Who are you cosplaying?
Ragna the Bloodedge from the recently released fighting game, Blazblue: Calamity Trigger (which made its American debut at AnimeEXPO ‘08 and was promoted at this passed AnimeEXPO ‘09).
How did you decide on that character to cosplay?
Hm… well, to be honest, it’s a bit of a long story. I have been an avid Guilty Gear fan ever since playing Guilty Gear XX several years ago. My favorite character in the series was the main protagonist, Sol-Badguy. When I saw the 2008 trailers of Blazblue last summer, I was psyched to discover the spirit of Guilty Gear was going to arrive on the next-gen consoles.
I had my eyes set on Ragna due to his uncanny resemblance of Sol. Though, despite all the similarities, I didn’t see Ragna as a carbon-copy rip-off of Sol (as some people have stated). He was his own character, and in many ways, I liked him better than Sol.
Ragna’s humorous sarcasm and willingness to not be the typical “I’m a bonified badass with no feelings” character made him stand out to me. Not to mention his hobby of cooking, that creator Toshimichi Mori endowed him with… I found that quite interesting about him. It actually inspired me to start learning how to cook a bit, in order to be more authentic to my Ragna cosplay.
The timing worked out perfectly too, since later in the year, I found out Toshimichi Mori and Daisuke Ishiwatari (the creator and music composer, respectively, of Blazblue) were going to be guests of honor at AnimeEXPO ‘09… which in turn led me all the way from my home in NYC to downtown LA.
I now have Mori’s signature on the back of my Ragna jacket.
So, to answer your question in short, I decided to cosplay Ragna the Bloodedge because I liked and conected to his character. That’s usually my number one rule to cosplaying any character. No connection or fondness = little chance of cosplaying the character.
So what were the reactions of people at the con ? Any interesting stories to tell ?
Reactions… hum hum hum… At AnimeEXPO, from the con-goers, they were generally positive. I guess because the game was being prominently promoted & premiered there, a lot of fans showed up. I didn’t really get any extraordinary or outlandish reactions from regular con-goers themselves at AnimeEXPO. I could probably attribute that to there being about 4 other Ragna cosplayers, with swords (I didn’t have mine because the airline made a big deal about it). I did make a few friends at AnimeEXPO ‘09 too, that I probably wouldn’t have interacted with if I wasn’t cosplaying Ragna.
The AKSYS Games staff at the booth were pretty friendly and I helped them advertise along with the other Blazblue cosplayers all weekend long. One of the Japanese staff members at the end of Friday or Saturday said she was staring at the back of my jacket the whole time I was in front of the booth advertising because of how cool the design was.
My favorite reactions though, were from Toshimichi Mori, himself, who seemed to enjoy the convention as much as any regular con-goer (if not more-so). He absolutely… LOVED the Blazblue cosplayers. (I really wish I had the photo of me as Ragna, with him & Daisuke Ishiwatari together, hanging on their shoulders like we were all chilling out.)
Mori took a ton of photos of the Blazblue cosplayers on his own digital camera. It was… pretty funny (in a good way) to see a professional love his work so much. When I went to get my jacket signed on Sunday’s voluntary autograph session, Mori commented on my outfit, saying something like “It’s looks really cool!”. His translator told me while he was signing.
My most memorable moment of AnimeEXPO ‘09 was meeting Daisuke and Mori for the first time by accident on Thursday while I was talking with an AKSYS Games representative. I wasn’t in my Ragna outfit at the time, but I took the chance to get a photo with them anyway. Afterward, Daisuke turned to me and put his hand out with the palm facing up. It seemed as though he wanted something from me and I was totally confused. Did he want my camera or something? I would have given it to him, hahah! He turned around to his translator, whispered in her ear, turned back to me, put his hand out again, and said “handshake”. I felt unbelievably honored and at the same time, retarded! Daisuke turned around again, called Mori over, and I shook both their hands. It felt like a dream because I was able to meet my only two idols both at once, in-person, take photos with them, AND be able to shake their hands AND they were both cool & nice people.
I take it you’ve been to AX before and curious what other cons you’ve hit in the past and which would have been your favorite ?
Actually, AX ‘09 was my first time attending AnimeEXPO. I originally never intended to attend AX because of the massive travel distance, but there was no way I could pass up (most likely) my only chance to ever meet Mori and Daisuke.
Conventions I’ve previously attended would include… AnimeNEXT, MangaNEXT, AnimeUSA, Big Apple Anime Fest (now defunct), New York Anime Festival, and Otakon. Basically most of the anime conventions in the tri-state area of NY, NJ, and PA (except for AnimeUSA).
Big Apple Anime Fest ‘02 was my first ever convention. I got the word from my then-anime provider. I was skeptical about going at first, but my mom ended up pushing me into going because she thought I didn’t go out enough. It was… definitely an eye-opening and unique experience I will never forget. Seeing all the cosplayers gathered in the luxurious Mariott Marquis Hotel in NYC was inspiring to my teen-self. That moment set me off on my way to cosplaying. I didn’t attempt really cosplaying until for a year or two afterwards though.
Although I was awe-inspired and had a great time at BAAF ‘02 and ‘03, when I evaluate the convention itself, it wasn’t the best compared to others. But hey, the first time for most positive things feels like “the best” or at least awesome.
AnimeNEXT was the next convention I attended, and it was also the next closest to me. I attended it in its infancy, literally (it was the first year, AN’02), and AnimeNEXT became my staple convention. I saw it progressively get bigger and better, but the most recent year, this year, the convention didn’t seem as good as before. I’ll attribute that to the new location they just moved to for 09’s con. Admittedly, not the best convention I’ve attended.
MangaNEXT (the “sister” con of AnimeNEXT) was very small, as small as AnimeNEXT when it first began. Although the humble size of MN was intended by the staff, it felt like there weren’t enough activities to partake in and I spent a lot of time loitering around and sleeping whenever I couldn’t be pulled over for a photo. I wouldn’t call MangaNEXT the “worst”, rather the most uneventful.
Otakon came afterwards. I was excited because I heard of it’s reputation as being the biggest convention on the East Coast and the second largest in the country. I attended ‘04, ‘05, and ‘09 of this con, and the first two times definitely swept me off my feet. It was like my first BAAF all over again, except this time, it was 100 times larger. Back then, I would consider it my favorite convention. Out of all the conventions I’ve attended (aside from AnimeEXPO), despite the seeming decline in quality, I would say Otakon is my current favorite.
(Obviously, my favorite out of ANY convention I’ve attended is AnimeEXPO. It’s really hard to top a convention experience where you meet your most glorified idols, hahahah.)
AnimeUSA… I honestly cannot evaluate at all, because I really only went their on business. I barely had the chance to see anything in the con aside from the dealers room, let alone cosplay even one day. It didn’t seem bad, the location was nice and the con size felt adequate.
New York Anime Festival… regardless of all the hype, the advertising, absolutely amazing guests (Rie Tanaka, Yoshitaka Amano, Yoshiyuki Tomino [this year])
