"I hope to see you more ofteh in the cosplay market."

I'm gonna make this fast since it's late and I wanna sleep. The following is a short report of what went on during June 6 and 7 aka Ichibanzai 2009!

Day 1:

I was late. VERY late. Dressing up took a lot longer than I expected. I only arrived at KDU College at 4pm, which means that I missed almost everything except the cosplay competition.

And the moment I stepped out of the car and into the KDU lobby, I got swarmed by a whole bunch of photographers and cosplayers eager to get a pic with me. So, I never even got pass the entrance until 4.30pm. Good thing I immediately signed in for the cosplay competition first. And after that, Hare Hare Yukai and Motteke Sailor Fuku dance! Thanks to that, a lot of my props got damaged, but at least not significantly.

For day 1 this year, there were 7 participants including me. Haruhi, Gothic Lolita, Clark Steel, Uchiha Sasuke, Cloud, Haseo (me) and Hei (Cubix). I was really surprised. The number of participants may have decreased, but the quality was superb! Haruhi went first and already she moved the audience with her Haruhi-ness. "Say goodbye to even a chance at winning", I thought.

So, everybody went up and did their thing. My performance was mediocre, I can say that since I could only use my dual guns. My broadsword was completely flimsy and unusable for anything other than posing. So, I abandoned my idea of weapon changing on stage and just posed with my guns. Sigh...

And then it was time to announce the winners. Since there was no longer a need to perform actions, I brought my broadsword along too. Before the epic moment, I hated the MC. He kept going on and on and on with his jokes and built a lot of tension. That wasn't so bad, but his constant dragging really made my arm sore since I was holding the handle of my broadsword which is at about the same height as my head!

And then, the judges commented on each one of us. When it came to my turn, my stomach really twisted. The following are comments I remembered: "Your outfit is amazing!" "I love your huge sword." "I can see you put a lot of effort into it and it was really worth it." and the sorta scary "I love you!". Cubix, please correct me if I heard that wrongly.

And then Justin said, "I see you've returned from last year and this is a huge improvement! Good job. And I hope to see you more in the cosplay market." I was really happy to receive that comment but pretty melancholic too. As far as I know, this will probably be my last cosplay for years to come. Since I didn't want to spoil the mood, I didn't say anything but "thank you".

And then again with the MC jokes and tension. Finally (after what seemed like enough time to find a cure for cancer), they announced the results.

"The best dressed award goes to............. HASEO!!"

It took me about 2 seconds to realise they meant me and another 3 seconds before I realised they weren't kidding. Then I proceeded up front to receive my prize (which isn't as nice as last year, but who cares?) from Justin. No thoughts crossed my mind except to pose for the mountain of photographers in front of the stage.

And the best cosplayer went to Clark Steel for his excellent mimicking of the character's skills in the game. And we did a group shot and went off the stage.

And then it hit me that this really was NO joke.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 2:

I went a lot earlier than the day before. I arrived just after the Soul Calibur 4 competition began. There wasn't really anything to do today since I didn't feel like entering the cosplay competition again. Justin was also gone. So, my cousin signed up for the Wasabi Eating competition and I signed up for the singing competition.

In the meantime, I just went around posing and taking shots of other cosplayers. And I had a chat with several of them as well as the Ichibanzai team.

My cousin was the first to finish for the first round of the Wasabi eating., but he lost the 2nd. Poor guy. And he was totally crying when he got off stage. I told him to fire a shot when he finished but no, he wouldn't do it. Oh well.

Then, my cousin and sister joined the Ichibanzai Escapade which is Amazing Race KDU and I didn't see them for quite some time after that since they were running around everywhere and I had to stay for the karaoke competition.

Then it began. This year, the winners were obvious. The first singer was very good and every other participant died from depression. Then, the 2nd to 5th singers were just mediocre to extremely terrible. The final singer (Taka), however, did a pretty good job and actually tied with the 1st singer, so they had a tie-breaker round. The 1st singer came first because Taka chose the wrong song. His rapping was good but the singing was ugh...

And if you wanna know how I did, I fall into the extremely terrible category and I'm not exaggerating. I epic failed when I forgot the lyrics and also couldn't bring my voice out in many parts of the song I did remember. The PA system had some blame to take, but every other singer also had the same problem. The music was louder than the vocals. Well, enough thinking about that.

I met Kazuki again and surprisingly, he still remembers me from ACF 06. This year, his sword became significantly lighter. I could actually lift it with one arm, and he told me that he actually removed some parts to reduce the weight. He could hold it and wing it with one hand, but he found it a little heavy too. And he gave me some good tips to make my broadsword less flimsier, but his were time-consuming compared to what Sasuke taught me the day before.

Finally, it was cosplay competition again! There were 9 cosplayers this time. Archer, Shana, Haruhi, Gothic Lolita, Dante, Train Heartnet (my cousin), Hinamori Amu, Akito (from Fruits Basket) and Hitachi (from Naruto). Watching all of them going on stage really made me regret not joining again. Just because I wanted to keep my title, I totally forgot that I was supposed to be having fun.

Well, the cosplayers were still pretty good today, but their performance was less impressive than the previous save for Dante and Akito. And the best dressed award went to Gothic Lolita (Ha! So she was 2nd to me yesterday!) and best cosplayer went to Akito for making out on stage (being forced by the judges and the audience mostly). I remember Haruhi screaming "Hentai!" Haha...

This year, they had no band on the last day, so there was no free dance. The only dance was when me, Haruhi, Sakura, Taka and one other person (sorry I forgot who) went up there and danced Hare Hare Yukai. Being people who memorised different versions of the dance (and some of them only knew half the dance), we looked completely stupid and disorganised, but who cares? We're having fun!

And then I went home. Haruhi now knows where I work since I told her. And she's gonna walk into my shop shouting for Haseo one day. Crap... I hope the change in hair colour and style will me unrecognisable. But, I really do wish she would pop into the shop. heck, I hope to bump into all the cosplayers again! I love you guys! Thanks for making my final cosplay so much fun! And if it doesn't turn out to be my final cosplay, Justin, I aim to not disappoint you!

Pics will be uploaded on Facebook and here later.