Anime Oasis:

Anime Oasis is a smaller convention hosted in my hometown of Boise, Idaho. It’s pretty much the only convention I can make EVERY year, and I love it. It’s been in March all of our past years, though next year it’s getting a new date in May and a new, and bigger, location!

All righty! Here we go with my first Con Report! I unfortunately wasn’t able to put together a panel for this con, but it’s moving to a new location next year and hopefully I’ll get permission to host one there or at Tomodachi fest in November. By the way, I wrote this after the convention and not during like I should have, but here it is all the same!

The convention weekend started nice and early for me on a Thursday morning as me and my roommate attended the third annual convention breakfast. She’s much more active on the convention forums and got it all set up. We had nearly 50 people there! It was amazing! We took up practically the entire restaurant! Ok, so it’s a small restaurant and that’s kind of a small number, but hey, we’re a smaller town! Lol, anyway, I was able to go straight from the breakfast to the convention. They tried out a new system of registry this year. It was all pre-reg online and then they mailed you what they’ve called a ‘tidge’. It’s a ticket and a badge all in one! I thought it was clever… There were a few mailing problems but all in all, good idea! No lines!

Anyway, I was well armed with my tidge and after a quick costume change at home, I headed into the con. Our apartment was literally down the hill from the hotel, so no paying for a hotel room! We were hosting about five other people though and I just want to say, our house still isn’t clean and we are NEVER having that many people over again! Goodness, it was not a good idea, lol. Since Anime Oasis is smaller, there really wasn’t much to do between breakfast ending at around eleven and opening ceremonies starting at five… but I managed to meet some really nice people and kill time. I wore my Green Archer cosplay the first day, it was a little scandalous compared to what I normally wear, but if you’ve ever played Gauntlet legends, my outfit was actually less… smutty, then the Green Archer’s outfit. Lol. I had to change my boots though after about fifteen minutes. They were smexy and awesome… but they hurt horribly and I couldn’t stand it. Guess I’ll have to get some inserts if I ever want to wear them longer. Everyone loved the cosplay, and I was very surprised. I didn’t think that many people knew gauntlet! It made me feel better about my nerdiness.

Opening cerimonies was short and sweet. The con director’s little girl did an adorable dance on stage while he was explaining the schedule. It was a bit distracting, but so darn cute! Introductions were done for all of the guests. We had a lot of returning acts this year, including the Slants. They’re amazing and their concert was so much fun! Also I found out one of my friends was a guest. He was there for his yo-yo skills and had a panel. It was fun!

Later, after exploring an extremely crowded dealers room and drooling over all the things I couldn’t afford, we went to the AMV contest. I actually entered three separate videos, two of which are on youtube and were my digimon videos and one that was Advent Children and unfortunately can’t be posted up. There actually weren’t very many entries this year, only about 19. They had kind of an odd voting system too involving ticket stubs and numbered cups, but it worked. MY VIDEO GOT AUDIENCE’S CHOICE! That’s right! My Advent Children video was the favorite and it won me a free T-shirt and a full weekend pass to Tomodachi fest in November!

Anyway, right after that I had to jet over to the pool area for the swimsuit cosplay. I basically took anything that couldn’t get wet off and went at my green archer. After all, I did use my swim top for the top. Heh, it was a lot of fun. I jumped into the pool and gratefully one of my friend’s had the foresight to grap my thick-head a towel before I froze. Best Male and Female were passed out… except this year we had two female winners. They cosplayed Kairi (or however you spell it) and Sora from the Under the Sea world of Kingdom Hearts, with functional flippers and everything! It was pretty awesome! I was soaking wet still by the end, and thought it would be a good idea to dry my legs off. Of course with my luck, the second I bent over, the clasp on my top broke and I was rushing to cover myself and luckily caught it before anything… vital, was revealed. Blushing madly, I managed to pull on my awarded T-shirt and attend the first anime dance of the con. They have two every year and the first one’s always a bit short, but it was still fun… and quiet a workout.

Friday started with Battle Cosplay face-offs. Battle cosplay is a mix between D&D and Soul Calibur. Basically, you team up with someone else and stage a battle with another team. It’s always a lot of fun to watch and the face-off was hilarious. It was taking two teams on stage and having them smack-talk back and forith. Me and my Yuffie didn’t make it in this year, but I actually think my e-mail got lost. That night, I got a big disappointment when the tire on my car finally went flat. I had to bum rides the remainder of the convention.

I eventually set up a table in Artist’s alley and sold a few pictures. I wore my Undertaker cosplay that day from Kuroshitsuji but ended up changing into Reno later because I couldn’t see anything in that costume. The wig was in my eyes. It was also becoming rather difficult to maneuver with inch-long nails that kept falling off. Of course as soon as I changed into Reno, I had an Elena and Rude practically jumping down my throat for apparently stealing Rude’s tie and shirt and then him having blamed Elena all day she was upset. That’s what she told me anyway. Of course why Reno would steal a tie is beyond me… he never wears one! I went along with it best I could and disappeared into the dealer’s room crowd. The weirdest pose I had that day was someone asked me to take a picture… while holding their baby. It was odd, but I did it and now it’s up on deviantart!


Saturday was a nerve racking day for me and my friends. We were all in Trinity Blood cosplay in extremely detailed outfits that we hand-made. I made my entire Isaak costume, something I’m very proud of, and we also had a Dietrich (my roommate), a Seth ( my Yuffie), an Ester, and a Sister Kate. We were nervous because we signed up for the stage event and were all very nervous because we were still a bit shaky on our dance. I was dancing in very high-heeled and platform boots. First, we had our costumes combed over by Jeremy, the con-director, for the costume contest. Our outfits were all pretty complicated. We waited in line for quiet a while, and we were only the third cosplay to go. The dance went off with only a few hitches, the fake blood we’d planned didn’t actually turn out on stage, and we left with shaky joy. A woman who made an amazing ball gown took Best Costume, but we took second place over all! That was an amazing feeling. After getting our pictures taken for about fifteen minutes, I went home to change back into Reno. Isaak was an extremely warm cosplay!

Saturday night they had another dance, this one much longer. I went in my Reno outfit, minus a jacket and shoes, because I basically forgot that the dance was that night and hadn’t brought my change of clothes. Then there was the sleep over and karaoke. I got everyone to sing Mr. Brightside. I love that song! I didn’t get to bed until maybe 5 am… but it was entirely worth it!

Sunday was basically all Battle Cosplay, then there was my friend’s yo-yo panel. He was nervous but did an amazing job. Ichidan, a local cosplay group, put on an hour-long Death Note skit that was very well done. Then there was closing ceremonies, that took basically 30 minutes as none of the guests had really stuck around for it and Jeremy didn’t have much to say. He let us know about the new location and that was that.

Con Plague’s been circulating since and our apartment’s a wreck but it was all deffinately worth it!

Dealer’s room haul:
A poster of Vincent Valentine and a Fushigi Yuugi poster.
A Dirge of Cerberus key chain.
A Roy and an Armstrong Keychain.

Things I would’ve done better:
Pushed harder for a panel.
Actually gotten business cards or made some of my own.

Links:
AMV’S:
Digimon videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHDsvSxCeJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLtihHG-tEY&feature=channel

Download link for FF7 video: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=167062

Video of dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2bzz4Jq8dk

Anime Oasis Home Page:
http://animeoasis.org/