HikazePrincess

I am still alive, and I finally have some semblance of free time. Had a heck of a time trying to get through a backlog of articles for my blog site, delayed mostly due to my trip to NYC about a week ago. As if that wasn't bad enough, I have less than a week till AMA, and I still have a lot of cosplay work to do. It's gonna a heck of a week ><

First of all, NYC was pretty fun. Our hotel was one block behind the theater playing Aladdin, so I got the chance to see that (one of my top plays to see ^_^). As it turned out, the guy who played Jafar was the same guy who voiced him in the Disney movie and Kingdom Hearts games. For most of us, Robin Williams will always be the genie, but the guy in the play was ON POINT!! When Aladdin tricks him into getting them out of the cave without using a wish, he was like "He tricked a genie?! Ain't nobody got time for that!" ^_^ I even found the cutest little Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, two blocks down the street from the hotel. The entire upper floor was manga and art books, both in English and Japanese......total nerdvana! I also go to watch a good amount of Impratical Jokers, and although they frequently film in NYC, we unfornately were not victims of any of their challenges.

Once back home, I dove headfirst into the backlog of anime reviews for the blog.  Finally finished those a few days ago, and worked on some Jpop articles too. And now, I am officially done with those until this week's articles come out. Other than that, I'm basically gonna immerse myself in cosplay construction. Since I don't have to time to question each move, I'm gonna do what works right now and maybe redo the cosplay at a later date. Wish me luck.

I'm also trying to cram for my karaoke song, something I've never had to do before. Since, as a point of pride, I never use a cheat sheet, I'm committed to memorizing the lyrics. Hopefully, everything goes well.

Later!

Hikaze~

Yes, I am still here, and once again it's been a few months since my last journal. Been a bit distracted with on/off procrastination on my next cosplay and various other things. I recently joined the UnimeTV blog team and my first article just went live: unimetv.com/april-shower-of-pr… ^_^

At a lost of what to write first, I noticed a lot of the "not yet aired" titles on Plan to Watch list were set to premiere this month. So I suggested a write about them and share my expectations for them and they agreed. I'm especially proud of how I summarized Nanbaka. Not sure why, but there's quite a bit to say about it.

I'm just so excited to have something published on a blog site. I'll probably follow up with these series and review them as they are; I even pitched reviewing the cons I attend. I can't imagine anything I write will go viral, but hopefully things still work out.

Well, that's all for now. Later!
~Hikaze~

And before I knew it, it's been almost a year since I lasted updated this thing. Man, I knew I was lazy but I didn't think I was this bad. Well, might as well catch up.

In the last year, I've made a friend in Japan via Twitter and will be sending her a Christmas card this year. I've ended a few Twitter relationships with users who turned out to be more shallow than expected. I've also attended two cons and shall now review them.

Anime Mid-Atlantic 2016
Rather than try and rustle up a new one, I decided to dig out an old cosplay for this year. So I revived pre-Shippuden Ino, which made it's debut six years ago at this same con. As usual, Friday night, I performed at karaoke (my buddy CrowSama26 and I were the first two performers). Once again, I sang a song from a lesser known anime but it still got a pretty good response.

There wasn't much else going on that weekend. Saturday evening, we went to a Yugioh quiz panel that ended up getting canceled after 15 minutes cuz the host didn't show up. On the way back to the room, we bitched about it (which Hitoshura3 filmed and posted on "our" YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWfkAW…). Later that night, we went to the Whose Line Is It Anime panel, although that ended up getting canceled as well. Only highlight of the day was the Phoenix Wright mock trial which moved from NekoCon to AMA. I was the only who noticed Phoenix's hair was slightly different this year, possibly reminiscent of the recently premiered Ace Attorney anime (go watch it, it's awesome! ^_^). Sunday, we hit up David Vincent's panel and then headed home.

NekoCon 2016
Thursday started pretty early with me having to take my dad to the airport. But luckily, that meant I had a car to myself for the weekend so I got to drive myself to NekoCon this year. Even drove my friends back and forth over the weekend, and thankfully none of them complained about my driving (didn't compliment it either but still).

Debuted a new cosplay this year: Miki from Shugo Chara. I'd been wanting to do her for a while, and this was the first cosplay where I'd bought every single piece (without adding or altering anything). Not many people recognized it, but only one person mistook it for something else (thought it was Amulet Spade).

Friday night, CrowSama26 and I performed a duet at karaoke. It went as well as could be expected, even won a Judge's Choice prize ([link]). In the month or so prior, I'd tried to teach Crow the "dance moves" from the UtaPri 5th Live. That went fairly well, but right before we performed, I offered to run through them real quick and he refused, saying he couldn't do them. Was pretty annoyed to hear that, but I did my share of the moves anyway. Beforehand, I hung out with some of the karaoke staff and talked about a few things that I'll probably reveal come January.

Saturday, the Yugioh panel that got canceled at AMA was scheduled for that morning and, despite my friends' skepticism, it actually happened. The host had separated the various Yugioh shows into their own quizzes (GX, Zexal, and whatnot) and I got to participate in the original series quiz. Because I'd accidentally rung in too early on one question, I ended up tied for 1st place with one of the other players. We all got Yugioh TCG packs and my co-winner and I got our choice of McDonalds or Subway gift cards.

The rest of the day, I made it my "mission" to get my planned autographs: Mike McFarland, Cherami Leigh, and Bryce Papenbrook. I actually missed Bryce's signing because of the Yugioh panel, but getting Mike's autograph was no problem, even got to line up early for it. Cherami, however proved to be difficult. When we tried to get in line early, a staffer told us they weren't lining up for Cherami Leigh till 5. A few minutes, 10 people rushed into the line for Cherami. We told the staff there what we'd been told and they were like "Yeah, we weren't told that." That pretty much lead to us bitching about the staff for the rest of the weekend. In the end, despite some frustration and an almost 2-hour wait, Marshall and I both got Cherami's autograph (I had her sign my Asuna sword).

On Sunday, after packing my stuff and loading the car, I made a beeline for the artist alley since all I wanted was Bryce's autograph (and one helpful staffer suggested getting there at noon). After some confusing and complicated shenanigans, we finally managed to get in line. However, due to some surprise expenses, I only managed to get one autograph and a photo from Bryce (he wanted to hold the sword after signing it). Since that was all I'd wanted that day and it had taken several hours, I decided to just head home afterwards. I made a quick stop for a very late lunch at Jersey Mike's, where things actually got weirder. While I was eating, the guy who had taken my order came up and asked if I had a boyfriend. At first, I thought he was about to ask me himself. But instead, he gave me his brother's number and told me to "just think about it." It didn't occur to me to say this at the time, but I really don't do blind dates. Plus, it'd be kinda awkward to start a convo with "Hi, your brother gave me your number."

Other
Completely by accident, I stumbled across a new manga called "Dawn of the Arcana." Can't really describe it too well, but I highly recommend looking into it. And I really wish this series had an anime ><

Well, that's about all I can think of to say. If you're reading this, be sure to leave a comment. Thanks.

~Hikaze~