated by Meann Ortiz of the New Worlds Alliance.

Check out the Cosplay Mania site for more details!