Nan Desu Kon is the closest anime convention, and though it's small, was absolutely wonderful.  I did my first actual cosplay skit (and won!), had some lovely costumes to wear, and met some awesome people.  All of this was done with my best friend and partner in crime and cosplay, Merlyn "Ami-chan!"

We arrived late during the end of the first day. so we were unable to finish our pre-reg until the next morning.  But we still took the opportunity to get in costume and wander about.  I ran into Darren, from the U of Wyoming's anime club, who I'd had the pleasure of conferring with for a few months.  We also ran into a few of the lucky characters who would be recruited into a later cosplay group for the contests.  And of course we made it a point to visit the karaoke room (where we had just missed some VA performances..  *sniff*).

The next day, there was far too much to be done!  I awoke at a pretty early 7 am and headed to the Sheraton Denver West's very nice dining room (where I was served Starbucks coffee first thing) for a bite of breakfast.  I again ran into Darren, then headed back to my room (all jittery and psycho between the coffee and the excitement, you can have Merlyn vouch for that one) to change into my Hitomi Kanzaki seifuku for a little while.  I walked around for a bit, then headed to one of the voice actors' panels.  Some pretty big name VA's were attending; Tiffany Grant and Amanda Winn-Lee, Asuka and Rei respectively from Evangelion (I know there were more, but I only paid attention to my fellow female VAs!  =p).  Merlyn and I met up then again to make our lovely transformations into Super Sailormoon and Sailormercury!  Henshin yo!

We wandered for quite a bit longer, pausing to take pictures with each other and some other characters.  There was almost a full Sailor Team; we found a Mars and Jupiter x 2 (one of them being chibi ^^), a few of the Outers, Haruka and Sailorneptune, some bad guys, including Mistress Nine and Black Lady, and several seifuku'd peoples.  We paused to play a quick game of Assassins (you get a black band with a character on it and a paper with another character, and you're both hunting the character your holding and being hunted as the character on your band.  I was Naga!!  AH HA HAA HA HAA!!!!), then went on to a few more panels, popped in a few video rooms to see Nadesico and Escaflowne for a bit, and generally had a great time!  I also saw a lot of kindness that day; a very sweet woman who did some professional costume helped me with the wig I used the whole day, and I can't tell her how much I appreciated it!

Then came the great finale of the night!  The Cosplay and Costume Contests!  Ha!  Of course, we'd been recruiting during the rest of the day, and we ended up with myself and Merlyn as Sailormoon and Mercury, Sailorneptune, Chibijupiter, two Tuxedo Kamens, Professor Tomoe, and Zoisite (oh, and little stuffed Luna and Artemis ^^).  Most of us participated in the separate costume contest, then we gathered again for the actual cosplay skit planning.  Do not ask me what kind of drugs we were on when we spawned this psychotic idea, but whatever they were, they musta been good.  *^^*  Since we had characters from all different Sailormoon series, and two Tuxes besides, we decided that our absent Pluto must have really screwed something up, and there came the basis of our skit: A Slip In Time or Sailor Pluto Goes to Starcon (which had kinda pissed off a few people, the Trekkie con being the same weekend as ours..  Well, we know who's dedicated now at least!).

The plot was basically all of us woke up shaking our heads and wondering where we were, then noting that we had opposing sides and multiple time frames goin' on.  And of course, our duo Tuxes...  They approached each other, mimicking actions, while I as Sailormoon stood behind them, wide-eyed.  That got a pretty good laugh from the audience.  ^^  So then we backed off to our own corners, facing off, good vs. evil!  I asked what could have happened, what was going on?  Neptune then spoke up ("Ara!"  Hee!  ^^), that it must be something with Pluto, and Mercury tried to explain further.

Well, I was still at a loss of what to do to get back to our own times when Tuxedo Kamen reminded us of a tale where a girl tapped her heels together three times and wished to go home (cue another big laugh ^^).  So we all, even the bad guys, tried it, and lo and behold, a tiny time portal opened!  Oh, but it was too small, we couldn't expect to get through there!  Again to my rescue, Tuxie reminded me of the Kaliedamoonscope I held in my hand, and that I could probably use that..  "Oh, yeah!  Hee he hee!"  Cue next laughter sequence from audience.  So I did it, Moon Gorgeous Meditation! And POOF!  The portal opened the rest of the way...

But those evil guys, you know how they are...  Can't let us outta there without a fight..  So, we had to kick some baddie buns; the Tuxes duking it out, Neptune taking out Tomoe, our ever kawaii Chibijupiter not-quite-taking out Zoisite (maybe because she forgot her words?  ^^  I love ya, sweetie!), and Mercury finishing her off by throwing the cats at her (cue another big laugh ^^).  Then we escaped in safety!

The finishing touch came back in a musical-esque re-entrance of situated bows, and me coming back arm-in-arm with my (character's =p) Tuxie.  ^^  Whether or not anything else happened, we all agreed that we'd had fun, but there was a plus after all; we'd won the Audience Choice Award for Best Stage Presentation.

Afterwards, we were all pretty much starving, and along with several other groups, headed across the street, still in full costume, to Denny's where we enjoyed a nice dinner, some laughter, and plenty of picture taking (yeah, so Shampoo and I were standing on the tables, so what?  =p).  Then it was back to the hotel again for the dance...

Before the dance started, I changed into my last costume of the convention: my angelic Serenity.  This is one of my favorite costumes, and the comments I got on it made me wish I'd worn it for the costume contest.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it yet, but expect them soon.  I joined our Neptune, Tomoe-become-Haruka, and Zoisite on the dance floor and proceeded to dance the night away.  They had some great anime songs, including a dance remix version of the Sailorstars theme.  That was mine.  ^^

By now it was about 3 am, and we migrated to Denny's once again, to stay and chat for a few hours until the Sailormoon R movie was to be shown, at 5 am that morning.  ^^  The movie was fun to watch in costume, but we were all exhausted.  I stumbled to my room to sleep for a few hours before having to get up again and leave the next morning.

I cannot say enough good things about NDK and all the fun I had.  It's really been one of the best weekends of my life.  I'm looking very forward to next year, and to AX '00 as well.  I hope you've enjoyed looking back at NDK with me.  If you're in the mountain area (or even if you're not!), definitely check it out, it's not a convention to miss.  ^^

Other Photos (taken by Merlyn, sorry Ami-chan, I didn't have any more room!  *O.o*)
Princess Mercury (kimono) and Hitomi
Sailor Mercury
Super Sailormoon and Sailor Mercury
Ritsuko and Maya (Evangelion)
Sailor Mercury and mother Ritsuko (Ne, ne, Ami-chan, we never knew!  *O.o*)
The Denny's Crew
Shampoo and Bunny
Sailorneptune, Zoisite, and Professor Tomoe
Silly Usagi, as usual, goofing off, with a spoon hanging off her nose...  ^^  I love this pic.
 

Pictures were taken from A Fan's View, U of Wyo. Anime Club, and Kiki's Picture Delivery.   Don't forget to visit NDK's Official Website!

Back to Charmed Seed Cosplay