Anyway. While I was sorting through fabric yesterday (and again being amazed at all the really pretty fabric we have (today I discovered we have, like, yards and yards of white casa satin (thanks, Julious))), Athena was kind enough to resize some more Anime Expo 2003 photos. This time she made them a little smaller, because the size we had for the other ones was bigger than we like for online photos. So if anyone was afraid to look at them because of all the photo-ness, hopefully this will lighten the memory load. Or something. (EDIT: That was our intention, anyway, but it's looking like they're the same size...)
1. First, some Fruits Basket. His bracelet reminds me, this was the year we were first assigned Fruits Basket, and the Anime Expo where TokyoPop announced the license, but despite that, we were the only ones in our whole group of friends who hadn't seen all of the anime. That lead to a minor problem when one of our friends mentioned something about not wanting to see Kyo with his bracelet off...

2. I know it's not always good to toot your own horn, but we looked really good, I think. Especially everyone. That's us as Goku and Hakkai,

3. I believe this is us chilling out, waiting for the Misa Watanabe panel. Misa Watanabe was the voice of Kanzeon Bosatsu in the first Saiyuki TV series (but was replaced for Reload and Gunlock, boo), so of course we had to wear our Saiyuki costumes.

4. There's Kougaiji! (Don't worry; we have some of her (him, her, whatever) from the front, too.)

5. Sora and a unique Heartless.

6. Here's the whole party! That's

7. Kanzeon Bosatsu and Kanzeon Bosatsu! Guess which one's the voice actress!

8. We reeeeally don't have permission for this, but we kind of suspect this guy's picture is up all over the internet anyway, so we're going to go ahead and post it. If you happen to find it and don't want it here, just let us know, and we'll take it down immediately! Anyway, here he is--the one and only Translator Guy!

9. What we wanted here was a picture of Watanabe-san in the Jeep. Unfortunately, it would seem that the photographer wasn't sure of our intentions, so you'll just have to take our word for it. Watanabe-san is sitting in the Jeep.

10. Is this the beginnings of a Kingdom Hearts gathering?

11.

12. Okay, this one has a story. In college, there were a few titles that were less than our favorite things, mostly because we would all get together as a Posse to watch them, but the two of us hoped that we could, like, hang out and chat and have a good time and stuff, while other people just wanted to watch the anime. As soon as the anime was watched, everyone would leave, so regardless of whether or not that was the main goal, we ended up sad and alone after watching them. That, and the fact that we don't always take very well to shounen anime, had us less than happy with Inuyasha.
So when we heard that chocolate is toxic to dogs, the wheels in my head started turning♪ (<--line from "Gaston: Reprise"). This was back in the day when Inuyasha was the Naruto of cosplay. So we concocted a plan, with the help of our sadist friends, to go around offering chocolate to Inuyasha cosplayers, on the condition that we could take a picture of them eating it. The idea was to then give them a card that said on one side, "Did you know that chocolate is toxic to dogs? Did you know that Inuyasha is Japanese for 'dog demon'?" Then they flip it over, and on the other side, it said, "We did! You have just been killed by the Anime Posse." So basically, this is a picture of us murdering Inuyasha. It was childish and I'm ashamed, but it's still mildly amusing.

(Later, we took a picture of
13. There's that Kingdom Hearts gathering again.

14. Locke and Celes stopped by at the gathering to say hi.

15. And to sing a song!

(In Final Fantasy VI, Celes is forced to perform as an understudy in an opera. This cosplayer sang the lyrics to the song in the game with operatic skill. It was pretty amazing.)
16. I guess Sephiroth is kind of popular.

17.

18. I guess it's worth pointing out that this was before people decided it was okay to cosplay Disney characters. Almost all the Kingdom Hearts cosplay is Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy specific.

19.

And that's all for this batch. More to come later! Probably tomorrow. Or Monday. We'll see.
Today I'm thankful for having an even more organized (if only slightly) apartment, still have some Muddy Buddies left as a bonus reward, it not raining while we did our laundry, getting to sleep in today, and getting to sleep in tomorrow. And as a side note, fifteen years ago was when Athena made it a point to Remember Dates. That being the case, fifteen years ago today, we saw Muppet Treasure Island (our favorite movie for a very long time, at least until Hercules came out) for the first time.