Anime Boston Review: There are too Many Tears

Anime Boston was so great.  I am still sooooo tired.  And doubled with Tech week this week, it has pretty much been hell.  But Anime Boston was SO worth it (the play has been fun too tbh)!

I got so much stuff.  This AB was definitely one of the more expensive ones.  Not including cosplay expenses, we spent $1300 at Anime Boston.  We spent about $500 on just snacks and merchandise.  Which is a lot more than we usually spend but we made some awesome purchases.

At every anime convention I've attended, they've had these giant plush alpacas.  I bought a smaller one at my first AB but this year, I finally broke.  I did it.  I bought a big one.  But it's so cute and squishy and I love sleeping on it and it came with a little cape and I LOVE IT.

Just look at it! How could you resist buying one of these cuties?

This year, I finally broke on another purchase which had been haunting me for a while.  FIGURINES.  I always see them and I always want them but they can be pretty expensive so I usually refused to let myself buy one.  In addition to being expensive, they can also be pretty addictive.  I mean if you just buy one, the figurine looks lonely so you just have to keep buying more and more.  I ended up buying a medium sized figurine of my favorite character from Tiger&Bunny, Barnaby Brooks Jr., for about $15, which is a GREAT deal as some can go for upwards of $60 or $100.  I also bought a smaller figurine of Keith Goodman and his dog, John, also from Tiger&Bunny for about $8 which is even better!

Pretty much all my cosplays were well received at AB, which is good because a lot of experienced cosplayers come to AB to show off their stuff.  On Friday, I went as Asahi Azumane from Haikyuu!!.  Everyone LOVED my cosplay and kept telling me I looked perfect as him.  On Saturday I went as Clear from DMMD in the morning and Asahi again in the evening.  I was supposed to go as Kurloz Makara from Homestuck but due to a hiccup in my packing I was unable to (apparently I had forgot to pack my leggings for the costume *facepalm*).  But all was well.  Everyone loved me as Clear and I had a great time as him.  I think that it's safe to say that I had the best gas mask out of all the Clears at AB.  Going as Asahi again was really fun and we ended up playing a game of volleyball with some new friends! On Sunday, I went as Shima Renzou from Blue Exorcist.  Although I was nervous about his cosplay, it was really well received.  I got a ton of pictures and selfies taken with him.  It was so great.

Here are some selfies of me from each day:

I had such a great time at Anime Boston and I made some great new friends! We're hoping to see each other and cosplay together over the summer. Ah, I can't wait!

-René

Cosplay Progress: Asahi Azumane

I am super excited! I managed to finish another one of my cosplays!  That means I only have one more to finish up before next weekend's convention!  


The cosplay I finished was Asahi Azumane, the ace of Karasuno High's volleyball team in the anime, Haikyuu!! Ya know, this cutie pie?

I'm really excited at how the cosplay is looking. His uniform, which I got for Christmas, is perfect.

I got all the necessary accessories including a headband, a knee pad, and a volleyball that looks exactly like the ones they have in the anime!

I decided that I didn't want to pay like $80 for a new pair of black and white sneakers so I'm using my normal sneakers.  I figured that they're just shoes and no one's going to care anyway.

I put most of my time into the wig on this cosplay.  Asahi has long hair and usually wears it up in a messy bun.  Wigs and up-dos are probably the worst combination.  Ponytails and tight bun are easy as you can just buy clip-on attachments.  But it's a little harder to style a messy bun since no one thought it'd be a good idea to make those into clip-on.  So I ended up buying a long wig and cutting it.  Cutting wigs usually makes them itchier than they already are but I decided that I would just have to put up with it.  I'm really happy with the results!

Ah, I'm so excited for next weekend!  All I have to do is get some touch-ups done on my other cosplays and finish Shima's cosplay.  It's gonna be so great and I cannot wait!

-René

Queen City Kamikaze Review

My convention cravings have been sated... for now at least.  Queen City KamiKaze is a super small convention at Manchester Memorial High School in Manchester, NH.  I have been going to QCK for three years now.  It's been fun every year but this year was definitely the best yet!

I know that cons grow bigger every year but I was amazed to see how big QCK had gotten this year.  In past years, the convention had taken place in a few of the main halls of the school, the cafeteria, the auditorium, and the gymnasium.  They're were several artist and merchandise booths set up throughout the halls and the cafeteria.  There was limited and mostly greasy food for sale in the cafeteria.  A dance was held in the gym with a pretty cool DJ playing various anime and Disney songs.  It was always a fun and low-stress kind of con.

This year, QCK was still very low stress but holy crap did it grow!  At first when my friends and I walked in, it looked the same.  There were a few booths selling art prints scattered around the hall which we scanned as we made our way to the cafeteria.  At first, the cafeteria looked pretty barren.  There were a couple booths selling art and merchandise and a few game consoles set up.  There was a whole bunch of food though! There was even one booth that was selling fresh lemonade.  It looked pretty good although the booths looked kind of sparse.  Then we made our way to the gym to check out the dance.  Well, weren't we surprised.  There were at least 30 different booths packed into the gym selling everything from manga to plushies to handcrafted jewelry! It was amazing and I probably spent like $80 which is waaayyy more than I ever expected to pay at such a small convention.  The auditorium events were pretty fun, my favorite had to be the Anime Dating Game which my best friend actually participated in.

As QCK is such a small convention, the cosplay isn't always breathtaking.  The cosplay is toned down but it just makes it more fun.  You no longer feel unworthy to ask some flawless cosplayer if you can take their picture.  I got to meet a bunch of new people and catch up with a lot of my old cosplay friends.

Overall it was a great con!  I had so much!  My only regret is not taking more pictures!  I can't wait until Anime Boston.  It's only a few weeks away now!!

-René

The List That Nobody Needed: Top Ten Worst Anime Deaths

*SPOILER ALERT, duh.*

10.  Euphemia li Britannia from Code Geass

Ow.  I haven't watched Code Geass in a while but when I remembered Euphemia's death, all the feels hit me.  Euphemia died after she was ordered to be killed in a resistance movement.  She had been under the mind control of the main character of Code Geass and had started massacring people after she was given the order as a sarcastic joke.  The main character tried to stop her but ultimately could not.  It was so hard watching him give the command to kill her!

9. Shiro Fujimoto from Blue Exorcist 

Mr. Fujimoto was quite possibly the coolest dad ever.  Along with being a cool priest, he raised both of the Satan's sons (who grew up quite well, fyi) and was considered to be the most powerful exorcist in the world.  He had managed to keep Satan from possessing his body by sheer willpower but was ultimately taken over.  I remember almost bawling as I watched one of his sons try to pull him back from sinking into the hell-realm of Gehenna.  

8. Seiko Shinohara and Yui Shishido from Corpse Party

Okay, so I get that the game is called Corpse Party but these two had me hurting real bad.  First of all, Seiko did not deserve to die and neither did Ms. Yui!  Seiko's death was horrible as her possessed best friend hung her in the girl's bathrooms. And Ms. Yui's death was even worse.  Ms. Yui just wanted to make sure all her students were okay.  She genuinely cared for them yet she had to die too.  I loved both of these characters so I had them share a slot as both their deaths were equally horrible.

7. Light Yagami from Death Note

I knew it was going to happen eventually but I still cried.  Light honestly had it coming as he had been on a massive killing spree (albeit it was of mostly criminals who were on death row anyway). His death had been foreshadowed since like episode 5 and it was kind of obvious that he was going to be found out eventually.  But through all of his screaming and his superiority complex, you can really hear how troubled he was in his last moments.  Light must have been under immense stress. He just wanted to do what he thought was right.  It was so sad watching him die.

6. Sousuke Yamazaki('s dreams) from Free! Eternal Summer

Okay, so it probably sounds stupid but I cried way too much to not have this guy on the list even though he didn't actually die.  Sousuke was training to be an Olympic swimmer.  It was his dream to be able take on his best friend in the Olympics but in his training process, he overworked his shoulder.  At first he tried to ignore the pain but it just got worse.  He had had to stop swimming for awhile and underwent physical therapy.  When Sousuke started swimming again in his last year of high school hoping to get scouted, he overworked it again.  Everything he had worked for had gone to waste and his dreams were shattered.  I was absolutely heartbroken when he broke down right before his last race.  I'm tearing up right now.

5. Madoka Kaname from Madoka Magica: Puella Magi

Madoka Magica may seem like a cute anime but it is absolutely heartbreaking to watch.  Which makes it one of my favorite animes, haha.  Madoka is another weird one as she technically didn't die either.  Rather, she gave up herself to save girls just like her from the evil forces of a higher advanced planet that wanted to suck the energy from teenage girls.  So she kinda became a god and, as she said to her best friend in her final moments, would be all around us.  So Madoka = Jesus???? Who knows?  But watching Madoka in her final battle was one of the saddest and most epic things I've ever seen.  I had to actually pause Netflix so I could just cry for a moment.  

4. Ryouko Fueguchi from Tokyo Ghoul

She may look pretty scary but she's probably one of the most tragic anime mom deaths I've seen in awhile (a lot of anime moms die ok).  A ghoul is basically a different species that can only survive off of human flesh.  The ghouls are hunted down by an agency that is trying to protect human lives at all costs.  Not all ghouls are bad but most of them are pretty horrible.  Ryouko's husband was forced to make and sell equipment and weapons to a group of bad ghouls.  To protect their daughter, Ryouko fled with her to a safer part of the city.  She was killed with her husbands own weapon within earshot of her daughter.  I was bawling.  It was so painful to watch.

3. Kaworu Nagisa from Evangelion

'90s anime, am I right? I am currently in the process of watching Evangelion and I haven't quite come across Kaworu yet.  But, as this anime debuted in 1995, Kaworu's unfortunate end has been spoiled countless times for me.  I have seen too many gifs of this poor boy exploding next to his best friend (who am I kidding those two were totally dating).  I remember going to a convention and seeing a Kaworu with angel wings and a halo.  My friend had to pull me away from them before I started bawling my eyes out. Kaworu definitely earned his spot on this list when I start crying even though I haven't even seen him in the anime yet. (Beware of white/silver haired anime boys! They always break you heart.)

2. Marco Bodt from Attack on Titan

If you've never heard of Attack on Titan, just think of giant people eating all of your favorite characters and that's basically it.  The humans in Attack on Titan are fighting a war against the giant titans and are pretty much losing.  Marco died shortly after he graduated from the training corps.  After helping a couple of his fellow soldiers during a titan attack, Marco disappeared from the episode until his best friend (also probably his boyfriend), Jean, later found his half-eaten body.  Marco's death was not only shocking but it also really kept with the viewer as every time Jean would go into battle, he would think about Marco and sometimes scream Marco's name.  It was not only painful to watch Jean find Marco's dead body but also to see how Marco's death affected Jean.  It was like double the pain and double the tears to watch Jean cry over Marco's death.
(Here's an extra gif of Jean slapping Marco awake because Jean basically sums up the whole fandom's thoughts on Marco's death)

1. Major Maes Hughes from Full Metal Alchemist

Oh boy.  Here come the waterworks.  Maes Hughes's death stayed with me for months after I had watched the episode. He's definitely one of my favorite anime characters.  Maes was a great comic relief character which made seeing him in such pain and struggle much, much worse.  Maes was trying to make an important phone call when he was confronted by the human embodiment of Envy, who is able to shapshift.  Envy held a gun to Maes's back as Envy forced him to hang up the phone.  Maes quickly turned around to shoot Envy with his own gun but stopped when he saw his wife's face.  He knew that it wasn't really her but he just couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.  His death was hard to watch but what was even harder was watching his funeral.  His daughter, who did not quite understand what was going on, kept saying things like "why are they burying daddy?", "Daddy has work to finish!", and "Don't bury him, he needs to finish his work!"  My heart actually hurts just typing those sentences.  I remember crying for at least 20 minutes after the episode and couldn't bring myself to watch the next one for like two weeks afterwards.

Alright, I'm gonna go cry now.

-René

The Quadrants Explained: All You (N)Ever Wanted to Know About Troll Romance

If you have ever heard of the webcomic, Homestuck, then you have probably also heard of the trolls. 

NO, not these trolls

These trolls:

The trolls not only look drastically different from humans, but also live in a very different culture.  There are overarching similarities between human and troll culture but this post is focusing on the differences so I'm not going to get into that.

One of the most confusing differences between human and troll culture is the trollian understanding of relationships.  To humans we really only care about romantic relationships (yeah, platonic relationships are super important too but bare with me).  To the trolls, there are two different types of romance: red romance and black romance.  Within these two types of romance, there are four different relationships.  These four relationships are called the quadrants and are symbolized as the four playing card suits.

The first quadrant, the red (aka flushed) heart, is the quadrant that we humans understand most.  When a troll has "red" feelings for another it means that that troll would like to date that person.  A red relationship is called a "matespritship" and one's partner would be called their "matesprit."  Within a matespritship, the two trolls would act like any other human couple and could potentially reproduce.

The second quadrant is the pale diamond.  When a troll has "pale" feelings for another, it means that that troll would very much like to help that person through their problems, calm them down, and be their friend (although trolls do not actually understand the human ideal of "friendship").  A pale relationship is called a moiraillegience and one's partner would be called their "palemate" or their "moirail."  The pale quadrant is very close to the human understanding of platonic friendship but the relationship is much stronger and deeper than any human friendship.

The third quadrant is the black (aka caliginous) spade.  When a troll harbors "black" feelings towards another, it means that that troll has a strong hatred for that person.  The relationship, called a kismesissitude, can only be considered a real relationship when both parties exhibit the same hatred for the other.  One's partner in a kismesisstude is called their "kismesis".   This type of relationship is similar to human rivalry but is felt much deeper as in a kismesisstude, reproduction is not uncommon.

The last quadrant is the ashen club.  If there are two trolls who are in a harmful relationship (usually red or black), a third party may harbor "gray" feelings in which they would want to step in and mediate the relationship and give each party advice on how to continue into a less harmful relationship.  This relationship between the three parties is called "auspiticism."  The third party that steps in is called an "auspistice."

In troll philoshy, each quadrant must be filled in order for a troll to live a healthy and happy life.

The relationships can lead to break-ups just like human relationships but in troll culture, trolls may find that their feelings for each other shift from one quadrant to another.  This is called vacillation.  For example, a troll might enter into a kismesisstude with another troll.

One party might start to have red feelings for their kismesis.  Their kismesisstude would eventually vacillate into a matespritship.  As one troll vacillates, their partner would normally follow just to keep the balance. Here's a gif of it:

So yeah, I think that about does it for troll romance. I always find it fun to try and apply troll romance to my own relationships.  Are your quadrants filled?

-René

Cosplay Line-up Change (AGAIN 0:)

I did say that my cosplay plans would probably change again and guess what? They did.  BIG surprise there, am I right?

Sigh. So most things have stayed the same - thank god - but my lineup for Anime Boston has changed a bit as of a small argument my cosplay buddy and I had. 

The argument was over our planned cosplay group for Saturday which is the day we spend at least 10 hours at the convention.  We had originally planned to go as Clear and Usagi that day as we both really liked the cosplays and were really well received at Another Anime Convention last October.

But recently I have had some mixed feelings.  Sure the cosplays are great and I do love how many compliments we received but I realized that 4/13, the great Homestuck holiday, is the week after Anime Boston.  So of course I wanted to switch gears and do our Kurloz and Mituna cosplays on Saturday instead of Clear and Usagi.  Kurloz and Mituna were just as well received as Clear and Usagi so I thought that it wouldn't be hard to change our original plan.  

But I was wrong.  It turns out that my cosplay buddy really didn't like their Mituna cosplay.  They said that it just wasn't good enough.  I kept trying to get them to change their mind about it but they wouldn't budge.  It was starting to look like our group was going to have separate.

Finally we reached a compromise.  I told them that I would help remake their Mituna cosplay so that they would feel better about it and reached a compromise about Saturday.  From 8:00 AM-2:00 PM we would cosplay Clear and Usagi.  Then we would go back to the hotel, and change into Kurloz and Mituna and then go back to the convention for another 5 hours. We found that this plan works really well (in theory) as we don't have to wake up at 6:00 AM to start painting ourselves gray.  Instead we can wake up at a leisurely 7:00 AM and worry about the gray make-up later.  

I can't wait for Anime Boston but we still have a lot of work to do before then!

-René

Welcome to Welcome to Night Vale: Your New Favorite Podcast

Welcome to Night Vale is a rather unusual podcast.  It is done in the form of a local radio show set in the lovecraftian town of Night Vale.  The podcast is a product of Common Place books and is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor.  The show is narrated by Cecil Baldwin who shares his first name with the show's main character, radio show host Cecil Gershwin Palmer.  

As described in the first episode, called "Pilot", Night Vale is "a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious light pass overhead as we all pretend to sleep."  The town supposedly sits somewhere in the United States and is neighbored by their rival town of Desert Bluffs.  The people who live in Night Vale aren't exactly unusual.  Most of them lead relatively average lives while dealing with the town's strange situations. Angels, who are all named Erika, frequently visit the town to help out even though it is against the law in Night Vale to acknowledge the existence of angels. There is an underground city comprised of miniature people that is located in the pin retrieval area of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex.  Megan Wallaby, the daughter of Herschel and Tak Wallaby, was born as an adult man's hand.  Her parents are very proud of her.  The Night Vale Public Library is full of municipally approved books for the citizens to enjoy, but citizens are warned to be careful of the bloodthirsty librarians and the faceless specter who haunts the biography section.  I could go on and on about the mysterious occurrences of Night Vale but I don't want to spoil too much.

One of the most interesting things about Night Vale is the sense of mystery it instill in its listeners.  Not only are the situations mysterious but also the characters.  We listeners don't even know what Cecil Palmer, the main character, looks like.  He has no canonical design and the only description we have ever gotten is that "he is wearing a tie.  He is not tall or short, not thin or fat."  That's it. That's all we know.  But this actually adds appeal to the podcast as the listener's own imagination can take over.  Here are few fan illustrations of Cecil:

Being able to create one's own personal version of Cecil allows the listener to become more personal with the podcast's story and its characters.  

Another interesting aspect about Welcome to Night Vale is its representation of the LGBTQIA+ community.  Cecil Baldwin has expressed in an essay about playing queer characters that Cecil Palmer's character is handled the best overall.  Baldwin expressed that other gay characters he had played in past theatrical shows were portrayed as the sassy, stylish stereotype and were mostly put in the show for laughs.  Whereas Cecil Palmer's sexuality is definitely not the central point of his character.  The listener does hear about Cecil's crush on the gorgeous scientist, Carlos, quite a bit but it's nothing more than what a straight man or woman would say about their own crush.  Palmer has no coming out moment. Rather, he just starts talking about his feelings for Carlos as if it were a normality (which it should be).  The citizens of Night Vale do not show overwhelming approval for Cecil's sexuality nor do they disapprove of it.  Cecil and Carlos are portrayed as any other couple.  They go on normal dates, eventually buy a condo together, and face real challenges that any other couple would have to face such as miscommunications.  Neither Cecil nor Carlos are completely enveloped in their relationship and both are able to express their own wants and interests outside of the relationship. Carlos is very dedicated to his scientific research of Night Vale just as Cecil is very devoted to his job as radio host.  Cecil and Carlos's relationship is portrayed as the most normal thing in Night Vale.  

So yeah, if you like to mix the normal with the weird than Welcome to Night Vale is the podcast for you.  And if you want to start listening then I would start now because you have got a lot of catching up to do!

-René