Animecon 2016 in Jyväskylä

My poor blog has been neglected because I’ve been busy with a lot of things and haven’t had the time to edit photos. (･∀･；) I have some entries that I’ll be publishing as soon as I finish writing them… so hopefully eventually this blog will be up to date again, ahah. But I decided to make a post about last weekend’s convention before this ends up on the list of “entries I should finish”. It’s long enough already without any additions, lol~ (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))

But anyway – last weekend we had Animecon here in Jyväskylä. This is was a bit of a special occasion because the first ever convention that I went to was Animecon in 2007… coincidentally it was held in Jyväskylä then as well, together with Finncon. ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ The venue was Jyväskylä’s university campus and teenage me was all ooohhh about it ’cause I was aiming to go there to study. I didn’t live in Jkl back then but I travelled here to visit Yenna and we went to the con together.

So yeap, I haven’t been to Animecon in years because when I was younger I couldn’t really afford to travel to places and then when I got back into the whole “let’s visit all the cons yaaay” thing in winter of 2014 (solely thanks to Yamaguchi Kappei and Ogata Megumi visiting Finland lol), Animecon was held in Kuopio which is relatively far from where I live and definitely very, very far from where my parents live. So I haven’t really felt like travelling all the way there since I don’t know anyone who lives there and I’ve only been to the city once in, like, middle school… so yeah, no Animecon for mizy. (｡•́︿•̀｡)

HOWEVER… this year the usual venue for Animecon in Kuopio is under renovation. So, they had to move it elsewhere. And luckily – they decided to bring the con to Jyväskylä! Yessss! ヾ( ≧ ω≦ )ﾉ” This time they chose Paviljonki as the venue, which is a walking distance away from my apartment. Double yessss! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ So, naturally I bought tickets right away, because a local con is a rare treat. No travelling by bus/train for, like, 3~4 hours or more to get to my destination. I can just walk there! What luxury! ✨ Also, local con means local friends to hang out with me, yay! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و And as a nice treat (for locals at least), you could go pick up the wristband already on Friday evening, which meant no queueing on the actual con day! So naturally I went to pick up mine & Yenna‘s wristbands already on Friday. Whee~ ー( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

Going to #animecon2016 with Sheryl!Ren tomorrow~ ☆ Do come say hi if you spot us! pic.twitter.com/OBRqk4TRSk

— ミラ (@mizya) July 8, 2016

I was veeery excited about the con for the reasons already mentioned AND at the con I became even more excited because Paviljonki was PERFECT as a venue. (｡’▽’｡)♡ Granted, I’ve only gone to Desucon Frostbite held in Lahti a few times and Tracon held in Tampere… but compared to those two con venues, Paviljonki beats them like 100-0. I’m not just being biased because it’s close to where I live, I swear! (ᗒᗜᗕ)՛̵̖ But there was SO MUCH ROOM for everything! I’m not a big fan of crowds and they can trigger anxiety in me, and usually that happens in cons because the venue has limited space and there are thousands of people like sardines in a can… but in Paviljonki I didn’t feel anxious at all and the only couple of times that the crowd felt too overwhelming was 1) on the first day when I went to the sales hall right after the doors had been opened to the public 2) on the second day when queuing for Animenz’s concert got a bit complicated. But for the most part; plenty of room to walk around freely. Yay! ೕ(･ㅂ･ )

Luckily I’m not the only one who thinks that Paviljonki made a great venue; while browsing twitter I found others with the same opinion:

Jyväskylän Paviljonki Animeconin tapahtumapaikkana. #animeconfi pic.twitter.com/y0UNiI4R7a

— Jani-sama (@Jani_Saurus) July 11, 2016

But well, maybe I’ll start adding some photos here before this entry gets out of hand lol… I didn’t even take that many photos but I still ended up with a bunch. What a mystery. ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ) I had my DSLR w/ kit lens and my awful cellphone camera at my disposal, the quality of the photos is pretty hideous due to this. (ーー;) Someday I’ll get a proper lens that is suitable for con-photography too. I’ve only bought doll/macro photography lenses so far and they’re not very handy for stuff like this…
 

Saturday, Day 1

But yeah, I had Suiren with me at the con in Sheryl cosplay… because I never got the outfit sold for a decent price and I didn’t wanna sell it for a low price either because I’d already paid more than retail for the fullset, so I decided to keep it. Especially after I watched the Macross Frontier anime a couple of months back, I also became a fan of Sheryl as a character rather than just her songs – because May’n sings those and I’ve been a fan of May’n for years. (灬♥ω♥灬) Soooo, it was fun to have Ren cosplay because I don’t cosplay myself – I’d be way too embarrassed to. Maybe if I was prettier, I could consider it… but sadly I’m not, so I’ll just leave cosplaying to my pretty dolls lol. (◍>ᗜ<◍)ﾉ”

Heading to the venue, I was so glad I’d picked up the wristband already on Friday. The queue was insane! Σ(`･Д･ﾉ)ﾉ What you see in these two photos was only half of the queue, it continued all the way to the doors. I didn’t photograph all of it because it was raining and I didn’t want my make up & hair to get ruined. I met up with Yenna shortly after and gave her hers and then we headed indoors. I wanted to go to the sales hall & artist alley right away, because usually I come to cons a bit late and then it takes some more time before I realise to go check out the sales hall & artist alley, and I always miss out on the best stuff. So yeah, this time I was determined to check them out asap! I’d never been to Paviljonki before, but the minute I stepped in, I already loved it. Such a nice building with lots of space~（人*´∀｀）♥

I snagged a couple of plushies right away from the sales hall… meant to buy only one for starters, but Yenna is a horrible enabler so things went a bit out of control. (╯•﹏•╰) There was so much stuff to look at that it made my head spin, lol~ I’d reserved 60 euros in cash as my con budget but I soon realised that it wouldn’t be nearly enough. Thankfully several vendors also accepted card payments. Or, should I say unfortunately? Lol~ (*´艸`*) After the sales hall we went to the artist alley and there were so many talented people with lots of nice stuff up for sale, whoa~ Even MORE stuff to buy. Especially this one person had these suuuper cute owl stickers, when I was browsing through the box of them, I kept finding more and more that I wanted to buy – so when Yenna spotted that they had a “12 stickers for 5€” offer, I was like… LET’S COLLECT OWLS!╰(✧∇✧)╯♥ ♥ ♥ They had a bunch of lovely prints and postcards, too, if I wasn’t on a budget I’d probably have bought everything lol~ ♥ While browsing the artist alley, we ran into Petunia who invited us for tea at Teeleidi. It’s a lovely teahouse where we’ve had meet ups for… four times now? Me and Yenna hadn’t browsed all of the artist alley yet so we decided to stay for a bit and join the others later. The meet up ended up being very small with only five people in total, but fun nevertheless! ♥ Me and Yenna ordered ice tea and it came in these cute jars with flamingos on them:

We both had taken out our DDs from the bags and had picco Himenos with us (+ I had my two newest pureneemos Komaki & Shizuka with me as well) but ended up being too lazy to take photos at the meet up. We were in a bit of a hurry because there was a panel about Alfred J. Kwak that we wanted to see… although, when we hurried back to the con venue, we realised that the panel would actually start half an hour later than we’d originally thought, lol. (-∀-`; )

To kill time, we decided to check out the manga library, which ended up being totally awesome! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ I took a couple of photos from there as well, although I’m not entirely sure if the other people appreciated it, but it was such a lovely place that we came to appreciate very much during that day, so I wanted to document it, lol~

We got so into reading that time flew by and it was time for the panel to start… the manga library was pretty close so we thought that we’d make it. But we didn’t. The room was really small and apparently the panel was more popular than anyone had anticipated, so we didn’t get in. So sad! o(；△；)o Alfred J. Kwak was one of our fave cartoons when growing up, so we would’ve really liked to go there! (;*△*;) But, no can do… we then ended up going back to the manga library because the next panel that I was interested in was about Mononoke and there was pleeenty of time before that would start.

I was totally psyched that there was a panel about this series in the first place, because it’s by no means mainstream. It’s a very unique and interesting series, though, and I whole-heartedly recommend it to everyone. If you haven’t seen it, watch it! Now! ヾ(・ω・*)ノ The panel was interesting to listen to, there was lots of interesting background information and possible inspirations listed that the presenter had gathered. The five different arcs were introduced, but there were no major spoilers for people who weren’t familiar with the series. There were also small clips from the anime which I very much appreciated, but I also almost died because SAKURAAAAIIIII— ヽ( ´￢`)ﾉ I just love his voice so much! ♥ In the first clip he didn’t have to say anything more than どうも and I almost fell off from my chair already lol~ (੭ु´͈ ᐜ `͈)੭ु⁾⁾ But yeah, I enjoyed the panel although at times it was hard to hear the presenter’s voice because basically next door was a karaoke room… and the pronunciation of the Japanese names/words was a bit off at times, which I’m sure wouldn’t bother regular people but I’m a linguist, so… occupational disease, ahah. (･∀･；)

Then we headed downstairs and I spotted another Godot cosplayer! OMG! *。ヾ(｡>ｖ<｡)ﾉﾞ*。 I totally did not expect to run into anyone cosplaying Godot (I’ve never seen AA cosplays in cons before) let alone seeing TWO! Omgggg, he’s one of my fave characters in the game so I was super psyched!!! (੭ु >ω< )੭ु⁾⁾♡ I tried to follow Godot to see if he’d stop somewhere so that I could snap a photo (creepy, I know, I suck) but he just kept walking and then… he went upstairs. And since we’d just come down and our feet were sore, climbing back up the stairs was… not an ideal option. And Yenna said that she’d be leaving soon, so I thought that I’d give up on Godot and try to see if I could spot him again later. Sadly, I didn’t spot him again. (๑•́₋•̩̥̀๑)

After giving up on Godot, we found a table to hang out at, yay! We’d had people approaching us earlier asking about the dolls and now for the first time someone walked up to me all “omg Sheryl Nome!!!”. I had already wondered if Finns don’t know Macross franchise at all since nobody seemed to recognise my poor Sheryl. (´•ω•̥`) Although, Yenna said that she’d heard a couple of people recognise Sheryl, but I’d missed those times so I didn’t know that. This was the first time that someone properly told me that they’d recongised Sheryl, so it made me happy, yay~ (´∇ﾉ｀*)ノ ♥ Sadly Yenna left shortly after this, so I was left on my own for the rest of the day. Cruelll~~! Σ(ＴωＴ)

I decided to go browse the artist alley & sales hall once more, and took a couple of photos too before I put my camera and Sheryl away:

After I’d finished my sandwich, I hung out the table for a bit but decided to go read some more CCS at the manga library. It was so late that I didn’t get to stay there for long because the library closed for the day, so they kicked us out, ahah. (( ´∀`;)) Even though I’d eaten the sandwich, I had a headache and my feet were sore so I was tempted to go home… but there was still a Zelda panel later and I was interested in hearing what it was about, so I decided to endure and sticked around. Especially since I didn’t have to worry about missing my bus or anything like that, I thought that heck… let’s stay. ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧

The Zelda panel was very entertaining, so it was a good thing that I stayed! ヾ(＠^▽^＠)ﾉ It was about the horror elements in the Zelda games and the presenter went through – from a humoristic point of view – the top three most scary Zelda games that people had voted: 1) Majora’s Mask 2) Ocarina of Time 3) Twilight Princess. After those three he talked about a few other games as well. But yeah, the panel was definitely a must go-to for a Zelda fan such as myself~ ♡ฅ(ᐤˊ꒳ฅˋᐤ♪) Especially the “scary stuff” from OOT and MM was something I could relate to as I was pretty young when I first watched my brother play those games (and then later on I played them myself as well). Freakin’ Kakariko Village well!!! I hated that place so much! Dead Hand gave me nightmares ffs! ヾ(´囗｀｡)ﾉ

After the panel I finally decided to head home, because my headache hadn’t gotten any better and my feet were killing me.. and I didn’t really have anything more to do there as the day was coming to an end.

When I got home, I learned that there was an afterparty in Lutakko and Petunia & Turre were there. I mean, I figured that there would most likely be one because usually cons have those, but I’d completely missed when it would be and where. (･∀･；) Unfortunately I’d already gotten home and I didn’t feel like crossing the bridge yet again because I would’ve had to come back home AGAIN later, so I didn’t go. If I’d heard about the afterparty before I left Lutakko, I could’ve gone there for a bit to see what it’s like. I’ve never really went to a bar or anything (except on cruise ships) because I don’t drink alcohol, but… I’d suppose an anime convention afterparty might not be as bad as regular Finnish bars that tend to be full of middle-aged drunkards who try to grope you. *shudder* But yeah, I was too tired already. _(-ω-`_)
 

Sunday, Day 2

I hurried to the con venue early because I wanted to secure tickets to Animenz’s piano concert and the cosplay pair & group competition. I’d planned to be there at 10am sharp, but things happened and I fell behind from my schedule… I only arrived at around 10:15. I was fearful of what kind of a queue was waiting for me, but when I stepped into the hall… there was nobody in the queue. (๑꒪▿꒪) And they had a bunch of tickets. So I could’ve very well slept longer and arrived a bit later, d’ohh! Well, since I was already there, I went to the sales hall to buy a birthday present for my goddaughter:

Luckily Yenna had promised to come to the venue early, too, so I got company soon. I was approached by a doll hobbyist who was interested in Dollfie Dreams before Yenna arrived, so I got to talk about dolls a bit, too, while waiting. I hadn’t felt very tired earlier, but as I sat at the table, I started feeling a bit sleepy lol… so even after Yenna arrived, we sat by the table for a bit before heading to the sales hall. There we spotted a DD and quickly realised that the person carrying the doll was Turre. We then continued browsing and later on Petunia joined our little group as well. All of us were carrying dolls so we attracted attention, haha~ (*´艸｀)

While hanging out there, we were approached by people who were interested in seeing the dolls and taking photos. And there was also this guy who asked if he could take a photo of the girls holding a sticker with the hashtag #eikiusita which is an anti-bullying campaign. We agreed, of course. Bullying is totally not okay. (; ･`д･´) I come from a small town where I was pretty much ostracised because I wasn’t interested in what everyone else was into (mainly drinking, Finnish teens tend to be dumb like that because we have this ridiculous drinking culture that I’ve never understood) and had my own opinions… I’ve never been the type who goes along with what everyone thinks just to please others. So yeah, I was viewed as a weirdo and because I was also quiet, I was bullied, especially in middle school. In upper secondary school I adapted a “whatever, I don’t care what these people think about me” attitude, but I remained an outcast until the very end. Only once I got to leave that town, I’ve been able to meet awesome people and I no longer have to hide the things that bring me happiness~ ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡

But yeah, after hanging out for a while we decided that it would be for the best to go for lunch since we’d be going to see the piano concert and cosplay competition later. The lunch was pretty good, although it kinda sucked that it costed almost 10€ and there wasn’t even salad nor bread with it… well, you did get a cup of coffee or tea and a donut, but I don’t really wanna drink anything warm during summer and the donut was kinda rubbery and really tiny, so that wasn’t really worth it either… but well, no can do. After we’d eaten, we spotted this lovely little corner in the restaurant and decided to go there to take photos of our dolls, lol! (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ))

After our small photo session it was time to head to see the concert. We got a bit annoyed about the queueing because… like, everyone going to the concert had a ticket with an assigned seat, which basically should’ve meant that there was no reason for making some super strict queue. (；￣Д￣）Some of the security officers didn’t seem to care, but some of them bossed us around and told us to go there and there… we should make two queues… then another tells us we must form one queue, etc. They should’ve had an unified opinion on the queueing if it was that important, it was a little frustrating to be bossed around and being given conflicting directions. Sheesh! It felt like we were elementary schoolers on a class trip or something. ( ｰ̀εｰ́ ) But eventually we got in, thankfully the auditorium had large doors and the corridors around the building were wide, so the queue moved rather swiftly.

While in the queue, though, I spotted a guy cosplaying Saotome Alto from Macross Frontier. If I wasn’t shy about approaching people, I would’ve walked up to him all “Hey, I have a mini!Sheryl here, could I take a photo of her with you” lol. (ᗒᗜᗕ)՛̵̖ Because Alto is Sheryl’s boyfriend don’t come tell me he isn’t, because I’m a firm believer that Alto’s heart belongs to Sheryl, not Ranka ‘kay so that would’ve been nice, haha… but yeah, I didn’t have the courage to walk up to him (not to mention I didn’t want a security officer on my case for OMG MOVING OUT OF THE QUEUE) and then I didn’t see him again later.

Animenz’s piano concert was very enjoyable!（*’∀’人）♥ I’ve always been a fan of piano music and as a child I wanted to learn to play the piano… but in the end I never did. So instead I just watch any and all anime & dramas that have something to do with pianists, ahah~ (๑°꒵°๑)･*♡ Sadly many of the songs were from anime that I either haven’t watched nor I watched and disliked. Many of the “popular” anime that everyone and their dog seem to love aren’t among my top favourites. But perhaps I’ll refrain from dropping any names because otherwise there’s a danger of this turning into a huge rant, lol!

All the songs were very pretty and Animenz is a very skilled pianist – and his MCing in between the songs was funny, haha – but obviously I didn’t have much of an emotional connection with the songs that I didn’t know or the ones that weren’t from my fave series. At first I concentrated on listening because in the beginning there were more songs that I recognised – like Guren no Yumiya by Linked Horizon & Colours by FLOW, oh the nostalgia! – but when I saw other people taking photos and videos, I dug up my camera. And with good timing, because when I started recording, he played two songs from Ghibli movies. (*´ ˘ `*).｡oO ( ♡ ) The video is shaky because I was shooting freehand, sorry about that:

After that there were a bunch of songs that didn’t really hold anything for me and I was almost ready to throw away all hope… and then Animenz was like “I don’t have a picture for this next song, but I’m sure you’ll recognise it” and I was like, well, let’s keep recording just in case, although I’m not so sure… … and then he started playing and I’m like GASP– and Yenna was like ??? and I’m all omgggg nooo the feeeeelllsss FROM CLANNAD! CHIISANA TENOHIRA!!! ପ(⑅ ॣ•͈૦•͈ ॣ)ଓ I literally got chills. Unfortunately my fangirling was recorded in the video, too, lol… I can’t edit it out so I’m very sorry that you’ll have to put up with it:

I don’t really care much for the CLANNAD anime, but I love, love, love the visual novel! (人´ω｀*)♡ And Chiisana Tenohira is one of my favourite songs ever, so hearing it played live on the piano was AMAZING~ ? My life is complete now, lol! All in all the concert was very lovely, Animenz has great skill! And he even plays without sheet music, so that’s like… wow! I very much enjoyed the concert, although I do wish that there would’ve been more songs that I have an emotional connection to, but well… lovely piano music, nevertheless. (´ ▽｀).。ｏ♡

The concert went overtime and the cosplay competition was, like, half an hour late. And of course, they wanted to clear the auditorium first and refill it, which would’ve meant MORE queueing… and me and Yenna were also afraid that the chick who was the MC during Animenz’s concert – although thankfully she didn’t talk between the songs, just before and after the concert – would be the MC for the cosplay competition as well… and we just could NOT stay to listen to her. (●´⌓`●) She was trying so hard to… I don’t even know what she was aiming for, but it felt very awkward to listen to her. Like, we weren’t in some freakin’ boxing match or whatever to warrant that kind of “AAARRREEE YOUUUU RRREEEEAAADYYYYYYYY” kind of MCing… like no. Just no. That was awful. Not to mention that her English was awful. Please tone it down in the future. Your audience felt uncomfortable, not pumped up. ( ･ั﹏･ั)

So yeah, me and Yenna skipped the cosplay competition and went to the sales hall for the last time. We found this awesome bag that Yenna bought, and she also got this suuuper cute tiny Nami (One Piece) ochatomo figure! I’ve never read/watched OP and I only know what Yenna has told me about it so I’m not a fan by any means… but darn, even I would want that figure. It’s so cute! (o´`o)♡*✲ﾟ*｡

We hung out at the table for a while and then Yenna left. The day was ending and there was no longer any panels left so I thought that I should head home, too, but I avoided it for a while because my feet were killing me and the thought of walking home didn’t sound tempting… so I took a few photos of the venue:

After I’d taken these photos, I spotted my friend Kesakeru and chatted with her for a bit. (人*´∀｀)+ﾟ:｡*ﾟ+ After she and her travelling companions left, I thought it was time for me to head home as well. It felt like such a shame to leave, because I had such a great time at the con, I wish it would’ve lasted longer! I can only hope that they’d come to Jyväskylä again next year, but they’ll probably move the con back to Kuopio since it’s been there for so many years now… a shame. I really loved Paviljonki as a con venue, would totally go again! ヽ(´ω｀○)ﾉ.+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+

 
After I got home, I posted a small shout out to twitter with Sheryl:

We had a great time at #AnimeconFI ? Oli mukava tavata niin DD-nukeista kiinnostuneita kuin kanssaharrastajiakin! ? pic.twitter.com/T3ijlHnQuj

— ミラ (@mizya) July 10, 2016

We really had a blast at the con! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ I’m sure that you can all tell that from the lenght of this entry, lol…

Oh, and here’s everything that I bought from the con:

The materialist in me is very pleased~ (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) ❤️