A Non-Otaku’s Adventures at Anime Expo

Hey my little ponies! Right now I’m hanging out at my sister’s apartment in San Diego getting ready for Comic-Con!!! I can’t believe it’s already that time of year. It always seems to creep up on me out of nowhere. I’ll be at the convention itself Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and a few parties throughout the week including Game of Bloggers tomorrow night, Geeks Go Glam on Thursday, and the Fashionably Nerdy cocktail hour on Friday. If you happen to be going to any of these events and see me, please say hi! And also forgive me for being socially awkward.

#shy #introvertproblems

Anywho, I’m still recuperating from my weekend spent at Anime Expo. I feel somewhat fine, but at the same time I don’t want to do a damn thing except for veg out on the couch like I’m a sloth and watch things on YouTube (I’m currently obsessed with Thug Notes). Back to back conventions just might be a sign that I am getting too old. Wah-wah-wah. But despite how low my mana is, I still had fun hanging out with my best friends and my sister!

I even got to write another article for Wear Your Voice Mag about casual cosplaying. You can read it here.

As you can see, I did a casual Totoro cosplay during one of my days at Anime Expo with my My Neighbor Totoro dress by Her Universe. It was perfect to wear to Anime Expo considering what a popular character Totoro is in the anime community. In case you’re not completely familiar with him, his popularity is equivalent to that of Mickey Mouse. And how effing adorable is he?! My Neighbor Totoro is a great film too, so go watch it if you haven’t yet!

I went to Anime Expo for a day last year and had fun, so I decided to buy a pass for this year too. Plus my friend Jen constantly told me that it’s not all just anime, other geekdoms are represented there too. And while the exhibition hall was full of cool vendors, I found myself not completely being into the whole thing. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’m not huge on anime and my knowledge on the subject is limited to a few Studio Ghibli films and Sailor Moon, and this convention’s main audience are those that roll in the otaku crowd… which I don’t find myself part of. By no means am I dissing Anime Expo, or anyone that’s super into it, I’m just saying that I feel like Anime Expo turned out to not quite be my thing. Oh well! I guess I’m just used to Comic-Con as it’s more up my alley where geekery is concerned. My friend Shanice and I saw all these great cosplays except we felt really awkward about not knowing where it was from.

One of the things that I really liked about Anime Expo though was their photo shoot area. There was a whole space with different kinds of backdrops set up for cosplayers to take photos of their cosplays, ranging from a space station, forest scene, classroom, graveyard, Japanese garden, etc. That’s where I took the cherry blossom pictures and some outfit pics of me wearing my Captain America dress (up on the blog later!). 🙂

dress: Her Universe (no longer available)
cardigan: Old Navy (buy similar here)
flats: G.H. Bass (buy here)
belt: A|X Armani Exchange
headband: Made by me (tutorial here)