Valentine’s Day is a romantic holiday we made up as an excuse to pull off the ultimate date night once a year. For a fancy dinner at a restaurant you need a reservation for, a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and some top-shelf chocolate that says, “I care a lot about you.” A day for shining the spotlight on our significant others. I spent my Valentine’s Day with my significant other and about a million other people—not really. I spent another Valentine’s Day cosplaying at Katsucon, my favorite weekend on the East Coast.
If you didn’t know, Katsucon is a huge convention that happens every year, usually the second week of February. For the past two years Valentine’s Day has fallen on the convention, and it’s been kind of magical. People bring valentines to swap, and I feel very lucky that I randomly received some this year. Last year I actually received a fake rose that I kept as prized Katsucon memorabilia. I had a wonderful weekend with my boyfriend and some friends.
Cosplaying is my favorite part of conventions. I love seeing how people bring characters to life, and Katsucon is one of the best places to see amazing cosplays. This year I cosplayed Café Pompompurin, Mesmerizer Hatsune Miku, and Clown Miku. As a Buggy cosplayer for the last two years, the line between clown Miku and Buggy is very thin, and I did accept some stolen Buggy valor. Being a clown in general is just my favorite vibe. I noticed I didn’t take as many photos with other incredible cosplayers this year, but I think I was much more social than I have been in the past when I wasn’t thinking about social media. I did get a photo with an incredible Big Daddy cosplayer, because how could I not? I am very fortunate that I had the opportunity to meet BuzzBallz Miku and got a ribbon!
One of my goals for Katsucon was to get ribbons. I’ve seen them every year and never really understood how to get them. Last year I got my first two ribbons, and I was hooked. I needed them on my badge this year. I am happy to report I made out like a bandit with 10 ribbons! I received ribbons after making purchases from vendors, attending panels, and talking to some cosplayers. I was so excited about every single ribbon! My favorite ribbon said “Retired Magical Girl.” If you met me somehow and gave me a ribbon, know it made my whole weekend to add it to my badge. I need to create a ribbon design for the blog to hand out next year!
My guidebook was full of panels I wanted to see. By the way, if you’ve never heard of the app Guidebook, I highly recommend using it for Katsucon. The guidebook has the schedule for the whole weekend, and I didn’t know about it until the end of the convention, my first year. There was a lot of overlap in my personal to-see list this year. I had big dreams of seeing a 10 am panel. Unfortunately, sleep and cosplay prep time won, and I saw mostly afternoon and evening panels. I saw a panel that was a history lesson shedding some light on the time period of Silent Hill F. Pulling apart the story to try and explain why some characters may have acted a certain way. I attended a panel about the history of pixel horror games because I love a good pixel horror game. Yumi Nikki was mentioned, and I’m glad to see it’s still an inspiration for horror game creators. Needy Streamer Overload was also mentioned, with the team planning another game I’ll probably get. The creator running the panel had a passion for the Faith game, and I’m sold. I will be playing it. My favorite panel of the convention was about the Shinkansen and bento! My boyfriend and I enjoy watching Dancing Bacon, who has a series about taking the shinkansen and trying the different bento options. My favorite are the themed bentos; we saw one that looked like a Hello Kitty train, and I would pick that for lunch. I also learned that different train lines have different jingles, and I kind of love that. At the end of the panel, they handed out ribbons with rainbow trains on them. For some reason, it felt like the perfect ribbon to be the end of the chain. I saved it until I was in the car, hit with the convention-end blues, and added it to my badge as the official signal that Katsucon was over.
Artist Alley got the expansion it deserved this year, and walking around shopping was much more enjoyable than it’s been in years past. My favorite find was a stylized Batman poster that I will be hanging in my living room as the centerpiece of my apartment. I played some gacha and won three Vocaloid keychains, including a Birdbrain one, which is currently one of my favorite Vocaloid songs. The first artist stall I went to had a pachinko setup, and I won a sticker. My boyfriend won ten percent off, so we bought a few pins because that was awesome. I love booths with games.
Katsucon has always been a fun convention for me, but this year the vibes seemed particularly good. There was even warm weather, which is unheard of for Katsucon. I was not freezing on my walk to the Gaylord and could comfortably take photos outside. There was no grey water incident, but there was vomit at the gazebo, which is unfortunately kind of a tradition at this point. I got to cosplay, meet one of my favorite creators by absolute coincidence, and see friends I don’t see very often. Katsucon is my only convention for the year, but it’s inspired me to seek out smaller local conventions. I can’t wait to go next year!
Strawberry Loft 
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