ALA Review from Rukazu

Well everyone, I am back from ALA 2011, and holy crap that was an awesome convention!

I know this is a bit late, so sorry about that. I did so much stuff this year compared to last year! I did five cosplays, did four gatherings and got to do a concert as Austria and a small one as Lyrica. There is a reason why ALA is one of my favorite cons and its precisely the fact of how its run and the people that I meet and talk to. Unlike the bigger conventions where there is so much going on, ALA is a small convention where you can relax, take pictures and talk to friends and other cosplayers. It's this kind of laid-back feeling that I like every now and then and I think is why I really liked ALA.

Friday I was mainly doing Lelouch and Lyrica towards the end of the day. It was the more boring day because i didn't really have too much in mind and i wasn't doing a lot of stuff. The AMV contest later that day was okay, considering again that a lot of the AMVs I already saw before. I wasn't able to get into Cosplay Chess, but still fun as hell to watch. I pulled out my artbook variation, otherwise known as Mutuality and it was, a pain to wear. While it looks cool and is great for pictures, with that much weight on your head for about 6 hours, yeah, it gets painful after a while. I wanted to do Hitsugaya, but I decided to watch cosplay chess instead. I had a chance to see the Artist Alley and Dealer's Hall, and they were pretty much the same as last year, they were a good size and they sold decent stuff, which is fine as it is.


Saturday was the big day for me. I pulled out Naoi again, but I couldn't find any other Angel Beats! cosplayers so that was a bit of a let down. CLAMP was awesome as i debuted my artbook variation costume. It was very well received and i couldn't hold a conversation for three minutes without having somebody ask for my picture. I was chatting with the really cool Syoaran with the blue and silver costume and literally every few minutes around noon we would get requests for pictures. After that, i switched for Lyrica and a few hours to do Touhou and that was really fun. My friend Jay showed up as Aya and it was fun as this was our first Touhou cosplay gathering we did. The one minus side to that cosplay was the keyboard a friend of mine lent me. After that, i swapped for Austria because the dress got too cold and i had to run to do the HetaMUN panel with Jet, though i sorta missed it. The Masquerade was one of the more enjoyable ones as my anime club managed to do a skit and win a few awards.


Sunday was amazing and fun. In the morning of course, I had the Hetalia gathering which was loads better than last year. I want to thank all my committee members, Thia Fayne, Annalyn, Shokora, heeroyuy135, Ryusan, and MokubaKaiba for their help and everyone who cooperated to make this gathering work. Unfortunately we were pressed for time so we couldn't do all the pairings that we wanted. Nonetheless, it was a success in my book. After that, we had the Hetalia History panel which was very fun and educational and of course, i bought a few things, took pictures and I got to meet a lot of people. I had a fun time cosplaying as Austria that day because I got a lot of random hugs and when I went to the Artist Alley again, the America artist recognized me from Hetalia Day, gave me a free pin, and said that I was her favorite Austria. It's moments like these that makes me want to keep cosplaying as Austria and keep going to cons in general.