Recollections: Perfect Spin Off Cosplay

2005

Anime Overdose
Location: Holiday Inn, San Francisco, California

USA Musume had been asked to come to Anime OD to perform. Can't turn that down! Great potential in such a relatively new convention on the circuit.

Saturday: Get up at 5:00 AM for flight from SNA. Commuter Alaska Airlines flight, uneventful. Got a call from Amikins for pick up shortly after arrival. Arrived at the location and we were going to park at Whole Foods, but the lot was closed. So parked at hotel. Established contact with Lionel and got a room key for 1513. Turns out that Al wasn't going to stay the night so I swapped. Basically spent the morning with Liddochan. We cruised the dealer's room, she won a DVD from Funimation so I signed up. I checked back later and I won a DVD from Funimation too! I picked FMA 1st DVD. Lydia helped me spike my hair while I helped her with her Tsubasa Syaoran. I got bored and changed into Banban so I could take advantage of the spiked hair. Al was changing between PoT and DoA but got some pictures of it. Changed out and had lunch with Amikins. We had yummy chicken enchilada, mashed yams and stir fry bok choy from Whole Foods. AJ was free so we went on a Date of Destiny as prom Starfire and Robin. That was so much fun. AJ had to be my eyes and adjust my mask every time. Afterwards got ready for Salt 5. Poor mich was so tired and she didn't even finish her costume so she rested after the RNR perf. But turned out they had to go on again with a double encore. Such good performers! Then Salt 5 and completion. I changed out rapidly and they all went on a photo shoot with Kyle. After that, I went out to dinner with moo for burgers and salad. Was supposed to be fries and a shake but we were both health conscious. Came back and loitered for a little bit but retired early. Lionel could not find his jacket! Poor guy.

Sunday: Good thing I slept early. Kept on waking up cos the sirens blaring outside. Must be alot of crime in this part of town. Took care of the tip for the room. Muchos gracias to Lionel for the crash space. Tiffy was already putting up Hikkles and I'd just be a burden. Treated Lionel to breakfast. After that I went to move all my stuff to the green room, 2601, changed into Dekaranger, then went down and helped staff the autograph signing session. All the guests were really nice. Marv Wolfman remembered who I was after some prompting. Before I knew it, it was 1 PM and we were supposed to be on. The concert started about 40 minutes late but our microphone worked just fine. Packed up the mics and left them with I couldn't stay very long for pictures and pretty soon, I went back up to 2601 to change out. Then moo accompanied me like a wonderful hostess down Van Ness to the BART station and she actually rode with me to AirBART, where we departed. Made it on time to the airport. Then there was the flight home. >.> yippee.

2004

AniMagic
Location: Valencia Hyatt, California

Animagic had enjoyed our participation last year, and thus had asked USA Musume to return as performing guests. This year tho, we would be joined by several other talents, such as Ramen & Rice, Cosplay Onnesan and Maiyu!

Thursday: Kitsy and I fight about 3 hours worth of traffic from Irvine to get her up to Valencia. Duh, we left at 5. Big mistake. Tiffy, RNR were all at the airport and so Kitsy managed to rope in the rooms which were connected to each other! Awesome! We've never had that before. And the rooms were nice! Service excellent! We had requested a rollaway and by the time we got up there they were knocking to deliver it. 228 was the double queen and 230 was the king + rollaway. I decided to stay with RNR this time around and so I wasn't even sure what my room number was going to be. I heard 328, right a floor above the UM rooms. I wasn't sure because.... I went home.

Friday: Packed up all my UM costumes (4 of them!) and Roy Mustang for the long trip up to Valencia. Which is still less than the trip to Lancaster so I wasn't really complaining. Traffic was light on the way up this time so it only took an hour. Of course 45 minutes into the ride I had this stunning revelation. WTH are my Roy gloves!?!?!?! Are they with my costume? I don't think I put them there. They were in a different spot. As I made that realization, Fee gave me a call. She was so good <3's>
Saturday: Wake up and had some angel food cake with RNR. First shoot of the day was Last Kiss, so Tiffy and Kitsy and I took those pictures. By the time that was done, it was lunch time. Tiffy wanted to sell stuff at the swap meet so she stayed there while Kitsy and I ran off to eat at the sushi place that was close by. Their lunch was so good! I was so happy to be able to walk to good yummy food nearby. And good price too. We were treated really well there. We got a call that Annie had come back so I got back into LK and took pictures of Annie to wrap that shoot. Next on my list to get ready was Salt 5 photoshoot, and get packing for all the other nighttime performances. We move into the Country Canyon as it would be our change room for the masquerade. We needed someplace close by. We run up to the fitness center to take Salt 5 pictures with all the equipment. Then we came back down to home base. Everybody was there as well as Jason and Dean. Wayne was out recording the masquerade. We shared that room with the judges who finished their judging in about 15 minutes because they had already done their craftsmanship prior. After 42 entries, and the masquerade proceeding ahead of schedule, Salt 5 goes up. Something was wrong with Mich's microphone so it sounded like some lines were edited out but other than that it was a good performance! Then Maiyu took about 10 minutes + a 2 minute AM staff Zelda skit while we were changing into LK/7A. Due to the mic problems from S5, we held the suspect microphone and LK was performed flawlessly. We took the hit on 7A because we needed all 5 microphones again so whoever had the bum microphone just sang extra loud. That worked out pretty good. After 7A, we had a small farewell ceremony for Kitsy T_T. Flo came up and presented her with a lei too which was nice and Angela had a little speech prepared too. After which we grabbed Maryssa to the stage to demonstrate JKM's main dance. Then we performed the UM version of JKM which was totally fun! The 7A photoshoot followed but I went with RNR to pack up all our stuff from the room as we'd be checking out tomorrow. RNR managed to get food from Johnny Rockets again because they were starved. The rest of the girls were having a post AM celebration so I went to their room for a bit. Helped Kitsy pack alot of her stuff while the other girls left for JB's. We eventually joined up right in time to order. Kitsy and I split something since all the portion sizes were huge. Dean whipped out this nice bottle of almond champagne and it was very tasty. Fee came over to talk to us and she was all yay for being antisocial haha. Kitsy and I left early since we were tired and wanted to help finish packing for her impending trip back to Hawaii. I managed to stay up and hit the room party in 208 and dueled Hai for about 5 rounds until I couldn't keep my eyes open. His deck will suck once he adds in Exiled Force. I finally went to bed at 3 and O_O, RNR were still up. But not much afterwards. *crash*

Sunday: Icky! RNR's panel was at 9 X_X. Due to some icky schedule changes, hardly anyone showed up. I was busy getting stuff ready for the UM panel at 1, like writing it on the board and securing the room. RNR and I did a quick photoshoot of HHJ, and then moved all our stuff out of the room by 11. We were all waiting in the lobby to say goodbye to RNR T_T. The panel started at 1:10 PM and wrapped within an hour. It went well except the microphone for the karaoke go round didn't work, and Lionels computer was missing the codec for the HHJ video. Good thing I came prepared with back up videos so we sang C!NP. After the panel we gave Kitsy her farewell presents and Tiffy a thank you present T_T. Both girls were near tears. After the panel I was ready to go toodles but I managed to catch Kitsy before she flew out T_T.