The Hylia - Zelda Gathering AX 2006

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In case you've been wondering where the updates have gone, there hasn't been any real news in the past week. An old interview qualified as news for some, but it only re-iterated what was stated in Nintendo Power and by Miyamoto already - Zelda will be more "mature" or whatever. There's also a site making up info since there is none, but oh well. Anyway, I'm at Anime Expo 2006 right now, and later today is the Zelda gathering. But I'll be updating in general with pics and thoughts on the "E3" of cosplay events later tonight.
Cloud must defeat the evil...snowcone.
Day 1 - Man, nothing like getting to the party late. After arriving at the event, getting the press badges was a relief - no line and no wait! Compared to some people who waited three hours in line to register on-site as attendees. Completely insane. Fanime had been the previous convention we went to, which was huge to me, but Anime Expo is crazy. The event is as packed as E3, but it seems much larger because it takes place in the convention center and surrounding hotels. Not to mention Disneyland is smack dab in the middle of it all here in Anaheim.
Loz and Kadaj decide to pimp Tifa and Yuffie rather than searching for "mother".
Today is Final Fantasy day (please don't kill me - I know I run a Zelda fan site, but I do like other series you know). My girlfriend, who is Cosplaying as Tifa from Final Fantasy: Advent Children drags me to the third floor of the convention center to go out onto the patio/roof area for the Final Fantasy VII gatherinig (btw, tomorrow is the Final Fantasy All-Gathering, or FFAG for those of you who like abbreviations - come on, it's a Zelda site - I had to take one shot at our rival franchise or my fans would string me up).
Sephiroth deals the fatal blow to Aerith.
After taking several pictures of Cosplayers, we wandered onto this area of the roof which had huge cooling vents which were a relief from the heat. After some time there, we returned back to the gathering, where three Japanese Cosplayers wanted to do some role-play shots. Probably the most amusing part of the day, and I got to see some uh...girl on girl action, or "Yuri" as they say in this biz. Suffice to say, there is a big "cultural" difference between how friendly Japanese people can be in terms of "role-playing", and Americans (all girl Cosplayers, some Cross-playing as male characters, trying to engage in kissing each other...).
Believe it or not, that's not a real bike - it was assembled on the spot as a prop.
The second half of the day had us eating bad fast food, chatting with Indiana Jones (people Cosplay as movie characters as well), listening to Cosplay drama (worse than Zelda community drama), and seeing the cast of "Yatta" (YouTube, YTMND or Google Video it). Oh yeah, we saw the Star Wars Kid...or somebody trying to desperately be like him (a guy swinging his lightsabre furiously at...of all deadly things...thin air!). Tomorrow is going to be the first full day for us, and the Zelda gathering is taking place (what horrors await me there). Hopefully I'll have some good pictures for you all to check out then. I'll be uploading them into the media gallery soon.

Day 2: We arrived much earlier for the Final Fantasy All-Gathering. As I was taking pictures, I noticed the camera's photo remaining count was only at 10. I thought it was a bug, but upon the 10th picture, the camera said it was full. I figured I just needed to reformat the memory card, and when I tried, it said there was no memory card. I opened up the memory card slot, and behold it was not there. So I got to rush back to my car, and then drive back to our apartment to pick up the damn thing, which I had left in my PC the night before.
Note to Malon Fans: She's blonde! MWA HA HA!
Meanwhile, I missed the Final Fantasy Gathering, but I did arrive in time for The Legend of Zelda gathering. While I didn't get a chance to speak with any of the Cosplayers except for the two Skull Kids, I must say it was nice to see a decent variety of costumes, although Link was still the most popular costume.
A glimpse of Super Smash Bros. Brawl?
By far, though, the coolest costume I saw was the Sheik one, which was very well done and was the same height as the Zelda Cosplayers, which made for a great pic! The one Skull Kid was from Ocarina of Time, while the other was the Majora's Mask version, although if you're a true hardcore Zelda fan - you know both are really the same person.
If you can't tell that they're actually the same Skull Kid, you're GANNON-BANNED.
The next part of the day was spent walking around with some friends and taking random photos of various Cosplayers. We stopped by the arcade, but to the suckage maximus, it wasn't free - whereas other cons I had been to had free game setups, but they weren't nearly as big as this one. There were also some feature length animes showing, and some anime series, but I didn't get much time to check them out.
Another good shot of Twilight Princess Zelda.
But the best part of the day came at the end, when we attended the "Rum Party". Hosted by a bunch of pirates, including Captain Jack Sparrow (only a Cosplay), it was a pirate-themed party which featured drinking (iced tea), gambling, shooting and auctioning off wenches. But, if that weren't enough, we got to see some exclusive Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest footage courtesy of an actual actor from the sequel (he looks like the black guy with dreadlocks in the first film who questions Captain Barbosa when spilling Elizabeth Swan's blood fails to break the curse). But this still wasn't the best part. The ultimate showdown happened. Pirates. Ninjas. Even the best YTMND site couldn't capture the epic battle that this was. In the end, the pirates prevailed.
Pirates versus Ninjas. Looks like pirates win.
Day 3: Ah, the final "real" day of AX, and the day of the famed Masquerade (it's basically an elite term Cosplayers made up for "skits", as all it involves are people performing short two-minute skits, or walking on stage showing off their costume). The first part of the day we spent in the exhibition all, checking out all the import shots and anime booths. While most of the shops had the same things, it was cool to see some of the imports, though it seems impossible to check it all out. There also were some cool anime booths showing off manga and DVDs from series, as well as artists displaying original works.

Of course, after lunch, it was back to the Cosplaying. We joined back up with the Final Fantasy VII group, who got interviewed by some outlet I hadn't heard of (which is okay, nobody heard of The Hylia there, so the feeling is mutual). I really didn't listen in, but I just know the interview went better than some of the ones at E3 we had to deal with (E3 is a gaming event, so reporters aren't prepped for Cosplay interviews, whereas AX is an appropriate event).

However, after this interview, I broke off from the group to cover the Nintendo gathering. I got to see a Pit cosplayer showing off the Brawl version, some Mario and Luigi outfits, and a lot of Links. One was even the Twilight Princess Link, but with a "wolf tail" sticking out of his tunic. I at first confused it for a fox tail, thinking he was a hybrid of Fox and Link, but when I spoke with him and he explained it, I finally got it.

What happened next was annoying. I couldn't find my cell phone in the morning, so I was wandering around for an hour trying to find the group, but I couldn't. So finally around 7:30, I headed up to the AX press area for the Masquerade, and waited in hopes everyone would realize to meet me there. I finally saw somebody I knew, who could make a call, and everything turned out okay. We did get into the mask a few minutes late, missing five skits, and entering during a "Yatta" skit.

Some of the highlights from the masquerade were the "Captain Planet" skit, in which some anime involving four "Cloud" cards of the four elements of Earthy, Windy, Firey and Watery came to life singing the beloved 80s theme song. There was also a spoof of "Aevenue Q", in which the realm of Naruto experienced the internet, and learned that the internet is merely just for porn. Overall, the majority of the skits were a bit...dull, but there were about five that were pretty good out of the fifty-something skits (minus the bail-outs).

No day, however, would be complete without a picture of bikini Skull Kid. That's right, the same Skull Kid from before was actually a woman. I have to say, that in the Legend of Zelda realm of Cosplay, females playing male characters is very popular. Maybe that's why it is so popular? Anyway, with that, we spent the rest of the evening discussing various things before finally heading out. AX actually had another day, but I used my final vacation day to sleep in while TPZ checked out some of the booths one more time on her own. Overall, I have to say the event was tiring, and decently fun, but still no E3. Though, I wish E3 would be a 24 hour event...then maybe we could actually have some time to play the games and not wait in line the entire time.

Have you missed out on any of our E3 media coverage? Here's a quick reference for all the footage we got at ths show, including exclusive footage from Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess.