If I had to pick a character that I cosplayed the most last year in 2024, it's probably Geto Suguru from Jujutsu Kaisen. So today, I'll be talking about the many cosplays of Geto I've done in the past so far. Before I go any further though, please note that this may be my longest post by far. I cosplayed many different versions of Geto for many different occasions, but I promise I've provided good chunk of photos for everyone to view, too!
When I first watched Jujutsu Kaisen, I was obsessed with Gojo Satoru, but I was also only caught up with Season 1 of the anime, so I wasn't very well aware of his past with Geto. So, when I did end up reading the manga, I became fast obsessed with yet another doomed yaoi pair and I had to cosplay Geto. Not wanting to deal with tying a ponytail on a wig, I remember looking at myself in the mirror and realizing with excitement that I could just use my real hair to cosplay Geto! The above selfies were from 2 years ago when I did a test run of his cosplay. I couldn't get any of his costumes until way later that year, but the first proper cosplay I did of him was a Teacher AU of him with my boyfriend, Neky as my handsome Gojo!
Gojo Satoru: @scraps_cosplay
I can't believe that was 2 years ago. We were still only friends and the above selfie of us was only few days before I confessed to him! The next time I cosplayed Geto was for a local small con, Pop Comic Con in Lowell, MA. I still didn't have any of his actual cosplays, so my boyfriend and I coordinated to do a casual, yet fancy cosplay of the pair.
Then, I had finally purchased Geto's high school uniform off of Amazon that same year because Kura Sushi was doing a collaboration event with Jujutsu Kaisen. Unfortunately, the sleeves on the costume was too tight on me, so I returned it after wearing it once to the restaurant. After that, Halloween was around the corner, so we dressed as Maid Gojo and Geto to a Halloween party!
I think about couple months afterwards, I ordered a different high uniform for Geto from HOLOUN Cosplay and was beyond pleased with the quality. My boyfriend and I then did a little home photoshoot, too!
Then, 2024 came around and I decided to bring Teacher AU version of Geto to KatsuCon. I believe that was Friday night of the convention. We then did high school Gojo and Geto on Sunday of KatsuCon.
When Anime Boston 2024 came around next, we dressed them up in tuxedos for the Formal Ball and that was when we slow danced together for the first time! It was very romantic! I remember passing by another Gojo cosplayer at the convention and they told us, "Congratulations!" It was very cute!
But that was also around when I finally bought the Gojogesa for Geto also, so we did a photoshoot of them specifically from Jujutsu Kaisen 0 the Movie at Anime Boston, too!
Then summer came and one of the things we both really wanted to do together was to have a picnic. So, we went to a nearby park in my neighborhood that also had a rose garden, casually dressed as Gojo and Geto! We're very normal about them, can you tell?! We also made a little music video of the picnic that you can watch on my Instagram if you're interested.
Now, for ConnectiCon 2024... We got a little... Freaky. When I saw the manga panel with Kenjaku dressed as a female nurse, I had to... I had to! So, we cosplayed as Doctor Gojo and Nurse Geto for Saturday of ConnectiCon and had a blast. We would do a free "health checkup" for attendees and give them a sticker I made as a reward. You can also find a video of this on my Instagram! More NSFW photos from this photoshoot is available there, too!
And now, finally! The last cosplay I've done of Geto was a cowboy version of him for our trip to the local renaissance fair, King Richard's Fair! Couple people recognized our cosplays and it was a lot of fun!
Actually, I lied. The last time I cosplayed Geto was for his birthday event I hosted at Oasit's Sweet but... You know what, I'll make a separate post for it with birthday event I also hosted there for Gojo's birthday.
But I hope you liked all the different version of Geto and Gojo cosplays we've done together so far! We have a couple more planned! I don't think I'll ever get sick of these two...
[2025-05-01] We Support Women's Rights and Wrongs!
Back again with another throwback post! Today, I'm writing about my cosplay of Roberta 'Rosarita' Cisneros from Black Lagoon! Black Lagoon is definitely one of those few animes I absolutely enjoy re-watching quite frequently. The first time I cosplayed Roberta was for ConnectiCon 2023 and then I revamped her wig to bring it back for Otakon 2024.
This cosplay was definitely more of a closet cosplay. The only thing I made by hand were the magazine pouches on her arms and I believe the wig is from Epic Cosplay Wigs. When I was styling her wig for the first time, I wasn't so sure how to go about it. Since I didn't own a crimper at the time either, I was struggling to create those fluffy bangs you'd often see in older animes. When I attempted to try and tease the wefts for the bangs, it just... Did not turn out great. So, I just did what I could.
I think Black Lagoon is one of those niche animes that not many people know of. That or Revy just tends to be the most recognizable character from the series. In which, of course, is not a bad thing at all! I absolutely adore Revy (and many other characters from Black Lagoon). While it was just a little unfortunate that my Roberta cosplay went unrecognized at ConnectiCon, I still had a lot of fun cosplaying her. Just wearing her cosplay made feel so confident and badass!
When 2024 came around, my friend, Sonia and I mutually expressed on wanting to do a Black Lagoon cosplay at Otakon. That was when we got to cosplay Revy and Roberta together! We got few photos taken by attendees and even had a photoshoot together which was a lot of fun! With the amount of fun we had in our Black Lagoon cosplays, we talked about doing another Black Lagoon photoshoot at a bar. We would love to find someone to be Balalaika and Shenhua for it, too! Now, that's a dream cosplay group I'd love to be part of and make happen!
What's a cosplay that makes you feel super bad ass in? I feel I've cosplayed many charismatic characters, both female and male, but Roberta really tops them all!
This past weekend, I went to the local Japan Festival at the Boston Commons! Saturday, I was cosplaying Yorknew City Arc version of Chrollo Lucilfer from Hunter x Hunter and then Yamagishi Yukako from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Part 4 on Sunday.
Photo credit: @team_splenda
The Japan Festival is an event that's held annually at the Boston Commons here. Last year was actually their first time hosting the event after about four years since they were unable to gather the funds to bring it back sooner during and after the pandemic was "over."
While we were blessed with amazing weather last year, we were not so lucky this year unfortunately. Saturday was raining and humid, and while it was sunny on Sunday, it was terribly windy - I'm sure you can tell in the selfie I took above with my friends, haha!
Aside from the weather, the festival itself also felt slightly smaller than last year - I think there were lesser vendors/booths this year. I also felt bad for a lot of the business owners and artists that were tabling at the festival. I fear they may not have made as many sales as expected due to the weather.
Speaking of vendors though, I did make some purchase at the festival to support at least one small business and that was Miki & Co Inc. They're a business from New York, selling Japanese vintage vinyl records! I was quite surprised at the variety of genres they actually brought over for a weekend event. Out of curiosity, I asked them if they happen to have any of my top favorite City Pop artist, Inagaki Junichi. And they did! In fact, they had a few mini vinyl records by him! I was even more surprised at how generously priced they were!
At first, I thought about just buying one or two, especially since I do not own a record player and I wasn't sure if I was ever going to invest in one in the future. So if anything, I would just be buying them more as a collection. But at the same time, the prices were just insanely cheap. For the time being, I decided to think on it while browsing the other booths at the festival. After a couple hours, I came back and decided it would still be an unbeatable deal to just buy all four records they had in stock. So, when I was checking out, the owner noticed I had come back from earlier and asked:
"Are you a fan?"
"I'm a big fan, yes! I'm so surprised you guys have his records!"
So, here they are! All four mini vinyl records of Inagaki Junichi they had at the booth. Honestly at this rate, I think I'll be looking into investing in a record player. I've kind of wanted one for awhile, so why not!
For my Boston audience, did you go to the festival? What was your favorite part about the event and did you also make any purchases at the event? For my non-Boston audience, does your city have their own Japan Festival they host? What is it like? I would love to know!
I'm back with another throwback post! Today, I'm writing about my cosplay of Baji Keisuke from Tokyo Revengers! I'm going to cover all the different cosplays of Baji I did over the years, but fun fact - the first cosplay of Baji I did was the one with him in a schoolgirl uniform from the side manga, Letter from Baji Keisuke and it was a super last minute decision I made to bring it to ConnectiCon 2023.
The wig is trimmed from the same lace-front wig I purchased from Amazon for my Yamagishi Yukako cosplay from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Part 4, and the schoolgirl uniform was also purchased from Amazon - the ribbon was altered by me.
Summer of 2023 was when I first began watching Tokyo Revengers and I was hooked. As soon as I was caught up with Season 1, I immediately went to read the manga. And by the time I was also caught up with the manga, I saw that a Tokyo Revengers Cosplay Gathering was being hosted at ConnectiCon that year. I think I saw that announcement only couple weeks prior to the convention. So, it was a very last minute decision I made to bring this version of Baji, haha!
Even though only some of the cosplayers recognized the cosplay at the gathering, I was still super happy and had a lot of fun in it. The next version of Baji cosplayed was the Valhalla version. I actually did this version of him for a photoshoot and then I brought it to a convention with me for the first time last year for FanimeCon 2024. At this time, I was waiting to be able to financially afford to buy the Toman uniform.
Photo credit: yuri_psd
After this photoshoot, I was quite fed up with that lace-front wig - it was a pain in the butt to maintain it each time I needed to wear it. So, I purchased a non-lace-front wig from HOLOUN Cosplay and made glued hairlines to make it look more natural. This was also around the time I had also finally ordered my Toman uniform Doki Doki Cosplay, too! I was very excited. Oh, and the boots were purchased from Amazon as well, but it is unfortunately no longer available.
I specifically ordered the version without the Manji symbol and since I had an embroidery machine, I created my own patch of the live-action version of the "Manji" symbol to censor it. If you would also like to censor the Manji symbol on your Toman uniform, I'm currently selling the patches as a set on my Etsy store.
The first time I debuted the Toman version of Baji was at Anime Boston 2024! My friend cosplayed Matsuno Chifuyu with me and we did a fun photoshoot of the two that weekend! All of the photos came out amazing and you can check them out on my Instagram!
Then for FanimeCon 2024, a different friend and I also cosplayed Chifuyu and Baji in their middle school uniform. It does not end there, though! On Halloween last year, I dressed Baji as a cowboy and went for a day trip to Salem, too! But that's the last version of Baji cosplay I've done so far.
And of course, I do plan or at least hope to cosplay many other versions of him in the near future. He has so many beautiful outfits not only in the official arts, but also in the mobile game, Puzz Reve! It is my dream to just have a closet of all the different costumes for Baji... I'm very normal about him...
As a bonus, please enjoy my absolute favorite photos from the BajiFuyu photoshoot my friend and I did at Anime Boston last year!
Still trying to catch up, so here's another throwback post of my past cosplays. Today, I'm writing about my cosplay of Yamagishi Yukako from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Part 4! As you may have read on one of my previous posts, Part 4 is my favorite from the series. And if you follow me on other social media platforms, you may know that I have a thing for crazy female characters... We support women's rights and wrongs here!
I had bought Yukako's cosplay from Taobao for Anime Boston 2023. While I had bought a wig for her initially from Taobao also, it ended up being horribly thin and nothing as advertised on the listing. So, I had to order a different wig last minute on Amazon. I believe that was the first time I had ever ordered any synthetic wigs from Amazon and I was quite pleased! Since then, I've made multiple purchases from that specific seller of their wigs.
Below is also a selfie I took with a Koichi cosplayer, who I befriended that day! With his low popularity, I wasn't expecting anyone to be cosplaying him, so I was super happy to meet one!
After Anime Boston 2023, I brought my Yukako cosplay to ConnectiCon that same year and it was a lot of fun. I remember telling myself that I will take a break from cosplaying Yukako for a little bit and that was right after ConnectiCon. With summer right around the corner, I say it's a good time for me to bring her back!
I should also mention - while I was aware her shoes are actually blue, I went with purple because I was also wearing the same shoes for Abbacchio and I really did not want to spend more money on another pair of shoes - they can be so expensive! Besides, I thought the purple still suited nicely with her school uniform. The shoes were also purchased on Amazon.
P. S.I think it's extra hilarious to be cosplaying Yukako in Boston with the amount of jaywalking people do here.
[2025-04-26] My Favorite Omegaverse BL Visual Novel
In today's throwback post, we will be going way back - who remembers Sweetpool?! It was and still is my top favorite BL visual novel by Nitro+Chiral. I had played it years ago back when I was in high school, and I don't quite recall what reminded me about it to bringing back for Anime Boston 2023, but that was when I cosplayed Sakiyama Youji from the game for the first time!
I remember I had unintentionally brought this cosplay for Sunday of Anime Boston, not realizing it was Easter that day until I entered the convention center and everyone was handing out Easter eggs! And throughout the entire time I was at the con that day, I really thought no one would recognize the character but towards the end, exactly one person recognized me! I was so shocked but also grateful it was not a minor, phew.
I should also mention that I also tried cosplaying Shironuma Tetsuo just for fun also since he and Youji wear similar school uniforms. I'm not sure if I'll ever cosplay him to a con particularly, but I'm definitely not against it either!
Both of the wigs for Youji and Tetsuo are from Epic Cosplay Wigs and the Komanami Academy patch is by QuidVis.
I did, however, very recently bring Youji to Otakon 2024. A group of friends and myself had planned a Sweetpool cosplay group few months in advance, so we got to make it happen on Day 0 (Thursday) of Otakon last year! We looked so freakin' amazing!!! We all had so much fun cosplaying them! Quite a bit of (adult) attendees also recognized also!
If this reaches any other Sweetpool fans out there and you're also looking for some Sweetpool goods, I have a couple available on my Etsy shop if you're interested!
Another throwback post! I'm trying to catch up as quickly as possible, so I can get to posting about more recent events and projects instead soon. Today, I'm writing about my cosplay of Leone Abbacchio from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Part 5! When I think back, I think Abbacchio is the only cosplay I never felt fully satisfied with, or I didn't do justice. Sadly, I have yet to bring it back either. Not sure when I will or should, I feel this is because I felt a bit detached from the cosplay and the character now. But I do want to do a proper photoshoot of his cosplay before I decide to sell it off.
The above photos are a casual version I did of him one time to play around more with makeup. As much as I love and admire the dramatic, animated style of makeup many JoJo cosplayers do, I wanted to strive for a more natural look for my Abbacchio cosplay and I still want to experiment a bit more with it. I think my biggest challenge when it comes to cosplay makeup (or makeup in general) is contour. Because I have such a round face, it really hard to figure out how to go about what areas I should contour, how I should contour, and how deep I should contour said area(s) especially for hyper-masculine looks.
Other than the makeup, I also desperately need to fix up the wig, specifically the glued hairline part. Abbacchio's wig was the first wig I did glued hairline after being out of practice with it for roughly 6 years. So, I was very rusty with it.
The only convention I had brought Abbacchio to was Anime Boston 2023. I was cosplaying him only for the first half of Saturday that year before changing to Yamagishi Yukako from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Part 4 for the rest of that day. If I remember correctly, Anime Boston was in early April that year and despite it still being chilly out, I was sweating quite a bit. When I went to go change, I was apparently sweating through my wig , so the underneath of the purple cap he wears was drenched with sweat... It was pretty gross... It probably did not help that I was wearing my silicone muscle suit and faux leather on top. I was quite relieved to change out into Yukako instead.
Because mask-mandate was still in place that year, I did enjoy having different masks to wear that would match the character I'm cosplaying that day. Below is the photo of the said mask - the beautiful holographic netting on it was just absolutely perfect for Abbacchio!
If I ever do a casual, steampunk cosplay of Abbacchio, I would love to use this mask again for something like that! It's really stunning. Speaking of JJBA - Part 5, though... Fun fact, I had almost skipped this part because one friend of mine said it was just nothing but filler episodes. I am so relieved I didn't listen to that friend and watched it through, because it instantly became one of my favorite parts of the series.
Part 4 is still my top favorite though, unfortunately!
What's everyone else's favorite part of JJBA? Are you guys also excited for Steel Ball Run?!
For today, I'm writing up another throwback post on one of my past cosplays - Gojo Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen! The very first time I cosplayed him was for Anime Boston 2023. Then, I brought him with me again for ConnectiCon 2023.
2023 was basically the year I finally sat myself down to watch Jujutsu Kaisen. Everyone was talking about it and at first, I was a little reluctant. Up until then, I had not watched any recent animes for years - there just weren't a lot that caught my attention. But when I kept seeing fan contents of Gojo, I started to become a little curious myself. I mean, how could I not?! He just looked so stunning! And upon catching up to the end of Season 1, I needed to cosplay him.
The wig was purchased from Epic Cosplay Wigs while the jacket was purchased from Taobao. I remember having to keep the jacket unzipped a little bit at the collar because it was so tall on me. I couldn't tell if the collar was made too tall or if my neck was just on the shorter side...
I think at this point, I have restyled that wig a total of three times, too. The last time I cosplayed Gojo was for the Gojo Satoru Birthday Event I hosted last year at the local dessert cafe in Brookline, MA, Oasit's Sweet. I was most satisfied with the way I had restyled it third time around, so it's been sitting on one of my wig heads nicely since. Unfortunately once I get to packing more of my belongings for my upcoming move in a couple months here, I will be forced to stuff it in the bag...
Cosplaying Gojo, though, I always have a lot of fun with. It's one of those very few cosplays where I get to be more silly. I recall doing some really silly poses for photos as him at ConnectiCon 2023, haha! Not sure when I'll bring him back again, but I do miss cosplaying him. I also have his Lost in Paradise version, which I wore to FanimeCon 2024! Perhaps I'll try to schedule a proper photoshoot of that version some time this summer - Seaport would be a neat area to give a similar vibe of Shibuya.
In general, I would simply love to do more casual cosplays of Gojo. Casual cosplays, for me, is a fun way to further express one's love for the character and bringing the said character to life. It's almost quite like playing a little dress-up game of your favorite character!
And for those wondering if I'll ever cosplay Gojo with the blindfold, I'm not sure... I've always been a bit self-conscious about my face with how round it is, so I figured I will look really silly in that version. But really, I shouldn't care about that when cosplay is about having fun. Perhaps I'll work on that little dysphoria of mine and get to cosplaying Gojo with the blindfold. For now, I do enjoy cosplaying the above versions a lot! It's the only time I get to use the white eyeliner while wearing bright blue color contacts!
Anywho, where is my Gojo nation?! If you came across this post, please tell me your favorite version of Gojo!
Last weekend, my friends and I went to go check out Wicked Comic Con for the first time at the Westin Hotel in Seaport! The event was a free one-day event and we mostly took it as an opportunity to cosplay and meet up with other friends. Because I had started packing a lot of my belongings for my move in the next coming couple months, I wanted to do a more casual, comfy, closet cosplay. And the only cosplay that came to mind was Chrollo Lucilfer from Hunter x Hunter, specifically the Yorknew City Arc version!
I had cosplayed Chrollo before for KatsuCon 2024, but I haven't cosplayed him since while meaning to bringing it back some time. That also meant the wig I had for him had been thrown in the storage for a good year now also, haha. So, I spent couple hours restyling the wig completely few days prior to the event. Honestly, that was really all I needed to do. I pulled out black suit from the closet, locate the earrings and the forehead tattoo, and Yorknew City Arc Chrollo was ready to go!
Below is a photo of my Chrollo cosplay from KatsuCon 2024. I think I like how I restyled the wig this time around. There are some trimming to do, but I'll leave that for another time when I'm not in the middle of preparing to move.
Photo credit: @seelomiguenphotos
The jacket is handmade by me and of course, I'll make a separate post on how I made it another time. The Ben's Knife in the photo is 3D printed and painted by me, but the model is by DefaultGuy. As for the earrings, the tattoo, and the silicone muscle suit, they're all from Taobao. Going back to the event though, it was a lot of fun! I cannot complain much when it was a free event. Majority of the vendors at the event were local comic artists, so my friends and I took the opportunity to chat with some of them and learn about their works.
I do plan on cosplaying Chrollo's original outfit again one of these days for another photoshoot. Since it's starting to warm up in Boston, that may need to wait until way later this year when the temperature starts to drop a bit. Wearing the silicone muscle suit in the summer would not be the smartest idea.
Anywho, for those who went to Wicked Comic Con, I hope you guys enjoyed the event as much as we did! It was lovely seeing both old and new faces there.
[2025-04-17] Honkai Star Rail Fan Maid Cafe Event at Oasit's Sweet
Last Saturday on April 12th, I hosted a Honkai Star Rail Fan Maid Cafe Event at a local dessert studio, Oasit's Sweet in Brookline, MA! If you follow my social medias, you may have seen me host other anime or video game-themed events at this venue. This dessert studio a local family-owned business that I became a regular patron at since last year and I had the privilege to become very close to the owner and the staff! I loved the welcoming atmosphere the venue and the staff had since everyone there were also fellow anime and video game lovers. The owner also has a very large display of his personal figurine collections at the shop while always having anime episodes playing on the TV's - it's a lovely vibe! If you live in the area and have yet to check it out, I highly recommend it!
Please kindly note that the only purpose of myself hosting these events is to promote and support local small businesses in the area as well as offering more affordable and accessible cosplay events to the public.
The owner and I had the idea of doing a maid cafe-themed event for awhile and because I haven't cosplayed Jing Yuan in awhile and Honkai Star Rail being a pretty popular game these days, I thought it'd be cute and fun to do a Honkai Star Rail Maid Cafe event while bringing lots of attraction to the business.
Before the event, the last time I had cosplayed Jing Yuan was for Pax East 2024. So, it's been just sitting in its storage bag since then... Therefore, I decided to sit down a few days prior to the event to restyle the wig completely.
I think it took me roughly about 4 to 5 hours to restyle since not only did I have to de-tangle, but I re-crimped the entire wig and also added more wefts on the sides before getting to styling. I'm not sure when I'll be wearing him again, but I should do an outdoor photoshoot for him in the fall.
As for the event, it was a huge success. Many people came and we had to put people on the wait-list every hour, but everyone was incredibly understanding and kind. Plenty of people came in their own Honkai Star Rail cosplays also! Customers who specifically came for the event received a free badge I made of maid Jing Yuan and maid Kafka. Below is a selfie I took with my friend, Sonia as Kafka who helped me run the event! She looked super adorable!
Once the event was over, we sat down to treat ourselves. We got the Citrus Honey Soda, which was the special drink for the event, and I also ordered the Oreo Choco Snow!
As always, huge thank you to Oasit's Sweet staff for letting me host yet another event and another huge thank you to Sonia for helping me with the event! And of course, thank you to all of you who came to the event! We hope you all enjoyed it. Please look forward to more events in the future! There will absolutely be more to come!
The the last couple days, I've been working on making the boots for Gaia from Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. I bought her cosplay from Taobao couple months ago, but it didn't come with the boots, so I went to Goodwill, bought a pair of plain black knee-high boots, and bought some materials to transform it.
Below are the parts I made to transform the boots: a pair of grey layered ruffles, blue gems, front panels, back panels, belts, and six belt loops. The gray ruffles are made out of cotton/polyester fabric, the black pieces are made out of faux leather, and the blue gems are leftovers from my Yue cosplay from Card Captor Sakura.
Once I finished making all the parts shown above, I held them into place using sewing clips to position them. I thought about being proper and sewing them in place, but this is four layers of faux leather I was working with. Including the folded seams along the edges, it would be a total of eight layers. Afraid of breaking my needle, I decided to just glue them together using super glue - I did not quite care for functionality for these parts, anyways!
Once the parts were glued altogether, I then glued them onto the boots and realized... I made the ruffles way too long. I'm not sure why I didn't bother measuring the length of it, but I had no choice but to remake it. As you can see in the reference photo at the top, the ruffles only come half way down to her shin. Mine were coming down all the way to the ankle!
I basically halved the measurements from the first ruffles for the second ones and while I had doubts that they were gonna look far too small, I decided to continue going forth and trust the process. In the end, it turned out quite perfect!
I'm aware Gaia's boots have high heels and while I definitely could have made mine more accurate, I recalled having nerve damage on my feet from wearing high heels for my Yue cosplay (I know he doesn't wear shoes, but I will never be comfortable having my dogs out in public)... And that injury lasted about 2~3 weeks. It was quite scary since I thought it wasn't going to make full recovery. Ever since, I decided I'll never wear high heels. Remember, cosplay is for fun and while I can understand others wanting to be as accurate as possible, make sure to prioritize your health and safety no matter what!
I may consider at least painting the soles silver but otherwise, that's it for the boots! I'm going to go take a look and see if her cravat needs to be remade...
Last Friday, I had the privilege to go to the KENSHI YONEZU 2025 WORLD TOUR / JUNK concert in New York City. Seeing him perform live has been something on my bucket list for few years, so I was super excited when he announced the dates for his first world tour! I remember fighting to get the front row seats on Ticketmaster as soon as tickets were on sale... It was awful. While I was not able to get any of the front row seats, I still managed to get a seat in one of the orchestra rows that was still fairly close to the stage!
To start off, I should mention that I absolutely despite New York... It's just far too chaotic and overwhelming for me. Boston is right in the middle that's perfect for me where things aren't too crowded nor too empty and spaced out. The last time I went to NYC, which was also the first time I went, I had a horrible experience where I was robbed, so my first impression of the place was not good, haha. On top of that, I'm one heck of an extrovert and never really get overstimulated in crowded areas. I've been to conventions like Anime Expo and never experienced overstimulation. But New York? Oh, man. That place is definitely the first to give me such feeling. I truly never plan on going there ever unless I have to, such as the Kenshi Yonezu concert I went to.
Moving on, I realized that last time I was in NYC, I didn't bother to try any of the dollar pizzas. So per my friends' recommendations, I went to 2 Bros Pizza for lunch and tried their cheese and pepperoni pizzas and for dinner, my friends and I enjoyed a nice, piping hot bowl of udon at Tsurutontan. I was quite excited to eat at Tsurutontan since the only one we had in Boston just recently closed down for unknown reasons back in March.
Prior to the concert, my friends and I were also looking at the merchandise lineup and I had my eyes glued on the coverall. However, we were starting to feel discouraged and hopeless when we heard that people had already started lining up around 4PM - concert was not going to start until 8PM and it said doors open at 7PM. What didn't make further sense was that it was noted somewhere the merchandise booth will open at 6:15PM... How does the merchandise booth open before doors open...?
But we had no choice but to just get there when we get there since we had made our dinner reservation at 5:45PM. By the time we were done with dinner, it was a little past 7PM and while the line did look even more awful, it was moving slowly but surely. However, the merchandise booth situation just continued to worsen as we got through security. As soon as we checked in, we were told merchandise will be downstairs in the basement, so we immediately went downstairs, stayed in line for about 20 minutes. From the start, we had no ideas what was going on with the line. It looked horribly organized and venue staffs did not come to take care of the situation until about 10 minutes in since we lined up. After another 10 minutes, I asked one of the staffs and below was our conversation:
"Can you tell me what's sold out or what's available at the moment?"
"What are you looking for?"
"I'm wanting the coveralls."
"Coveralls are upstairs..."
Being told this information, I was distraught. I expressed my frustration of the situation to the staff that I had been waiting in line for awhile and we were not told that there would be different merchandises available on each floor.
Thankfully, the staff was extremely kind that not only did he guide me to the upstairs merchandise booth, but he also allowed me to cut to the front and checked the inventory to see if they had any coveralls available. Unfortunately, they didn't had my size available. I was incredibly disappointed, but it wasn't entirely the staff's fault. So, I got myself the towel and one of the sticker sets. Before leaving to find our seats, I made sure to express to the manager not only about our frustrations on the lack of communication and confusion for the merchandise booths, but also for their staff's incredible kindness and excellent customer service. So, Kevin at Radio City Hall... If you somehow happen to be reading this, thank you another million times once again! I don't think we would have been able to get any merchandise without your help!
Now for the concert... Gosh, words can't describe how amazing the entire concert was. Some of the songs I've been looking forward to hear live were Eine Kleine, Umeutsutsu, Sayonara Mata Itsuka, Kanden, Lemon, Garakuta, M87, and Mainichi. His singing was even more beyond amazing in person and the backdrop displayed throughout the concert was so gorgeous - it was almost as if the entire concert was more of a art gallery show of Kenshi Yonezu's works. He does draw all of his album cover art on his own after all! He's truly an artist.
I think I fangirl-ed the most when he was singing KICK BACK - during the last bit of the song, he grabbed one of the cameras, pointing to his face, so we had a big up-close view of his face on the projectors...!
Throughout the entire concert, I stood and cheered that my legs were so sore by the end of it. But for Kenshi Yonezu, it was all worth it - not a single regret! For encore, he also sang his newest single, Bow and Arrow and it was perfection.
I wish he had offered VIP tickets for meet-and-greet opportunities, but perhaps he was trying to pace himself a bit since this was his first world tour. Although, I don't think if he ever hosted any sort of meet-and-greet or autograph signing sessions at any of his concerts in Japan. Maybe that will change in the near future!
To close, I'm so glad I got to see him perform live and I can't wait for him to return for another world tour. Next time, please come to Boston so I don't have to travel to New York again... Being able to see a live performance of an artist who's been such a huge inspiration to me in life has truly been an honor.
I woke up feeling horrible sore from the past two days of hitting the gym since I haven't gone for two weeks prior to that, and I also had a migraine on top of it, too... By evening, I felt better, so I got up to see if I can brainstorm some ideas on how I could go about keeping the belt for my Jamie Siu cosplay from Street Fighter 6 up on the waist and prevent it from being weighed down by the gourd. Unfortunately, all the ideas I came up with required me to un-stitch the waist for what would be the third time, and I just hated the thought of that alone. So, I'll be keeping it as is and instead, I'll just make sure to hold the gourd in my hand for majority of the time in the cosplay.
That said, I just decided to give myself a rest day for today. Then, I thought about what to post next on my newly revived Tumblr and remembered I wanted to post about my past cosplays in chronological order. Therefore in this post, the first cosplay I will be rambling about is my Tsukishiro Yukito cosplay from Card Captor Sakura! If you read my first official post, you may remember that I mentioned this was the first cosplay I brought to Anime Boston 2022 after coming back from a long hiatus. With that, feel free to proceed below if you'd like to continue reading my ramble!
When I moved to Boston in 2022 and decided to attend Anime Boston for the first time as a way find new friends and connections, I definitely wanted to choose a more comfortable, casual cosplay. At the time, I haven't cosplayed in nearly 6 years, so I didn't want to jump in and spend ridiculous amount of money immediately after coming back. Although, I'm not entirely sure why or how I ended up choosing Yukito of all the characters out there. He's definitely been one of the many characters I've always to cosplay, but that said, I'm sure I must've had plenty other choices. So if I had to guess, I think I was feeling foreign and anxious again about taking public transportation in cosplay, so I wanted to pick something that wouldn't stand out so much even as a casual cosplay.
The costume was store-bought on Aliexpress and I believe the wig was also either from Aliexpress or Epic Cosplay Wigs. The circle lenses were ordered from UNIQSO.
I was truly surprised to see that I still remembered how to cut and style a wig after, again, nearly 6 years of not cosplaying. The only issue I had with this cosplay was the neck tie. It was horribly short that I struggled to retie it each time I wore it. Due to that, I plan on making a new one at some point at longer length. Since I own an embroidery machine now, too, I would be able to improve the quality of it also. Perhaps I'll also replace the school emblem on the emblem with embroidery instead!
While the first time I wore this cosplay was for Anime Boston 2022, it wasn't the last time I wore it. I actually wore it again somewhat recently last year in August for a local event here in Boston.
But that's still 2 years this cosplay along with the wig had been thrown in my storage, so I had to steam the costume and completely restyle the wig. I'm not sure if I'm fully satisfied with the way it turned out, but I'll revisit it again another time, haha. Meaning, yes - I do plan on bringing this cosplay back at some point! I love Yukito way too much to just retire his cosplay and the series, Card Captor Sakura is a huge part of my childhood. Maybe the next time I cosplay him, I can convince my boyfriend to cosplay Touya for me and we can recreate the iconic kabedon scene... Sigh...
What are some of everyone's favorite childhood animes? And have you cosplayed from it? If not, do you plan on it? I think the next nostalgic cosplay I would like to do next is Lambo Bovino from Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Have a bonus picture of my Yukito cosplay before I sign off for the night:
I still plan on posting about my older cosplays in chronological order soon! I'm just trying to get everything I need for PAX East done as soon as possible, so I can just relax couple weeks before the con...
Tonight, I spent few hours making some modifications on the pants for my Jamie Siu cosplay from Street Fighter 6. The entire costume is store-bought from Taobao but I've made few modifications on it previously - I'll make a separate post on this another time! But I did also debut this cosplay for the first time at Super MAGFest this year in January. And before anyone else mentions it, I will also make a separate post on how I made the braid extension another time.
Photo credit: @seelomiguenphotos
Again, the modifications I made tonight are on the pants. As you can see in the reference photo below, the waistband and the bands on the cuffs are flat, unlike mine which were scrunched up with the elastic bands tucked inside the fabric.
Having the biggest brain rot for Jamie ever since I got into fighting games last year, I wanted to be as accurate as possible. So, I started off by taking the waistband and the cuffs apart with a seam ripper. I measured the circumference of my waist, calf, and ankle and cut the 3-inch wide elastic wide I bought from my local fabric store accordingly.
Having to un-stitch things with a seam ripper is always a huge pain in the butt (and neck), but watching Apothecary Diaries throughout the process helped me stay motivated and focused - I'm really enjoying the series. It's so cute and interesting! Couple things to note, I'm still an amateur at sewing, so I made it one of my new year resolutions to improve on it and make more cosplays from scratch. This was also my first time working with an elastic band this large... I was quite literally wrestling with it to sew it properly with the fabric of the pants.
First attempt turned out okay, but there was some minor errors on the measurements for the waist and the calf. So, I had to go back to un-stitching those two parts, and cut off few inches of the elastic bands.
Second attempt, where I sewed the fixed elastic bands back on turned out much better and I'm quite satisfied! It feels nice on the skin, too. Side note, I've been working out to lose weight and get fit. So, I'm sure in the next couple months, I'll most likely have to alter at least the waist band. But since I now have experience on it, it should be easy when the time comes to alter it!
The next thing modification/improvement I need to make on this cosplay is figure out a way to keep the rope belt on the waist without letting the weight of the gourd weighing it down and causing it to become loose. The gourd is 3D printed and while it's an empty shell, it still weighs the belt down quite bit and it becomes loose over time. Obviously, I'll need to go with a method where I put some kind of attachment on the waistband of the pants to keep the belt up, but I'm wanting the attachment to be as unnoticeable as possible while also preventing the waistband from being flipped outward from the weight.
I'll brainstorm some ideas, reach out to my seamstress friends for their insight, and see what I can do. I'm also open to receiving tips from everyone here, too!
I will be bringing my Jamie cosplay to PAX East this year in May. Let me know if you're also going and what you're planning to cosplay!
Have this silly photo of me from Super MAGFest as Jamie as a bonus:
For my first official entry on here, I thought it would be good to just go over where I've been and what I've been doing the past 5-years.
So, starting from the year of 2020... Well, that was during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were in lock-down, I got to work fully remote from home, and even had a remote college graduation ceremony. It's funny how about two months before my graduation, I had an existential crisis on how I did not want to pursue in the career of my major. But what am I to do two months before my graduation? Of course, I still took my degree, but I went back to school for another year to study what I truly wanted to pursue my career in and I had a lot of fun learning. That allowed me really step into the career field I'm in now and I still enjoy it quite a bit.
In regards to my hobby though, I basically took a long hiatus on cosplaying ever since I started college in 2016. Being a full-time student with a part-time job, I just didn't have the time, energy, nor the mental capacity to continue with such labor-intensive hobby. Besides, we were in lock-down so there were no conventions or events happening. Instead, I tried to work more on digital art. I think I went back to making fan goods, doing commissions, and just drawing whatever I wanted to draw. It was quite nice.
After the pandemic was nearly "over" in 2022, I finally moved to Boston on my own! I was stuck living in Anchorage, Alaska for nearly 20 years of my life and I was always desperate to leave that place. It was just too depressing for me! During the first few months of trying to settle in my new place in Boston, I thought going to the local anime convention would be a great place to make new friends and connections, so I went to Anime Boston for the first time, cosplaying Tsukishiro Yukito from Card Captor Sakura! So many people mistook me as a character from Ouran High School Host Club, haha. At this time, I had not gone to a convention for about 6 years, so I wasn't sure how much the convention and cosplay scene had changed. And with how old the series Card Captor Sakura is, I didn't expect anyone to be cosplaying from it at all now. However, I managed to find a Sakura cosplayer and even a Tomoyo cosplayer! It made me so happy!
Because it was my first con in several years, I only went to Anime Boston that year one day (Saturday), but I still had a blast and it felt really nice coming back and cosplaying again. That's when I decided to resume going to cons again.
I also still continued to dabble with digital art, but I ran into a major art block and to this day, I still haven't fully recovered from it. I think the problem is that I want to establish my own style, but my style changes each time I pick up the pen, despite drawing for about 10 years. But if I had to show off one piece of art that I managed to finish in the last few years, I think it's this one:
This artwork was my piece to contribute to the Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Countdown when the expansion was being released. On the left is Fray Myste, a key NPC in the Dark Knight job quests, and on the right is my Warrior of Light, Pyralis! I'm a DRK main and am a huge sucker for its lore, so I was beyond excited to see that DRK was going to have the spotlight in the expansion. Even to this day, I wish I could experience Shadowbringers (and Endwalker) for the first time again... I remember when Endwalker released, I took 3 days off from work ahead of time, stocked up a box of energy drinks at home, and completed the main story in the span of those 3 days with a total 8 hours of sleep. I still think it was very much worth the sacrifice(s) I made, haha!
Moving onto 2023, I continued to attend Anime Boston, but I also attended PAX East, ConnectiCon and KupoCon for the first time! I was pleased to see and experience how accessible the transportation is in the New England area/East Coast. Some may disagree with me on this, but when you come from a place like Alaska where there is little to no public transportation, it's incredibly impressive! My first year at PAX East was not all that great, though. I went only on Saturday, cosplaying Nishikiyama Akira from Yakuza 0 in hopes to meet Yoshi-P and also receive an autograph from him. I remember I had printed out a photo of my Warrior of Light, Pyralis for him to sign, too. At the time, autograph passes were being offered to the first hundred something people in line for the Final Fantasy XVI panel they were hosting. Now, as much as I love the Final Fantasy series and Yoshi-P's works... I wasn't all that blown away by the trailer for FFXVI, so I didn't have the strongest interest in the panel - I just really wanted to receive an autograph from him! But despite lining up for the panel two hours early, I think I was only 3 people away in line from the cut-off. The staff didn't even announce those people in front of the line they let in first were the people that received the autograph pass, so I continued to wait, sat through the panel I wasn't interested in, and found out after the panel was over... I will say the only good thing that happened that day at PAX East was that I met up with a Kiryu and Majima cosplayer! Everyone kept mistaking me as Akiyama or they just wouldn't remember Nishiki! How could they not remember my little glub glub?! Can you tell I'm a Nishiki apologist-
But kyoudai recognized me... Of course, he would! He even called out to me, "Nishiki!!!"
Now at ConnectiCon... This con has become extremely special and sentimental to me just after the first year I went in 2023. Not only was it the best experience I've ever gotten from any convention, but it also ended up being the convention where I first met my now boyfriend! The convention itself wasn't too big, but also not too small - it was just the right size where I was able to really feel the sense of community. Their Cosplay Death Match is also just on a whole another level! Apparently, CTCon was the one to invent the event... Also, they have Cosplay Wrestling! That's seriously unique! They were all trained wrestler/stunt performers, too!
KupoCon was also an incredibly unique convention I've ever been to. It was held at a Hilton hotel in Toronto, so it was a little small, but they had so many unique activities that made the experience incomparable to almost any other conventions out there. Not only that, but I got to meet my favorite English voice actor, Gideon Emery! You may know him as the voice actor for Biggs from Final Fantasy VII: Remake, but I've been a huge fan of him since his work as Balthier from Final Fantasy XII. When KupoCon announced that he would be attending as one of the special guests, I whipped out my Penelo cosplay from scratch in two weeks with very little sleep... Imagine trying to whip out a Final Fantasy cosplay in two weeks... Yeah.
But it was worth it and I mean that 100%! I got to thank Gideon for his work as Penelo and as a small gift, I made a replica of the letter Balthier wrote to Vaan and Penelo at the end of the game and on the replica, I wrote my little fan letter to him! I also made an extra replica for him to sign his autograph for myself. I remember crying in my hotel room that night upon reading the little message he also wrote for me with his autograph...
"My dear Lemon,
Thank you for my letter.
I will treasure it."
- Gideon Emery "Balthier"
Fast forward to 2024... I really started to pick up on more conventions I wanted to go to, perhaps I picked up too many... I went to KatsuCon for the first time (it was the worst convention I've ever been to and I'll talk about it another time), I gave PAX East a second chance, continued to attend Anime Boston and CTCon, and I also went to Otakon for the first time! While these are just the major conventions I attended, I also attended few small local conventions in between.
Although, I'm really glad I decided to give PAX East another chance. Not only did I go for the entire weekend that year, I also finally got to meet Yoshi-P in my Rielle (FFXIV) cosplay and receive an autograph from him! He was so kind - I got to express how much I appreciate his work and he was very surprised at how 「上手すぎる」 my Japanese was.
I also had the privilege to meet Koji Fox, who was also hilarious and super sweet! My friends asked me to forward stickers of their Warriors of Light to him and he told me he collects them from fans all over the world and sticks them on his PC tower, so he can look at them whenever he's on his computer! So sweet of him...
2024 was also the year I got into fighting games and ever since then, I have the biggest brain rot for Jamie Siu from Street Fighter 6. So, when I saw not one, but two Jamie cosplayers at Otakon... Oh, man. I was the happiest...
The other highlight from Otakon was not only did I finally get to debut one of my biggest dream cosplay, Wander from Shadow of the Colossus, I also coincidentally met an Ico cosplayer! This wasn't even planned, I don't even know this person - it was insane! I think we both had the same thought and reaction, so the first we did when we found each other was hug! Ah, I should also mention my Wander cosplay is the first cosplay I've ever made almost 100% from scratch, but I'll make a separate post about it in the near future with WIP photos!
Otakon was the last major convention I went to in 2024 and nothing significant happened after that year. So, that finally brings us to the year of 2025! In January, I went to my first Super MAGFest, but since that was only couple months ago, I'll talk about it in a separate post also in the near future. I will say, though... I think I stretched myself a little too thin in 2024 going to so many conventions... While I already quite a bit planned for this year again, I do plan on cutting back on conventions for 2026 and so on. Conventions are just becoming far too expensive, and I've been wondering on and off "Is it still worth it?"
But I hope this was a fun read to whoever this reached to! Let me know if you were at any of the above conventions I mentioned!
