I'm going to break this up into a few different pieces: text, videos, and photos. Because otherwise I think the post would be
way too long and unmanageable. This way, if you only want to look at one aspect, you don't have to sift through the other bits.
Let me start this off by saying how much I love Katsucon. Katsu 17 was my first convention, and each year I've gone it's been better. I've practically been looking forward to this year's convention since last year, since I knew it was a definite even if Otakon fell through. I've had a running countdown since probably about September, when katsucon.org still said "200+ days until Katsucon 19". It ran simultaneously with my AUSA countdown. Every time I hear Lights by Ellie Goulding, I can't help but think about all of the awesome videography by acksonl or MLZstudios, which has gotten through post-con depression and boosted my motivation to work on cosplay.
This was the first time I've been to Katsucon all weekend. I think that was what helped make it my favorite. We didn't get to the Gaylord on Friday until sometime in the afternoon, but we stayed until at least 10pm. Saturday we got there earlier and therefore didn't stay as long, and Sunday we left by 3.
I really only cosplayed on Saturday. Friday I wore my fem!Green Oak to school, but the wig was giving me grief and I took it off to replace it with a Gumi wig I bought. Saturday I was trainer!Jack Frost and it was really fun because it was the first time I was asked for pictures, and I was in a little bit of the Pokemon photoshoot. Sunday I wore my Gumi wig along with my yellow Matryoshka hoodie.
I ran into a few people I knew, including my friend Kaylee from tumblr and a girl that sits next to me in Spanish class. I got to meet a lot of my sempais, including:
uberwren,
minomotu,
dejavudea,
the-guardian-of-fun, and
missmurrka. It turned me into a bundle of nerves and jitters, but it was totally worth it! Also considering all the ROTG artwork I was able to buy at the con. I spent $400, and a good majority of it went to the Artist Alley. I don't know how much I spent on each specific AA thing, but from the dealer's: $35 Gumi wig, $15 Lapras plushie, $20 grab bag, $16 for two manga, $15 Rilakkuma plushie, and $54 kigurumi.
The only downside to the weekend was the little run-in we had with BBYO, which is in no way as bad as other people had it. Saturday my friend and I took up chairs near the bathrooms at the end of one of their hallways, because we were waiting for my family to come back and park in the garage. The security guards didn't bother us even though we were sitting right in front of them. However, once we exited and tried to come back in they made us turn around and go through the main entrance -- which was a little annoying, considering I was wearing my Jack cosplay and my feet were freezing. We had walked through that hallway when arriving there in the morning and nobody gave us any hassle. They also wouldn't let us through it to the garage that evening, and on the gazebo level they forced us to walk through the crowded Katsu side of the open area even though there was nobody in front of the ballroom on their side and nobody was guarding it on the other side of the gazebo. We ended up getting disoriented on our way out. Other than that, though, I didn't have any problem with the other convention that ran the same time as Katsucon did.
I haven't had any con depression yet, but I think that's because I'm so happy with how Katsucon turned out to be. I have absolutely no regrets. The closest thing I've had to con depression was hating having to go back to school this morning.
Long story short, I had a super awesome time at Katsucon 19! I'll work on the other two posts as soon as I get around to processing the pictures and video I took.
