CRM @ Katsucon 2020
Written by Aesthel
Photography by Emily Rey Photo
Note: This article will be updated as more of our photoshoot edits are completed! Be sure to come back later for all of the photos from our trip!
Katsucon 2020 took place over the Valentines weekend of February 14th through the 16th and the Cosplay Realm team once again had the opportunity to come to the convention as press. Our team started the long journey from Maine on Thursday morning, arriving later that night. Like many other Katsucon attendees, we also travel a pretty far distance to go to the con. Unfortunately for many others traveling by plane, there was a lot of fog and snow up toward our direction that ended up with a lot of delayed and cancelled flights. Still, the crowds at Katsucon 2020 did not disappoint! While the weather was particularly bad before the convention, during the con it was cold but not totally unbearable. To the happiness of many photographers, there was also not any rain or snow through the actual convention weekend!
Our team arrived Thursday night to the area, and stopped by the con to pick up our badges early. It was pretty wild to see how many people were already done up in full big elaborate cosplays just for badge pick up! After picking up our badges we didn’t stick around for too much longer. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out with former CRM cover cosplayer Black Out Cosplay and doing an out of cosplay photoshoot before heading back to our hotel room to get nice and rested before the big convention weekend
Friday of Katsucon was a huge day for us. We started bright and early as Aesthel got into cosplay and Emily got ready for the many photoshoots that would take place over that day! We wanted to fully prepare before we got on to shooting with the people around the convention, so we did a quick photoshoot of Aesthel’s Byleth cosplay from Fire Emblem: Three Houses in the lobby of the MGM. This was also good for us to prepare since Emily had some new camera gear to try out, and it was important to get an idea of how that all worked before starting to shoot with others. Fire Emblem certainly was a theme throughout this weekend! Not only because we were scouting cosplayers for our Fire Emblem issue, but also because cosplays from the game were just widely popular throughout the whole convention. It was a really good way for us to start the day getting into that Fire Emblem spirit before moving on to shoot mainly Fire Emblem content at the con!
Heading over to the convention for the first full day, we were immediately bombarded with the happiness and positivity that is Katsucon! Driving up to the Gaylord we were greeted by scenes of cosplayers out bright and early for the first photoshoots of the weekend, attendees heading in to the con to pick up their badges, and people meeting up with friends. That is something we really love about all conventions, the way it brings everyone together. Katsucon in particular is special to us because for many of our friends this is the only time we get to see each other all year.
The first people we met up with at the convention was an amazing crew of people that you can find in our Fire Emblem issue this month! On the atrium level we found Sorairo Days, Yaya Han, Lacee Girl, and Hynoxolus in the middle of a shoot with Alive Alf. After their shoot finished up the group of us headed outside to do some photos of our own! It was definitely a lot colder than we expected in that moment, but it was mainly because of the wind. Still, the natural wind was really nice for photos involving things like hair flowing and cape flips! Emily really worked her magic with this shoot, we weren’t out there for too long but she was still able to capture a ton of beautiful images of everyone’s cosplays!
When we had finally had enough of the cold and wind we made our way back inside and eventually found a table to chill at for a little bit. We all had fun talking about our shared love for the Fire Emblem games and discussing our favorite characters while we warmed up. When we were ready to get back at it again, Emily got on to taking some awesome single shot photos with Yaya and doing some duo shots of Yaya and Aesthel!
Eventually we all went our separate ways after hanging out for a while longer and we went on to our next photoshoot of the day! The next people we met up with was Rudyphototaker and Blood.Raven, who have previously been featured on the cover of Cosplay Realm Magazine No. 31. Emily got some great photos of Blood.Raven in her Himiko Toga cosplay!
After that we finally made our way up toward the Gazebo level of the Gaylord. As expected, this area was pretty packed. Still we were able to grab some space to shoot with our friend Frank Swolo. Emily had a big goal through the weekend that she really wanted to do some group photos of Star Wars cosplayers, and the cards seemed to perfectly align while we were shooting with Frank! Within a few minutes @Spectra_V3 showed up in his Finn cosplay and then @witchhearted in her Rey cosplay too! The three of them looked perfect together and we were so happy to have Emily’s Star Wars goal come true!
Around the same area of the con we met up with Mica Burton, who also has previously been featured on the cover of Cosplay Realm No. 30. This was our jump back into the world of Fire Emblem once again, and Mica totally rocked her Hilda cosplay! This cosplay was made by Somersetsews, who is on the cover of our Fire Emblem issue this month. It was really cool to see some of their cosplay work in action with Mica! Meeting Mica in person was so much fun and we had such a great time on our first shoot with her!
Our last photoshoot for day one of Katsucon was with Pasha Vixen, another Cosplay Realm cover alumni from our Anime Issue this January. Pasha was cosplaying as Ghost the white wolf from Game of Thrones, made by Azura Cosplay. We really gotta commend Pasha for shooting out in the cold in that cosplay, she must have been freezing! Still, as the sun came down and the light turned that beautiful golden hue, we were able to capture some amazing images with her.
After resting up in our hotel room for a little bit and cleaning up our team ventured out to the Felt Bar in the MGM. While the Felt Party isn’t officially affiliated with Katsucon itself, it is an event put on by and for cosplayers and photographers attending the convention. This was our first year attending the party and we were able to meet a lot of cosplayers and photographers that we previously had only talked to online. Getting to put a real face to a name you know is a real treat that the convention experience brings and it is part of what really unites the cosplay community.
Despite the long night out at the party, we still managed to get up bright and early for Saturday of the con! Saturday Aesthel wore her cosplay of Flayn from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which she had commissioned from Viviviolet Cosplay. We really recommend checking out Violet’s work if you are in the market for a cosplay commission, they are so incredibly talented and the cosplay was so well made! Emily did a lot of photoshoots throughout the day Saturday, and we actually both felt surprised looking over the sheer amount of them she had done after the convention was over. When we were first getting into the con on Saturday morning we happened by Amber Cosplay who was in her Sothis cosplay. Emily worked quickly, but still managed to get some awesome shots of her!
Speaking of Violet, they were Emily’s next photoshoot of the day! Violet was wearing their original design for level 10 Mollymauk Tealeaf from Critical Role. Emily and Violet both share that passion for the character of Mollymauk and you can really see their mutual love for the character shine in the photos the two of them did together!
While Emily and Violet were off shooting Mollymauk, Aesthel met up with Sorairo Days who was shooting all day on Saturday. We started off shooting inside and soon enough made our way outside for some more photos. We are so happy with how these came out and we both can’t wait to work with Sarah more in the future!
Saturday was a pretty packed day for us and for a bit in the middle we both went our separate ways to cover the many photoshoots we had planned. Aesthel went to meet up with a Fire Emblem group photoshoot while Emily met up with some other cosplayers! During this time Emily shot with Veronica Rae, Rumitto, and Phalafel Cosplays!
Aesthel made her way over to the big scheduled Fire Emblem meet up by the fountain after her group shoot, and BOY was that crazy! The entire ground level floor of the convention seemed packed with Fire Emblem cosplayers to the brim! The event organizers called up cosplayers by each game but without a doubt Three Houses was the biggest game at the meet up. We didn’t stay at the meet up for too long as everyone was so crowded it was pretty hard to take photos.
When we stepped outside we once again met up with Black Out Cosplay who was wearing his Dimitri cosplay from Fire Emblem that day! We pulled him aside and somehow managed to find a pretty open area to do a quick photoshoot with him. Again, we are totally in love with the photos we got with Dylan and his Dimitri cosplay looked so cool in person! He did a really great job of embodying the character through his cosplay and expressions during the photoshoot.
We then met up with Mica Burton again and had our next photoshoot of the convention. She was cosplaying as her original character Reani from Critical Role, and it was so cool to see her really be her character right there in front of us! Mica was wearing a new design for Reani inspired by the newly released level 10 designs for the rest of the Critical Role cast. The coat of her Reani cosplay was made by Nicoletters. These photos with Mica had a really beautiful artistic and angelic vibe that was brought through with Emily’s photography, Mica’s cosplay, and the soft lighting of the Gaylord lobby.
We finished up the day with our last photoshoot, Aesthel shot both photo and video content with Mizu no Shumi, who had traveled to Katsucon all the way from France. That is one of the magical things about Katsucon in particular, so many people travel such far distances even traveling from countries away and crossing oceans to be here!
On Sunday morning we had to pack up after checking out of the hotel room and start heading on the hours long drive back home, but for many Katsucon did not end there! The con continued until later that night when it officially ended, but even after that many people still hung around the Gaylord not wanting our favorite yearly celebration to come to an end.
Katsucon is such a joy to attend and shoot at every year, and we highly recommend it to cosplayers, photographers, and fans alike! We look forward to this convention so much every year and it never disappoints! For us every year at this convention has just gotten better and better, and it makes us so happy to return every year. Conventions bring us together and help foster the community of the cosplay world. They help us make connections, meet new friends, and reunite with old ones. We had a wonderful time covering the wild, crazy, love filled adventure that is Katsucon this year and we can’t wait to return next year!