CRM @ Anime Boston 2019 — Cosplay Realm Magazine

Written by Aesthel

This past weekend Cosplay Realm team member Aesthel attended Anime Boston! This year Anime Boston was held over the weekend of April 19-21st at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. The theme of the convention this year was “Tales of the Shogunate”.

I was very much inspired by the “Shogunate” theme, and chose to go with some traditional Japanese inspired cosplays for the weekend. On Friday I cosplayed as Hatsune Miku Yukata version. I also wore my Jester cosplay from Critical Role on Saturday! For the rest of the weekend I chose to go with a bit of a throwback and cosplay some characters from the anime Bleach. Now I’m kind of late to the party here and I never actually watched Bleach until a few months ago. It was still fun to go to the convention as two of my favorite characters, Soi Fon and Rukia! My Miku cosplay was purchsed through Bhiner Taobao Agent, the Rukia one was purchased through Amazon Prime, and the Soi Fon cosplay was purchased through Aliexpress. You can find some more detailed unboxing and review videos for these over on my YouTube channel! My Jester cosplay was all made by me, aside from the corset which is from Draula Clothing. In addition to attending the convention and cosplaying, I was also helping staff the PortconMaine table in the convention row section of the con! PortconMaine is my favorite local convention and is really much more of a family to me than just a convention. If you’re going to be there this year, let us know! Both Emily and I will be at Portcon the entire weekend and we’d love to say hello to some of you guys!

I left to head down to the convention on Thursday afternoon with my friend Ian who was also part of the Portcon table staff. That night we went out to the bar “Drink” with Doug, who was also part of the table and part of our hotel room group, while we waited for cousin Lukey’s bus to get in. After picking up Luke we headed back to our hotel room for the night to rest before the big weekend.

On Friday I spent the morning cosplaying as the Yukata version of Hatsune Miku! It was surprisingly really hot that day, so I only wore her for the morning and did a quick shoot with Lukey. If you guys know me at all, you know Hatsune Miku is my favorite character of all time. That’s why I was so excited to add another version of her to my cosplay lineup! After the shoot I switched into Soi Fon from Bleach. That cosplay was much more comfortable to wear in the heat, and it was really fun to meet and take photos with all of the other Bleach cosplayers at the convention! I used the first day of the convention to explore the Dealer’s Room with my friends Jordubs and Trashy_VVitch, who I spent most of the whole weekend with. Then that afternoon I met up with CRM’s April cover photographer, Chez Photos. I was so excited to get the chance to shoot with her this weekend! I always love getting the opportunity to meet people we’ve featured in the magazine, and it was even more of a special moment since we got to take some photos together! Later that day I went to Anime Boston’s Maid Cafe with TheDarianJay. This was Anime Boston’s second year running a Maid Cafe and it was really fun! The bubble tea was super tasty and all of the maids were so sweet. To end the night off my whole group went to the 21+ Lounge at Kings across the street from the convention. Lots of tasty drinks were had that night including a gallon and a half mai tai, a boozy chocolate milkshake, and a giant peanut butter sundae (non alcoholic).

Saturday was super busy, and I spent most of the day at the PortconMaine booth. I cosplayed as Jester from Critical Role all day on Saturday. With the Dungeons and Dragons issue of CRM coming out soon, I thought it’d be nice to meet some local critters and get some photos of them and tell them about the magazine. As always, the Critical Role fandom is incredibly sweet, and it was so nice to meet all of them! I used Saturday morning to explore the Artist’s Alley before things got too busy, and I got some stuff from one of our favorite artist’s PukaParade! Jordubs, Trashy_VVitch, Lukey, and I all went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch together which was a lot of fun. Then Jordubs, Trashy_VVitch, Ian, and I went over to the Boston Primark. I was down in Boston earlier in the week and saw that they were having a special event sponsored by HBO and they were bringing the actual Iron Throne prop from Game of Thrones to the store for fans to take photos on. It seemed to be the perfect timing with the convention going on not too far away, and of course I needed some pictures as Jester being the true queen she is. After returning to the convention I went to the end of the “Know Your Meme” panel and the start of the “Would You Waifu” panel. The crew that runs those panels is always so funny and it’s a great time! To end the night we went over to Wagamama for dinner, one of my favorite places to eat during Anime Boston!

On Sunday I had another photoshoot, this time with Myratheon Cosplay. This one was another really exciting shoot for me, as we’ve featured both cosplays and photography by Myratheon Cosplay in the magazine too! I was cosplaying from Bleach again for this shoot, this time as Rukia. We took all of our photos on the third floor of the convention, some by a plain wall and others by a really cool set that the convention had set up. The set was decorated with a traditional Japanese aesthetic with a bench, plants, and cherry blossom flowers. After the shoot I just spent most of the rest of the day staffing the Portcon table, but that was still just as fun because I got to spend all of that time hanging out with my other PCM staff friends. Finally as the convention wrapped up and closed we all went to Fire + Ice for one last dinner before heading home.

Over the weekend I filmed a convention vlog. These types of videos are some of my favorite to do on my channel. I think they’re really fun because I can bring you all along on my weekend, but I also love looking back at the memories of my past conventions! Especially when things get to that dead time of year and I don’t have any cons for a few months, watching videos like this can always cheer me up.

Overall, Anime Boston this year was wild, exciting, and a lot of fun! I always have fun at this convention with my friends and I look forward to returning next year! Were you at Anime Boston this year? Let us know how your convention went!

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