Final Fantasy Unlimited

       "  The soil charge triad to be used against you has been decided. "  You may hear this and see the stock transformation from one of the main characters \ deus ex machina, Kaze, quite a few times.  Final Fantasy Unlimited is an anime released in 2003 and as usual creates it's own world, but throws in all the usual FF elements. There are off course chocobos, cactaurs, a guy named Cid, a mog, an  airship etc.  It has a lot of weaknesses, like 2003 era CGI which looks frankly ancient, not close to the standards of those times let alone today.  Also there is a lot of stock footage used over and over, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
      FFU involves two kids who get separated from their scientist parents who get sucked into this other dimension known as wonderland.  Due to their own experiments I might add. So the kids travel to wonderland accompanied by Lisa a girl with Mugen weak ass martial arts powers. Requiring the mysterious Kaze, The Black Wind, to save them all every episode with his awesome gun arm thingy, called the magun. Kaze is saving them from the sundry agents of the Earl, who wants to kill them all, for it seems no particular reason.  So there is a short version of every episode.  Oh yeah there's this guy Makenshi, the white cloud, who seems connected to Kaze, but works for the Earl, kind of.
        I am a massive Final Fantasy fan and have been since the first one came out for the Nintendo in 1987.  I love all things FF, except for online FF games which can eat a bag of dicks.  So, I actually can sit through this mess and enjoy it for it's Final Fantasy-ness.  Oh look, cactaurs.  Squeeee, Chocobos.  If you are not a big fanboy-girl Unlimited is just a below average, dated, nonsensical anime that you should avoid.

Katsucon 18: Part 4

      Saturday afternoon's Steampunk panel went quite well, but now we are getting back to some  fighting game goodness.  There's a fighting game shoot in front of the fountains scheduled for when the crazy fountain show goes off.  It's very cool, but you may get a bit wet.  So we went Darkstalkers, as Morrigan and Donovan Baine.Here's a few pics of Kimi getting soaked,but looking great.

I love how it looks like a fountain of lava.

Taking advantage of when the fountain turns purple.

Now I would like to post a nice pic of myself, but I forgot my coconuts in the rush and the outfit just isn't the same.  Forgot my bracelets last time, cursed.  Here are a couple shots of VS pics from the fountain.

Now is the time when we meet up with EBK and Maki, and Luis.  Oh, and our friends Kat and Kitty.  Then we all headed down to the secret wall for a photo shoot.  But before that I took some pictures of Kitty, because her outfit was so adorable.

She is so cute.  Anyway,The theme of this photo shoot was Underworld vs Darkstalkers.  Representing Underworld was Crimson and Roses Cosplay as Selene.  The Darkstalkers girls are Kimi as Morrigan and Maki as Lilith.  Here we go.

Well there you go.  These pics are all by EBK and they are excellent.  Saturday was epic, but also insanely busy.  We cannot complain though.  This was the best con ever and it's due to all the great friends and family we got to hang out with.  Can't wait until next Katsu.

Katsucon 18: Part 3

Saturday was the busiest day yet , with lots of cosplay, and a panel to do with my sister, the doyen of the Steampunk Family.  But, first up is another One Piece shoot with our Boa and Luffy Wedding Dream outfits.  Which we totally fail to make it to.  There are , however, many photos to take including a shoot with our friend EBK.

Photo by EBK

 We took a few other pictures all over the Gaylord complex.

This is one I took at the gazebo.

And one I took at the fountain.

And Boa by the cannon, like a proper Empress of the Pirates.

While we were wandering we also caught some other good stuff, like our dear friend Regina and the " Cake Girls, " down by the gazebo.

Regina is second from the right.

 She looked sooo adorable.  We also ran into the excellent Jack Skellington.

While we were outside we ran into our fabulous cosplay daughter doing a shoot in her .hack Black Rose cosplay.  I say she looked incredible.  Nice sword.

Now it's time for  little Lulu and Auron. Headed up to the room after some victuals, and hung out with my  steampunk sister and family.  Once again Regina in her awesome cake girl outfit helped out Kimi with her make-up, while I got ready and made people eat more cheese and grapes.  So time for some FFX, before our panel.  Here we are.

Photo by Manny Hortas Bishop, a cool guy.

There you go, now time for the "Steampunk in Anime and Manga" panel.  This is where my sister, my brother in law and I totally wing it in front of a couple hundred people.  Luckily, for prep work I have consumed Anime and Manga  for 30 years plus. Helpful, cause people threw a lot of stuff at me during the extensive Q and A part of the panel.

This was really a great time, there was so much excellent feedback from the group and I think we started a good narrative that we can follow up on.  Soon,  I'm going to try to write a post or several about the subject. So on to our further adventures in part 4.