Tora Con 2023 Recap

It’s that time of year again! The time of year where I travel to RIT’s annual anime convention and freeze to death in the unpredictable western NY weather. This year’s con was on March 3rd and 4th which is pretty early for the con and a little risky with the weather situation. It ended up being not terrible out but there was a lot of concern over the blizzard we got Friday night! By Saturday morning, the roads were clear and we got hardly any snow compared to the original prediction. It was a wild weekend so let’s recap Tora Con 2023!

Saturday:

I drove up the con in the morning because I did not want to pay for two nights at a hotel when the drive is only about two hours. I wore a Sailor Moon inspired lolita coordinate/cosplay.

Using my own hair because my head is too big for up-do wigs, I attempted to do a pony-bun style similar to Sailor Moon. I added a couple of red bow clips to my hair to fill out my head better. I wore a simple white shirt with this sailor collar and bow my mom sewed for me. I wanted to do a light blue since it better matched all my other accessories so this is definitely a loose inspiration since Sailor Moon’s collar is navy. Originally I was going to wear a licensed Sailor Moon brooch I have but it was so heavy I had to last minute make my own from laminated paper and gems. I intended to carry a small sax bag but it wasn’t laying right with my collar so I abandoned it. I wore this red skirt I had commissioned from LaVelolita a couple of years ago. I know Sailor Moon’s skirt is navy, but hey, her outfit is red, white, and blue. So I went for red, white, and blue in the way that worked for me and what I had. I am wearing nude tights because COLD, and some red ruffle edge socks with white heels from Taobao brand MODO. These shoes are so incredibly comfy. I stomped around this con all day without pain or issue.

On Saturday we started out the day with badge pick up around 10:40am and then immediately headed to the 3DS meet up! There was a great turn out and I got a lot of street passes and finished five puzzles! I love the DS, it’s a perfect console in my opinion. I am really glad we are keeping the DS relevant at conventions. After that we decided to check out the vendors and artist alley. This year, the con was back to full capacity so the dealers room was PACKED. We did a quick look through at whatever we could see past the mosh pit of people and then got lunch. We ended up having lunch with a couple of my friends who we ran into while browsing the goods. We got crab rangoon nachos and summer rolls with peanut sauce and bubble teas. After eating, I went back through and purchased a couple of things I knew I wanted and then we headed off to the unofficial lolita meet up!

Myself, and a few comm members and some new lolitas all met at the atrium to take pictures and hang out. This was cut short when someone in the building pulled the fire alarm! Forcing us all to evacuate. This prank would set the entire convention back over an hour as all the panels were taking place in that building.

After waiting around for a while we then queued up outside for the Animal Crossing Ranking Panel which was pushed back due to the fire alarm situation. We again met up with even more of my friends and waited in line for that panel. The panel was pretty disorganized I’m not gonna lie. As they intended to rank 400 slides worth of villagers from the game but only had 2 hours, and after 1.5 hours had only gotten about 1/3 of the way through their presentation. After they abandoned the PowerPoint in lieu of just taking villager suggestions, they did validate me by giving Gaston an A+ so in the end I was happy.

After that we went to check into our hotel and go get dinner at one of our favorite places: Chortke. A Persian kebab house.

Sunday:

Sunday, I went back to the con is this human style Flurry (from Animal Crossing) cosplay.

I am wearing a white wig I got from Amazon, which I styled into an ear-esque style and attached hot pink hair clips I made myself to mimic Flurry’s ears. I also colored my eyebrows aqua to mimic Flurry’s little aqua colors face spots that kind of look like eyebrows. I actually used NYX’s jumbo eye crayon in white and then eyeshadow over that to achieve this look. I got the idea from this YouTube video, thank you so much for posting your technique! I am wearing a vintage sweater I found online that is oddly PERFECT? for this cosplay! And just some black leggings and shoes for comfort and warmth. This was a really simple and easy cosplay to pull off and I enjoyed wearing it.

On Sunday we started out the day with breakfast at Dunkin with some friends and then headed back to the con and straight to the dealers room. There were a lot less people on Sunday so shopping was easy and we were able to see stuff we didn’t or couldn’t see the day before. I got a few more things and then we decided to waste time at the AMV contest. This is one of my favorite things to do at Tora Con, because even if I am not familiar with the animes being utilized I can still appreciate the artistry of lining everything up perfectly to music. It was fun and then we decided to get lunch. I found out one of my brake lights was out so after lunch at Pi Craft for some custom pan pizza, I had to spend a significant amount of time at AutoZone getting my brake light repaired and therefore missed the Japanese drum performance at the convention. But I didn’t want to risk getting a ticket considering how far I was from home. We then attempted to get into Kirbology, a panel all about Kirby, but the line was across the building and the panel filled up before eve half of us made it in. At that point the con was near its end so we decided to go home.

I got a handful of really cute things this year, I had a smaller budget than usual so I really had to hold back. Honestly, I think this year’s artist alley was the best they’ve ever had! There were so many artists and everyone had tables full of high quality, gorgeous stuff. There also was a lot of stationery and office supplies this year which delighted me as I love that stuff! I discovered three artists through this year’s con that I really like and want to shop from in the future!
Swensona Designs
Egguino
Easybriizy Draws
I am really happy with how this year’s con went, despite the fire alarm, and my car, I had a good time and I can’t wait to go again next year.