I arrived at Toronto Congress Centre (TCC) where Anime North (AN) is usually held around 6pm and quickly went to Harvey’s to grab a bite. Long line-ups is really unavoidable in any restaurants around the convention so sometimes it’s better to bring your own food and drink. I always buy 12-pack bottle water and put them in my car to make sure I have enough water supply . Not to mention food and drink inside the convention is tend to be a rip off.

A typical line up on Friday at Anime North. Saturday’s line up will be at least twice much worse than this.

The line up continued inside but it’s moving quite fast so the waiting time was not that bad. Overall, there were less people that I had expected them to be in comparison to last year.

I grabbed my badge from Rin at Double Tree hotel and went straight back to TCC. Nia, from Gurren Lagann, was lucky to be the first cosplayer I took photo of . On a side note, I still haven’t finished watching Gurren Lagann lol.

Moving on to the artist alley area and I looked left and right for cosplayers that caught my eyes.

I bumped into this pair of “Magnet” Miku and Luka who were nice enough to do a kissing pose

It’s quite rare to a Lancer cosplayer from Fate Stay/Night and he did very well. One of my favourite in this year Anime North.

I have seen this group in previous anime cons and their cosplays are always nicely done. Kureha, name this character, Houmei and  Ryuna from Shining Tears series. I couldn’t recognize the 2nd character from the left for some reasons.

Shippo from Inuyasha. When I was about to take a picture,  he’s little bit shy in the beginning.

And he tried to avoid looking at my camera desperately

He finally gave up and looked at my camera.

No more shyness anymore as he seems to be enjoying his picture taken by many people. I was the first one to initiate to take his picture and five seconds later, a crowd people started taking his picture.

One thing that it’s great about this year Anime North was that people finally let go Final Fantasy 7 and began cosplaying Final Fantasy 13. I lost count how many FF13 cosplayers there were.

Nel from Bleach. Great smile

Ouran Host Club group cosplayer. If you know the names for each character please let me know

Line-ups on Saturday morning.

Another FF13 cosplayers. Nice Sarah cosplay.

Not sure from what series they are Ace Attorney group photo (Thanks, Shi Rose).

Characters from Bioshock. Name these characters.

And more from Bioshock. I didn’t play the game so I don’t know who they are. If you do, please let me know and will credit accordingly.

Ladies from Persona 3/4 and again I failed to name these characters but they all look great especially the girl on the left.

Ryder and Saber from Fate Stay/Night.

Lovely sisters from Trinity Blood. I have seen them before in major anime cons and they always caught my attention

Chise from Saikano. Quite a big gun she got there .

Persona group.

Name these characters/series

Zidane from FFIX. Awesome cosplay of Zidane.

Saber from Fate/Stay Night. I love her hair antenna thingy on her head

Ichigo(middle) and Zakuro(right) from Tokyo Mew Mew. Who’s the girl in red ? I couldn’t recall any Tokyo Mew Mew characters with red colour. Does anyone know?

Kaede-chan from Shuffle. She was so happy when I took her picture because I heard her saying that finally someone knew this character. How I could not have known anyways since Shuffle! is in my favourite anime list.

Yukari from Persona 3.

Another group shot from Persona series. I saw quite a few cosplayers from Persona in AN this year.

Sailor Pluto, Venus, Saturn, Moon, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter from Sailor Moon series.

Name this character.

Rachel Alucard from Blaz Blue. I love her umbrella <3

Name these characters/series

Yoko and Nia from Gurren Lagann. It’s not an anime convention without Yoko/Nia cosplayers

Oh my gosh, this was one of my favourite cosplayers in AN this year especially Suiseiseki cosplayer. I have seen her in multiple anime conventions and just love her cosplay as Suiseiseki (my favourite characters in Rozen Maiden). She had a watering can and it’s really well made. Hinaichigo, Suiseiseki and Suigintou. Awesome cosplays, ladies .

Gundam group photo. What kind of Gundam was that ? does anyone know ? Gundam MKII (Thanks Ichi, I knew I can depend on you on Gundam stuff )

Character from Halo

Ita-bike ?

Great cosplayers from Soul Calibur. Talim (Left), Yun Seong(Top-Middle), Tira (Bottom-Middle) and Amy(Right).

More cosplayers from FFXIII . Readers, are you getting sick of seeing FFXIII yet ? Snow, Lightning and Sarah.

Three Toyota Truenoswwd were on display at Anime North in front of main TCC entrance.

Any Initial D fans can confirm if these are the same as the one in Initial D (aside from colour of course). I vaguely remembered watching the first season of Initial D and I think these are pretty similar to the one that Takumi drives in Initial D series.

Closer shot of the Ita-bike that I found earlier. Name that character/series.

She just made my day. My favourite character in Shuffle!, Shigure Asa. I called her ‘Asa-senpai’ when I asked if I could take a photo of her . Nice pose from Asa-senpai. I just love it when cosplayers from favourite characters/series pose similarly to the characters themselves.

Cosplayers from Valkyria Chronicles. Where is my Alicia ?

Quite a rare sight to see Syaoran with his board and Sakura with her clow card book. Nice cosplay.

Moarrrrrrr!!!! FFXIII. Sarah and Snow. Snow cosplayer is just perfect since he is a big guy and it’s how I imagine Snow would be in real life.

The guy asked if I wanted him to carry her and I was like …. “Can you ?” and he said of course. I was like ‘sweettttt….’, I got another pose.

You may not want to mess around with her, Rank 4 Claymore, Ophelia. I have seen her before in previous conventions as she always cosplays as Ophelia.

Many people were hanging around outside TCC. Hot weather didn’t prevent them from cosplaying and having fun.

First time I have seen full Red Mage AF1 armor (Final Fantasy 11) that were nicely done and not to mention he’s a mithra and has an Excalibur. Awesome cosplay.

Lovely Sakura from Card Captor Sakura. I have seen her in previous conventions cosplayed as Sakura. Nicely done .

Bayonetta from Bayonetta (PS3 games)

Bleach group photo

More Saber cosplay. I think she is better than the previous one that I took. Her armor is not reflective so it’s easy to take a picture of her. Overall , she did a good job but Maridah is still my number 1 Saber cosplayer <3

Marisa Kirisame from Touhou. First time , I have seen Marisa Kirisame in anime convention. Great cosplay.

Usagi Tsukino from Sailor Moon. Nice dress.

Sakura vs Ryu in a Hadouken battle.

Group cosplay from Code Geass.

Is this some kind of Digimon ? I cannot remember the name.

Name these characters (I know they are from Naruto but are they all Kakashi ?)

Asuka from NGE. Nicely done.

Thanks to Tim for letting me know about them. I was waiting outside TTC and hopefully they passed by and they sure did. Lovely ladies from Bible Black.

Saber from Fate Stay / Night. I chuckled when I saw her head lol.

Characters from Sengoku Basara. From left, Yukimura, Name this character Chosokabe Motochika(Thanks Ichi) and Date.

Vanille from FFXIII. Her staff was nicely done  and her voice was very pleasant unlike the one in the game (English version) .

Name this character/series

Arale and Arale’s dad from Dr. Slump

Just in case you all are wondering what the pink-candy like is, it’s actually a poo. Arale likes poking at a poo.

This is ACG’s trademark pose.

They are from Luminous Arc (I asked them since I had no idea what they were cosplaying as). This group has always an awesome cosplay. I can see a lot of effort was put in their costumes. Name these characters Roland Rina and Rasche (Thanks, Rinaa) .

Name this character. Remilia Scarlet from Touhou Project (Thanks, Makushiiin)

Name this character.

Black Rock Shooter

Celty from Durarara!

Nice pair of Edward and Major Armstrong from Full Metal Alchemist.

Bayonetta and name this character from Bayonetta.

Cloud’s riding a bike.

Another girl from Bible Black. Too bad I don’t know which girl is which

Hiyori from Bleach. Quite rare to see Hiyori cosplay in an anime convention and it’s nicely done too.

Name these characters Astharoshe Asran (Wine Dress ver)

Marisa Kirisame from Touhou.

Miku group photo ^^

“Magnet” Miku and Luka from Vocaloid.

Meroko from Full Moon wo Sagashite.

Maid with a sword ?

Another trademark pose of ACG.

Gin from Gintama. Nice cosplay, Tim

And of course, we cannot forget our trademark pose.

I just had to join them

Name these characters. Correct me if I am wrong, I believe the left one is Len from Vocaloid.

Our ACG mascot, Ansu. For some reasons, I just love this shot.

That basically wrapped up my Anime North 2010 coverage. It’s no doubt that it’s another great convention, although, it could have been better. Better japanese guest of honours would be nice although, I don’t see it happening since it’s a convention ran by fans for fans so no budget ^^;;. Despite that, I still enjoyed it and look forward to next year.

In case you are expecting a loot post, there won’t be any loot post since the only thing I bought was Claymore blu-ray for $72 after tax ^^.

Day 1

I came to work at 8am on Friday and was hoping to finish by 4pm but no luck, I finished at 5pm but it’s still good enough. I went back home first to have a quick dinner and off I was to Anime North 2009. My excitement was building up at this point and so was everyone else. I had my pre-registration email confirmation ready and took me about 10-15 minutes in line before it was my turn. One thing that I noticed right away about this year Anime North 2009, on the badge, there is actually some text behind it which was used as an anti-fraud. I guess there were many fake badges from previous year where people just went to photocopy their friends’ badge. Everytime you go in and out, the staffs checked the front and back of the badge and it seemed to be working really well to prevent fake badges.

After I got in, I went straight to the dealer room while looking around for cosplayers that interest me. Nothing in the dealer room seemed to peek my interest (Thank god, no impulse buying on Day 1, is this a good sign ? ^^). I wondered around for about 3 hours until 10pm before I called it a day (gotta save some strength for the next day). Cosplayers photo at the end of the post so be patient ^^;;

Day 2

I woke up around 7am and planned to leave around 8am but gf was not ready as she woke up late……. -_-;;. We left around 8:30 am. The reason I wanted to come early because the line up for badge would be very long especially on Saturday based on my previous experience at Anime North. We were on the line up for 30-40 minutes; it was not as bad as I thought it would be since the line was moving up really fast. My gf got really excited seeing so many cosplayers around ( I guess since it’s her first time) ^^.

I showed my gf around the location of Anime North ( Toronto Congress Centre and Double Tree hotel ). I saw quite a few Team Fortress 2 cosplayers as you see above. I was tempted to back stab him ^^;;.  Check out ‘Meet the Spy’ video below.

The best place to take photos of cosplayers is right outside Toronto Congress Centre during the day so you don’t need to worry about using flash or mess around with your camera manual settings. There are many interesting stuff happening outside like the picture below. I had totally no idea what they were trying to do here ^^;;; I assume they were going to start a brawl lol. Thanks to Izuki for letting me know that the characters below are from The World Ends With You rpg game ^^.

Around 11:30 am, I promised that I would take some pictures of the winner for ACG school club contest. The winner is Anime and Manga association at University of Toronto.

They all were cosplaying as Guilty Gears characters.

After wondering around back and forth various locations, we went for lunch at nearby japanese restaurant and due to hunger, I ate all the food before I had a chance to take some pictures ^^;;. After lunch, we went around again looking for cosplayers until we got tired and decided that we needded a break and went to Tim Horton for some snacks and ice coffee. Any food place near the convention is always packed especially during lunch/dinner hour so it’s better to pack your own lunch/dinner and save you some $$ along the way. More anime merchandise is always good , right ? ^^;

While enjoying our ice coffee, we saw this guy taking some photos of a cosplayer while laying down on the floor. I couldn’t help but took a quick picture of him. He reminded of myself when I took some pictures of my Asa Shigure figure at Harbour Front ^^;;.

My gf asked me to take her to Renaissance hotel since she wanted to see the manga library and gaming rooms. You can read manga there for free (I think) and they have a wide selection of manga. Below is some of the mecha models for the competition

That basically summarized my Day 2 of Anime North 2009.

Day 3

Finally,  it’s the last day of Anime North 2009. At this point, I was already tired so I didn’t stay long on the last day and I felt like I was getting sick  >.<. Despite it’s the last day of Anime North 2009, there are quite a line up when I arrived there. Although, the parking lot was a lot emptier than the previous day so it’s easy to find a parking by the entrance.

The door was not open yet so I went to Timmies for some delicious breakfast ^^

Hmmmmm delicious breakfast sandwich from Tim Hortons. After some delicious breakfast, I started my day 3 of Anime North 2009 by cosplayers hunting ^^. One thing that Anime North 2009 was lacking of is garbage bin. There were not enough of them around and the distance between one bin to another bin was far away. As a result, con goers just left garbage wherever they want. I wish they care more about their surroundings. It’s not a hard task to put your garbage in a bin where it’s supposed to be.

Just before I left for the day,I saw bunch of Soul Eater cosplayers right outside the entrance.

I left quite early around 2pm because I didn’t feel really well and practically exhausted from yesterday. I didn’t want to get sick and call in sick from work so decided to take it easy and went home to take some rest.

Anime North 2009 Cosplayers

I bet you all have been waiting for bunch cosplayers photos after boring coverage above so enjoy…. ^^.

Chiyo’s dad from Azumanga Daioh

Kenji and Tenma from School Rumble

Lee, ,Ero-sennin and Kakashi

Cute maid cosplayers <3

Name this anime series/characters (from Tales of something I think Tales of Vesperia. Thanks Rin)

Yoko and Nia (Thx to GNdynames) from Guren Lagan (not sure what character for the girl on the right)

Master Roshi from Dragon Ball

Maka Alban from Soul Eater

Mio and Yui from K-ON!

Cute maid <3

More cute maid <3

Dizzy and Sol Badguy from Guilty Gear

Cute Lacus from Gundam Seed

Name this character Anju Maaka from Karin/Chibi Vampire (Credit to Mikaa ^^)

Llyod from Tales of Symphonia

Jupiter and Mercury from Sailor Moon series

Group photo of Sailor Moon characters

Syaoran from Tsubasa Chronicles. Awesome staff ^^. He did a really good job on the staff.

Elwyn from Shinning Wind ( I think)

Lala from To Love-ru

Dejiko from Digi Charat

Sakura Kinomoto from Card Captor Sakura

Bridget from Guilty Gear

Anzu, our ACG mascot

Name this character (I think she is from Trinity Blood) Seth from Trinity Blood (Thanks to Elfen Proxy)

Mio fan club members. I want to join their club ^^;; lol

Cloud and White Mage

Ulquiorra Cifer Full form

Spy from Team Fortress 2. Watch out for backstabs ^^;;

Chii from Chobits. She is cute ^^

Guilty Gears group photo

Meroko from Full Moon wo Sagashite

Some random person playing God Knows

English maid ? Not sure what character she is from. Roberta from Black Lagoon (Thanks to zzeroparticle)

Lulu from FFX

Name this character (I know he is from Guilty Gear).

Another photo of Anzu, our ACG mascot

Card Captor Sakura characters

Woohoo, it’s Rin from FS/N

It’s over 9000

Harribel from Bleach and Riku from FFX

Tsubasa Chronicles characters

Domo-kun

Mio <3 from K-ON!

Euphemia li Britannia and Suzaku from Code Geass (correct me if I am wrong). Nice dress ^^

More Suzaku and Euphemia ^^

Irene from Claymore. Nice contact lens.

Team Fortress 2 group photo.

Char and Zaku ? lol

Shunsui Kyōraku and Lisa from 8th Division, Bleach

Kagami and Tsukasa from Lucky Star

Suigintou, Shunku and Kanaria. Kanaria is so cute ^^

Suigintou from Rozen Maiden

Name these characters.

Archer and Rin from FS/N

Llyod from Tales of Symphonia

Kos-Mos from Xenosaga. Awesome cosplay and cool contact lenses

Yuki, Haruhi and Mikuru with Bunny costume

Yuki, Haruhi and Mikuru with Bunny costume. One photo is not enough ;p

Trinity Blood characters.

Liz, Kid and Patti. Everything has to be symmetrical I guess, even their pose.

Yui and Mio from K-ON!

Suiseiseki from Rozen Maiden. She is cute ^^.

Just adorable ^^

Name these characters Ultimecia & zell, FF8 (Thanks to Nick)

Hetalia Axis characters ( I think)

Akari and Alice from Aria. Very rare cosplayers and good job ^^

Gundam cosplayers

More Gundam cosplayers

and More Gundam cosplayers

Tieria from Gundam OO

White Mage AF1 from FFXI. Cure V , can I have it ?

Haruhi (Gekisou version ?)

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, it’s Saber.

Yufie from FF7 AC

Resident Evil 5 characters (Unknown, Jill and Albert Wesker)

Jill from Resident Evil 5 (nice pose)

One Piece characters

More Soul Eaters cosplayers

Awww… Chrona is crying.

Can’t never have enough maid cosplayer, can I ? ^^

My coverage of Anime North 2009 ends here. I hope you guys enjoy it and please do let me know if I made mistake on the characters/series name. For those cosplayers appear above, if you don’t want your photos to be posted here, please let me know by posting a comment and I shall remove your photos. In addition, if any of the cosplayers want the NEF(raw) version of the photo (and without the watermark) , please also let me know by posting a comment and I will send them to you.

Wait a second…. how about my loot ? unfortunately, I didn’t buy anything during this convention since I would like to use some $$$ buying some furnitures for my new place after I move out. Sorry if I have disappointed you guys ^^;;

Other coverage of Anime North 2009 can also be found on other bloggers:

Koi Aichaku

Memories of Eternity

Inferno Project

]]> http://www.sakuafk.com/2009/05/27/anime-north-2009/feed/ 37 http://www.sakuafk.com/2009/05/24/so-tired/ http://www.sakuafk.com/2009/05/24/so-tired/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 00:29:25 +0000 Saku http://www.sakuafk.com/?p=2968

Image via Gelbooru

Hi everyone,

I just got back from Anime North 2009 and I am so dead tired. I was hoping to post event coverage tonight but I don’t have the energy to get up from my bed ^^;;. This year AN, I found a lot more great cosplayers in comparison from previous year so overall I enjoyed every little bits and pieces AN 2009. Expect full coverage sometimes this week ^^.

South Side of TCC on Day 3

Empty Parking on the north side of TCC on Day 3

Last of day Anime North, I wish it didn’t have to end so quickly but I had an amazing this year. I woke up around 9am and took a shower and all that crap then left to TCC. I got a nice parking spot this time, it was just right by entrance. Last day of Anime North is always much less crowded compare to Day 1 or 2. Parking area was pretty much empty.

One million Comix booth where I got my Caren Hortensia and Banana is a snack? figures

Yuri and Yaoi booth where they sell some dakimuras on Day 1

Since today is the last day, I went to the dealer room and hoping I can score some good deals from those stores. I stopped by at one million comix and AnimeXtreme booths and looking at the figures they were selling. I checked prices for their figures using my iphone since I have a data plan so I have internet access which is awesome for price checking and bargaining ^__^ purpose. I got my self 3 figures and been holding myself back from spending too much beyond my budget.

Being on the 3rd day, there are a lot of interesting stuff happened outside TCC ^^.

Caramel Dansen

Pokemon group photo

Free hugs (car is included )

After walking around outside, I was so starved and decided to go to swiss chalet for a big meal

Waiting for my meal to come

Chicken and Rib combo

Hungry Otakus @ Swiss Chalet

Deserts…..yummy

After lunch, I went back to artist alley to look around more and I took a picture of Kaze-Hime booth

Kaze-Hime booth where I bought my prints on Day 2

Cosplayers’ Photos

Cross and Yuki from Vampire Knight

Ryuna from Shining Tears/Wind

Optimus Prime

Takuto, Meroko, Izumi and Jonathan from Full Moon Wo Sagashite

Sakura from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

More from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

Cloud from FFVII Advent Children

Haseo from .Hack GU. Very nice cosplay

Lady from Devil May Cry

Random

Barasuishou, Suiseiseki and Suigintou from Rozen Maiden

Nuns from Trinity Blood

Souseiseki and Suiseiseki from Rozen Maiden. Awesome cosplays

WOOOOOOOOOOO Tohsaka Rin from Fate Stay Night <3 <3

Kazuki Mutou from Buson Renkin. Nice spear he got ^^

Team 8 from Naruto

Hayate and Nanoha from Magical Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS

I believe this one from a fighting game. I can’t remember the name though

More Dgrayman

On my way home …… so sad because it ended

That concluded my coverage for Anime North 2008. I wish it could have been more than 3 days.

Banana is a snack? Figure by solid theatre  : $45

Caren Hortensia 1/8 : $35

Random figure by Solid Theatre : $65

Total:  $145.

Song of the day: Rozen Maiden OP [audio:01 - Kinjirareta Asobi.mp3]

Click here for Anime North 2008 Day 1

Click here for Anime North 2008 Day 2

Line up for registration

I arrived at Toronto Congress Centre around 10 am and saw a long line up for registration. It’s kinda expected since it’s Saturday and I had to park far away from the entrance because all the lots near the entrance were all occupied.

One of the entrances

I went straight to the dealer room again for some scouting and took picture of cosplayers from my favorite anime. I wandered around for an hour before I decided to leave since not many cosplayers that  want to take some pictures of. I did find Saber and Rider cosplayer *jumping in joy*. Today is going to be a lucky day or so I thought.

Dealer’s Room

From the dealer room, I looked around at the artist alley. There is one artist that really sparks my interest. Her characters all like cute and adorable. I couldn’t take my eyes off the prints for a while ^^;;. After a very very very long thinking, I bought 5 prints in total which cost me $28 and I asked her to sign all the prints  ^___^. I believe her name is Holly ( not sure if it’s her real name or just a nickname). She is really talented but then again I might be bias since I like all the characters that she drew. Later on, I found out that she was the one who drew our Weekend Otaku pass. Check her website at www.kaze-hime.com or deviantart.com

Artist Alley is always crowded

Some prints that I bought from Holly except the bottom left one.

Most of you may not know but I am a FFXI gamer, I have been looking since yesterday for FFXI fan art but luck had not found me yet T.T. I got some nice ffxi fan art from last Anime North but I guess the ffxi artist that I was looking for didn’t come this year

Halko Momoi concert is @ 1:30 and the gate will be opened at 12:30 pm so I had plenty of time to kill since it was only 11:30 and I didn’t think it would be a long line up. Check out Rin’s blog for coverage on Halko Momoi.

It turned out that I couldn’t make it to the concert since my friend, who lives in US, comes to visit on us on memorial day weekend so I went lunch with him and other friends at Sushi Eaton @ Eglinton East.

Sushi for lunch is FTW ^^

I went back to Toronto Congress centre for so more fun ^^. I went around the dealer room and artist alley just to see if there is anything that I like and hoping that I meet some cosplayers from my favorite anime. Outside TCC, it seemed that there were a lot of things going like free hugs and random dance party ^^

Dance Party right outside TCC.

Group Hug

From there, I went to Doubletree hotel to check out some anime showing. I watched death note episode 1 to 3. I already watched them before but it’s still as a good as ever and my leg started killing me so I needed to sit down and rest anyways.

I left TCC around 10:00 pm. I was hoping to stay longer and caught up with Baby Blue anime ie 18+ ie Hentai but I was too tired and barely awake. It would be nice if I have a room at one of the hotel ^^;;

Cosplayers’ Photos

Link ? Pretty sure they are from a game

Nuuuu…. Dun kill yourself . Mitsuru from Persona 3

Chii Chii Chii from Chobits

Lavi from D.Grayman. Nice hammer ^^

Konata and Miyuki from Lucky Star

Yuki from Vampire Knight

D.grayman characters

Yoruichi from Bleach

Wooohoo My favorite…. Yoko from Gurren Lagan

Not sure what characters ^^;;

Hikari and Umi from Magic Knight Rayearth

Yay more bunny Haruhi. She is the same person from Day 1 except she wore a red bunny costume this time

From FFVII Advent Children. I forgot their names

Zangetsu from Bleach. Very nice cosplay in my opinion

Asuka Langley and Rei Ayanami from Evangelion

Loot of the day:

5 prints from Kaze Hime booth = $28

1 print from different table = $10

Tamaki Kosaka Figure = $40 (good deal)

Total: $78

Song of the Day: Happy People Bleach ED 4 [audio:01 happypeople.mp3]

Click here for Anime North 2008 Day 1

Click here for Anime North 2008 Day 3