Host Club and Howl: My First Anime Convention!

Adventures? I've got some. Let's try the first time I went to an Anime Convention.

The year was 2010, the place: The Hilton in Bellevue, the event: Aki-Con! The fall Anime convention in Washington state. My sister and I had registered and were eagerly awaiting our departure from the house to a hotel filled with other anime and nerd-dom fans and fanatics. I had been working for over a month on creating us two jackets for our cosplay as Haruhi and Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club- our current favorite anime. :)  (the show is on youtube and netflix if you wanna watch, I'd rate it at a mild PG-13 for inappropriate stuff and some mild language. It's a young adult show)

For those of you not familiar with the Anime, let me give you a run-down. This is a rom/com about a school for the rich kids of Japan. The girl (yes girl) sitting in the middle of the picture is an honors student who got in the school on a scholarship. She accidentally broke a vase worth more than she could even imagine and now she works as a Host (pretending to be a boy) in the Host club to pay off her debt. The Host Club is a club where the six boys, plus Haruhi, romance girls who come to visit them. They each caeter to certain steryotypes the girls find attractive. Hilarity and sweet moments ensue in the show.

So, my character is the Prince of the group (self-named of course) and is the biggest drama king I've ever seen. I love it! He's the tall blonde in the middle of the picture above. He is kind-of stupid when it comes to dealing with Haruhi, who he falls in love with.  My sister was Haruhi, the poor honors student with a sarcastic and dead-pan sense of humor. It was great!

The irony is that our heights were backwards for our characters. lol.

The first time I walked into the hotel to pick up our badges I was floored. I had never seen so many nerds dressed up as characters before. I was even more excited to get started. I was in plain clothes at the time and I felt out of place! What maddness was this!?

My jacket was not finished on Friday so I ended up going as Emily the Corpse Bride instead. I was surprised and pleased to find that people recognized my character and more than that--they wanted to take my picture! This was new. I felt a bit like a Disneyland Character. My sister and I both ran around with our camera taking pictures of other people dressed as characters we loved. It was so much fun!

That night we watch the opening ceremonies where the power rangers came to save Jonny Young Bosch from the evil villians. It was so hokey, my sister and I rolled our eyes and laughed. Then we settled down to watch those who did well in the AMV (Anime Music Video) contest. My sister's video won!! But there was a problem with the file so we went up and promised to bring a back up copy the next day.

Later that evening we played Mafia with a bunch of other people and I managed to kill a lot of them as the Mafia because no one suspected the poor, sad, Corpse Bride of murder. hehehehe. Then, it was getting late, but my sister was up for the Karaoke contest. She got up and sang the Ouran Theme song and she was smashing! I loved watching her perform.

The next day: Saturday, was the busiest. We were in the skit contest. We were 4th in the lineup. We had written and choreographed this skit together. It was so much fun. I loved working off the energy in the crowd. :)
We didn't place, but it was one of the funnest things I've ever done.

Later, for Sakura Con in the Spring my sister and I entered their skit contest and shortened our skit to 3 mins and changed the ending. If you want to find it, it's on youtube, we called our group "fancy tuna" if you search that with "sakura con 2011" you'll find it.

This was so exciting. I remember being nervous and excited, mostly excited. I we had practiced it so many times--I could have done it in my sleep. But hearing the crowd get the jokes and laugh at us just made me glow! This made me fall in love with performing all over again. And the best part was, I got to share this moment with my very best friend: my sister.

We goofed around the rest of the day, shopped the artist tables, found time to do some caramelldansen, and went to some fun panels.

The last day of the con, Sunday, came and, after getting ready in our church's bathroom, we were toted to the hotel for the afternoon. I was rather looking for a Howl cosplayer and I had been all weekend. Sunday, it turns out, was my luck day. We met a trio of Howl cosplayers:

 Calcifer, Howl, Me, and Sophie

I was a bit of a fangirl here, He posed with me just like Howl does in the "Strolling through the sky" scene in the movie. It turned out that we had both painted our eyebrows blonde for our cosplay, this gave us a starting point for conversation.

My sister and I wandered around amlessly. There wasn't much to do on Sunday that interested us. Eventually, we ran into the Howl group sitting in an empty hallway and we decided--what they hey! Let's join them. So we sat with them and talked about random nerdy stuff. Then we went to get seats for the Closing cermonies together. When some tall-ish people sat in front of me, the Howl cosplayer asked if I wanted to sit in his lab so I could see better. I blushed and declined, showing him how I've learned to cope with my disability (shortness) by sitting on my legs to give me a height boost. My sister was called up to recieve several prizes including the best AMV award. After some techincal difficulties, we were all able to watch her video and we sang along to "Be Our Guest" as the Disney tunes moved in sync with the Ouran characters. I cried as I saw the people around us laughing, singing, and making approving noises as her video played. I was so proud of her. :')

Afterward my sister and I said goodbye to our new friends and when Howl asked for my phone number I lied and told him I didn't have a phone. Then, before they left we exchanged email addresses and wrote to each other a bit. He pretended to be Howl in his emails, which rather tickled me. I have never been sure if he was hitting on me or just being friendly. Eventually he decided he was bi-sexual and now has a boyfriend. yup.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, significantly enhanced because I was with my sister and best friend. I don't know how long I will go to anime conventions. I just know that I will always cherish the memory of my first con because of the sisterly bond it strengthened.