by Ashley Walton

Why, hello again!

So, today I write to you about my excellent adventures at Anime Detour! Now, here is my huge confession. I know NOTHING of anime. I have seen a few episodes of Cowboy Bebop, and of course a few things that were on Toonami on Cartoon Network during middle school (you know, random Sailor Moon episodes and a few other shows I can’t remember because I am in fact a bad person).


Anyway! Onto exciting things. Cosplay was kind enough to allow me to give away our Minnesota Society of Costumers award, The Hotdish Award, also, and more commonly and lovingly known as, “The Spammy”. A young gentleman took the stage dressed as Ermac from Mortal Kombat. He 100% owned the stage, not to mention his incredible costume. He exemplified our “Go big or go home” saying, not to mention, his appreciation made me incredibly happy! What a rock star!

I was lucky enough to see some INCREDIBLE costumes. Granted, I know it wasn’t Anime, but this girl had my heart when she informed me that her friend was so kind as to HAND EMBROIDER her skirt panel. Can you believe it? This is gorgeous. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get enough time to get the names, or even better pictures of this lovely gentleman’s doublet (it had great top stitching on it).

Please feel free to comment if you know the following costumes, because OH MY GOD they were amazing. Now, what sucks, is that they had EL wire on specific parts of their costumes and the picture just doesn’t do it justice! And also? This awesome lady had a great costume, She had a lot of detail work that again, is just not shown in my crappy iphone pictures. The way she kept her collar up was with fishing line that ran under her chin. INGENIOUS!! And someone, PLEASE tell me who this is!! She had someone to fluff her outfit for her, spread out the skirt, and the dress was fantastic. The fabric was great, the details were lovely.

This girl had my heart wrapped around her finger. Her costume was AMAZING. She was in the cosplay competition, and I was lucky enough to see some of her stitching up close. She was lovely (and kind to post for pictures).

And, this guy, is an ULTIMATE squee from me. Dr. Robotnik. YES! The finishing was just beautiful. SQUEE!!

So, to close out. A huge thank you to Anime Detour! I look forward to seeing you all next year!