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.

Jade Staff and Razor Rang

      My lovely cosplay daughter Maki looked so great in he Jade MK outfit at Katsucon, but she looked a little light on weapons.  So I'm working up two cool weapons for her.  This is just a progress photo, so full tutorial to follow.

They don't look like much yet, but they will.

Katsucon 18: Part 2

      Friday morning and I still have projects to finish.  Kitana's fans need a cool symbol as well as the boots.  Luckily, the front of the Katsucon Program made a fine stencil when I cut it off and carved the Kitana symbol into it from this picture Kimi found and sized.  Next I painted the fans and boots, that would be 12 symbols, two coats each.  Quick zip out too the real world to pick up stuff for our party later and it's Cosplay time.  Yay, a One Piece photo shoot at the Gazebo.  Last year the One Piece gathering was by far our favorite.  This year is was nice although a bit more chaotic, there was a lot going on around the Gazebo.

Photo by Paul Karpey

That was fun, but now it's party time.  Lot's of our good friends came to our little soiree, like Maki and Luis, Regina, Kat and Bill, EBK, Cooking Dojo Justin, just to start.  It was really cool, thanks for the scotch Bill. Nothing like Cheese, grapes and booze for all. Others put in appearances, but Kimi had to start getting all Kitana like.  Super talented make up artist Regina helped her get ready, then it was time for some Cosplaying.

Kimi as Kitana, Cammy Bitches as Cammy, and Maki as Jade.

Kimi wore her Kitana from Mortal Combat and Maki was Jade.  We met up with EBK and went down to the Secret Wall to do some crossover pics with a super cool cosplayer whose badge read "Cammy Bitches."  Awesome.  Anyway me and Luis pulled up a couple of chairs and had a grand old time.

Just one more picture.

 A really nice set of pictures.  On to the after party.  We ran into Regina and another friend of ours Charlene on the way back to the room.  Since we had so much cheese grapes and booze, we invited them up.  EBK then brought his friend Athel Cosplay up and an epic time was had by all.  A great con so far, but much more to come.

Katsucon 18: Part 1

Generic Katsu from the week-end, Thursday was much quieter.

   
  Well, Katsucon this year was really amazing.  Very busy, but amazing.  This year we rolled in Thursday and that was very helpful.  We actually got to settle in and relax a bit, before the action began.  Thursday we only had one thing to do, a photo shoot with our friend EBK.  Kimi put together a lingerie ensemble for her Morrigan cosplay, and I thought it came out quite well.

Morrigan Lingerie Version

I'm sure the words Morrigan and lingerie have never appeared on the internet before.  I'm glad Thursday was low key, because Friday has a bit more to it.  Of course as usual when their taking pictures I'm working on my Cosplay daughter Maki's .hack Black Rose Sword.  Which came out pretty well considering.

She is so adorable.  Anyway it was a great way to open a great con.     

Otakon 2011 Friday

      Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. We were planning to do FFX, but inexplicably left some crucial stuff at home. So we just checked in, so fast, and wandered about in disguise, as ourselves. Much easier to get around the dealers room this way. Some contacts and a Soul Eater shirt for the kid, then we go find a few friends like Maki and EBK. But first, we ran into and took pictures of our friend Tohma and didn't even know it. Because she was wearing this.

Tohma as Ravage

Can't believe we didn't recognize her, our bad. An amazing cosplay. Next we ran into our cosplay daughter Maki and her friend the Captain. 

Just then an awesome Bucky showed up and they looked great together.

Well done guys.One more thing before we have to get into our Darkstalkers stuff. I had to take this picture of Stein and Medusa from Soul Eater, cause our Brendan loves that show.

Now it's time to go back to the room and get all Darkstalkery. Here are the girls getting their Morrigan and Lilith on.

Maki, Kimi and my FFX chest on the left.

Now, we love group photo shoots, but an outdoor shoot at Otakon is not a sane idea.There was a reason people needed ice cold water it was 100 F-ing degrees. So this one was at the outdoor fountains, great. What a surprise it turned out to be a bit of a C.F. A tad disorganized. We took a pic or two and beat feet. We did get a few decent pictures inside near the fountains. The first couple from the awesomely cool Eurobeat King.

Two beautiful girls by EBK.

Morrigan, Donovan Baine and Lilith by EBK.

I must mention our dear friend Regena helped us out the whole time even going outside into the furnace. We also took a few with a talented photographer Paul Karpey.

Morrigan and Donovan by Paul.

I liked this one, and Kimi really liked this one.

Morrigan by Paul.

After all that picture taking we went to dinner at a really nice place. Right across Charles street from the Convention Center is the Kona Grill. It was pretty damn good. It's not that cheap, but they have great happy hour specials.

Kimi at the Kona Grill.

 Friday night consisted of lots more wandering with Regena, leading finally to our going to this fan parody video thing. Everyone seemed far more entertained than we were, but perhaps we were a bit tired. We retired.