A new year
has begun. Obviously it also means new plans and new costumes. Cosplaywisely
year 2013 was great. Maria made more than 20 new cosplays and I too cosplayed
more than ten characters. I'm not sure how many costumes I’ll be making this
year but I do hope to find nice and awesome characters. Before that I promise
to hijack this blog and write for it at least every other week if not more
often.
Maria (on the left) and me sewing our costumes
Fall 2013
anime season was a disappointment with less than three inspiring characters to
cosplay and that greatly affects my cosplay plans. Thus I hope the winter
season will be better and spring even better.
While the amount of cosplayable characters was low there were few great
shows, namely still ongoing Nagi no Asukara and more-than-reference-anime
Outbreak Company.
My haafu-eefu meido can't be this adorable
This season
looks better. I quite liked already aired Space Dandy (I can't say same about
the director’s earlier work Cowboy Bepop as I like complete stories more than episodic
anime. And CB lacked characters and didn't use its potential. Still, CB looks great even after 15 years.)
and Shoji Kawamori's Nobunaga the Fool. Nobunaga the Fool reminds me of Studio Gonzo’s
so horrible it is awesome series Glass Fleet. Kawamori was in charge of the
mechanical design of the series. I'm anxiously waiting for Chuunibyou’s second
season (tomorrow!!), Nourin and Toaru Hikuushi to begin. I also hope to find other
great series to enjoy and even rave about. Maria will at least be watching
Chuuni but doesn’t really know about other series.
New anime season, check it out!
Anyway,
this post is about Yukicon's cosplays and a certain Kyoto Animation series
called Kyokai no Kanata which after suspicion turned out to be a very cute and
sometimes touching series. We both watched it and I dare to say, cried with it.
Kyokai no Kanata, Kyokana, was very different from your everyday Kyoani-show.
If anything it reminded me of Munto, the series I never completed (because one
character annoyed me more than anything). Kyokana had excellent animation, it
oozed from all that sakuga and making those few fight scenes obviously cost
more than your average anime series combined.
Akkey, Hiro'omi, Mirai and Mitsuki
Despite
excellent animation the series lacked something in the way characters were
written. The heroine, Mirai Kuriyama, began as blobbiest moeblob that has ever blobbed
KyoAni blob…show. Mikuru from MotHS would be jealous. After a while it luckily
turned out that Mirai was half pretending (and half of that uguuiing was
nervousness, wow I made a new word!) and became more serious if a bit quirky
lead. The hero and also villain Akihito or Akkey (so clever foreshadowing, to
call him demon) was your everyday schoolboy with glasses fetish and troubled
past.
The main
couple had most character development and supporting characters stayed in
background. Hiro’omi spent most of his time lusting after his imouto Mitsuki and
imouto tsukkomied him. Maria’s favorite character was Akkey’s mother, who
stayed mystery through the series. Her best features were funky and completely
ridiculous costumes.
Akkeeeyyy....!
The series
had somewhat good pacing. First two episodes seemed a bit cluttered but after
that everything was smoother. I maratoned the series week before the last
episode and that greatly affected my enjoyment. Watching weekly wouldn't have
made such an impact. While there were imperfections and the last part of the
last episode ruined the mood for me, I still liked the series very much. Of course
episode 6 (idol episode with why always... ) was the best and Maria wants to cosplay
from it. I also liked OVA ep 3 because of Hiro’omi.
Because naked Hiro'omi is always relevant
We both
compared KyoKana to Chuunibyou and Chuuni just outshines Kyokana in about every
aspect. Yuuta and Rikka’s relationship seemed more solid than Akkey and Mirai’s,
Chuuni had more interesting characters than KyoKana and pacing was better in
Chuuni. For animation, Kyokana was better but as it seems, Chuuni2 will have
many well animated scenes. The theme however is the same: If we want to love, we have
to accept the person we want to love.
We are participating Yukicon as cosplay contest judges with three other cosplayers. Because judging is hard and can take up to 10 hours per day
we wanted to wear comfortable cosplays. I already had my Mirai costume from
fall 2013 and Maria apparently had to make Akkey’s mothers chipmunk costume. Hopefully
we can have a photoshoot of said cosplays and post some pictures here. These costumes are for Saturday. For Sunday I’m
contemplating on Victorique from Gosik or Serena from Pokemon. Everything
depends on the weather.
