Circle lens review: Vassen Kirei Red

Yo~!
Dropping yet another circle lens review today! I still have a huge backlog on these; even though I managed to get through the oldest batch there are still about 20 reviews to write so yeah, I won't be running out of content anytime soon :'D The star of this review is Vassen Kirei Red, a lens that sure does deliver.
The pics for this review are taken by none other than Shiro Samurai, thanks a lot! ^^ These pics were also taken when I still lived in the south so yeah, the light conditions are a bit different than in most of my reviews.

Important note: I got these lenses from someone who totally lost interest in wearing and reviewing circle lenses. These lenses had a wrong prescription for me and I think that these were close to their expiration date/already expired so I can not grade the comfort. However, I will say a few words about the comfort in general - pretty much my first impression of these. Remember: wearing lenses that are past their expiration date/broken/have the wrong prescription for you is a dangerous thing to do and it can damage your eyes for good so seriously, don't do it. I wore these lenses for half an hour and then threw them away so I had these on only for this review. Thank you.

And, as per usual, this review is not sponsored.

The vials of the lenses.

The lenses in their vials.

Base curve: 8,6 mm
Diameter: 14,5 mm
Water content: 42 %
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

These were very easy to insert, no surprises there. What did surprise me a bit though is that the lens felt a bit thicker than I had expected. When I inserted the second lens it felt a bit scratchy at first but after a few blinks the feeling went away; I think that may have had something to do with the fact that these lenses were already expired by the time I reviewed them. I only had these in my eyes for about 15 minutes so I can't say that much about the comfort, however these felt like lenses I could wear for about 4-5 hours before my eyes would start feeling dry.

One lens in to show the enlargement.

The enlargement effect is notable but not in the "freaky af" category. This does indeed look like a good cosplay lens if you want some enlargement to your eyes but not anything "too moe".

The color is certainly red, that can't be argued. To be honest to me it looks like the very definition of red; the shade is very bright and and quite vibrant. As you can probably see - at least from the vial pics - these lenses do have some black and yellow details in them, making the red pop out even more. I suspect the shade would look a bit darker in dark/brown eyes; in my gray eyes it's very bright. The opacity of the lens is very good: your eyes will definitely look red with these. The pupil hole is quite big though and your own eye color will be visible there, however it's the case with most circle lenses anyway so yeah, not exactly big news. Or news at all.

The more you look at the design the more you notice there's going on. There are many details that look quite simple but, when united, add a lot of depth to the lens design. The black limbal ring is quite thick, giving these an instant anime/cartoon character look. There are also some smaller black details here and there, making the color of the lens look even more intense than it would without them. Design-wise: clearly a cosplay lens. I could imagine these would also look good in some alternative outfits too if you want something simple yet outstanding for your eyes.

Since pictures tell more than thousand words, let's get to them next!

These pictures were taken on a sunny summer evening. There are no filters or anything in the pics, they are just re-sized.

Natural light through the window.

Bad corridor light.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Room light, shadowy side of the house.

Facing the sun.

Back against the sun.

From the distance.

• The color is 10/10. A very, very bright red that sure delivers!
  
  
• The design is 8/10. Quite simple but beautiful in its own way - and very suitable for a cosplay lens!
  
  
• The opacity is 8/10. These are very pigmented and don't really let your own eye color through - minus the pupil hole. 
  
  
• The naturalness is 2/10. The size isn't the most unnatural there but yeah, otherwise not natural at all.
  
  
• The enlargement is 7/10. The effect is there, however it's not "in your face".

Aaaand that's a wrap!
Like I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I still have A LOT of circle lens reviews to write. On top of that I'm also dreaming about making at least one costume this year (and by making I mean sewing it myself lol, there will be new costumes this year anyway though!) AND there will be quite many con summaries this year - seems like I'll be busy with writing stuff~!

If you like my content, stay tuned - there will be lots this year! ^^ 

Until next time.

-Firith

Circle lens review: Princess Pinky Eclipse Blue

Hello~!

A new circle lens review is here! ^__^
The pair that gets reviewed this time is Princess Pinky Eclipse Blue, a light blue lens that sure does stand out. Without further yapping, let's roll~
All pictures of this post are taken by Shiro Samurai, thank you! ^^ These pics were also taken a while ago, more specifically when I still lived in the southern part of Finland so yeah, it's been a while. 

Important note: I got these lenses from someone who totally lost interest in wearing and reviewing circle lenses. These lenses had a wrong prescription for me and I think that these were close to their expiration date/already expired so I can not grade the comfort. However, I will say a few words about the comfort in general - pretty much my first impression of these. Remember: wearing lenses that are past their expiration date/broken/have the wrong prescription for you is a dangerous thing to do and it can damage your eyes for good so seriously, don't do it. I wore these lenses for half an hour and then threw them away so I had these on only for this review. Thank you.

And yeah, this one is also non-sponsored. 

The vials of the lenses.

The lenses in their vials.

Base curve: 8,6 mm
Diameter: 14,5 mm
Water content: 38 %
Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Inserting these was pretty much the basic experience of inserting a circle lens in your eye. These might have curled around my finger just a bit but it was nothing too bad. Based on those 15 minutes I had these in my eyes they felt quite comfortable; these weren't stingy at all or anything of the sort. 

One lens in to show the enlargement.

My first thought here was "Oh, I have doll eyes now?" :'D These do have a quite notable enlargement effect and, indeed, that made me immediately think of porcelain dolls. 

To be honest I hadn't expected the color to be so vibrant and even... Somewhat bold. These lenses look so baby blue in their vials that I was a bit shocked to see how these look in my eyes tbh :'D However I still like the color a lot. I had my suspicions when I saw that these only have one shade of blue but in my (gray) eyes it looks like there was a gradient effect going on, starting dark in the middle and becoming more and more light towards the borders of the lenses. Maybe I should have expected this effect on some level though; as you can see from the vial pictures you can practically see through the lens quite easily, which means that these aren't the most opaque ones out there. In this case, however, it only seems to make the color even more intense when your own eye color gets through - or at least I like it better this way! 💙
The design is simple but pretty. There are two rings of black, the outer and the inner one, and the colored part - in this case blue - is in between them. Simple but effective - and everything but natural! Not my favorite design out there though since I prefer more... Complex designs, however these are more effective than they might first look like. I can see some halo effect going on too! Mentioning the obvious here too: the pupil hole is quite big and thus it shows a lot of your own eye color. I don't know if this is less visible on dark eyes but at least it's clearly visible on light eyes.

To the pics! 
These pictures were taken on a sunny summer day. These aren't filtered in any ways, just re-sized.

NOTE: since these were taken at the house I lived in at the time, the light conditions are different from usual.

Natural light through the window.

Bad corridor light.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

    Room light, shadowy side of the house.

Facing the sun that tried to burn my eyes off.

Back against the sun.

From the distance.

• The color is 8/10. A very beautiful shade of blue.
  
  
• The design is 5/10. It's way too simple to actually be to my liking but I don't really dislike it that much either, hence why a very average grade.
  
  
• The opacity is 6/10. The blue is obviously there but in the end these are pretty transparent. Creates a beautiful and vibrant effect though!
  
  
• The naturalness is 2/10. Don't try to claim that you know someone with eyes like this, you most certainly don't. In other words, these don't look natural at all. 
  
  
• The enlargement is 7/10. These indeed make your eyes look a lot bigger, giving them a somewhat doll-like look. 

And that's one review off the table~!

My next post will very likely be a circle lens review too but after that it just might be a time for third con summary of the year! x) Stay tuned~!

Until next time.

-Firith

Kemin Mangapäivä 2025 - Back in business!

Hello everyone and welcome to the second con summary of the year! ^^ 

Canva was strong with this one.

(All pictures of the post are taken by Shiro Samurai, thank you very much - I seriously wouldn't have had time.)

I think the title pretty much tells it all - Kemin Mangapäivä was held on 8th of March at Kemin kulttuurikeskus for the first time in 10 years! This event was quite popular back in the days but for several reasons it got buried under the sands of time until now. 

The story behind the resurrection pretty much goes like this: as I have mentioned several times, a bit over a year ago I moved to north because I applied for a vacancy (a librarian) here and actually got the job. Very soon I learnt that Outi, the person behind Kemin Mangapäivä AND Kitacon all those years ago, was still working at Kemi's children's cultural center. It took one phone call to arrange a meeting with her and Sanna (her colleague) - and in that very meeting we decided to host Kemin Mangapäivä once again and wake it from its slumber!

...and the decision was made in the beginning of January, literally two months before the con itself.

I would like to state that even though there were quite a few hiccups along the way - typos in the con program, problems with our social media account etc. - things went smoothly considering the time we had for organizing the event. In this summary I probably won't go into too much detail about things that need to be done for a convention when organizing one but I'm actually considering writing a post about those in the future. 

But yes, let's continue with the summary!

I woke up around 7.20 am. - Kulttuurikeskus is literally a two-minute drive or a ten-minute walk away from my apartment so yes, I wasn't really in any rush. I took a shower, grabbed the stuff I needed to take with me and drove to Kulttuurikeskus. I was there around 8.30, which meant I had plenty of time to put up to information signs. My colleagues Ilkka and Olli were already there and while they mostly didn't participate in the event stuff they also took care of the visitors and customer service! Ilkka had also promised to act as a second judge in the drawing competition that was held within the drawing workshop, hosted by Shiro Samurai. 

I was ready with the signs in about 30 minutes which in other words meant that I could enjoy my morning coffee in peace - and that turned out to be the last peaceful moment of the day lol. My third colleague Johanna - who was specifically there for the event and to help with the customer service - arrived at work during our morning break and I was able to give her the needed instructions. After this it was time to start putting on my costume of the day, namely Alicia. 

The entrance to the event venue.

I would also like to point out that even though there are not many people in the pictures below we had plenty of visitors. The lack of people is simply because Shiro Samurai took the pictures before he started hosting the drawing workshop/drawing contest which means it was in the very beginning of the event. 

When I was putting on my costume I got a message from said host who informed me that he had arrived at the library - literally when I was in the middle of doing my eyeliner lol :'D I told him to look for Outi to fetch the pens etc. he could use at the workshop and then Ilkka who would have the papers for drawing. I also told him I would check up with him soon and returned to doing my make-up which actually turned out okay-ish. When I checked the clock though I got a small heart attack; it was already almost 11 am! I felt the nausea hit me but tried to ignore it - I knew it was just my nerves acting up and I tried to soothe myself with some prep talk. Not sure how well I managed but because there was no time to have a meltdown of any sort I just... Kind of had to get my shit together and just roll with it lol. 

The children's and youth department of the library. At the end of the corridor is the gaming/hang out room where the drawing workshop was hosted - and yes, there are also gaming consoles!

The adult's section of the library. A sight like this - in a much smaller library but anyway - made me want to become a librarian. I was a kid back then so yes, profession-wise I am where I always wanted to be.

I practically ran downstairs to check up with Shiro Samurai. He had basically everything under control so I went to check up with Outi and Sanna who were hosting a non-stop pin workshop. In the same room with them was also Matsucon's promotion table and quite a few comic character statues lol. I chatted for a while with the people in the room and then walked to the lobby where the Artists' Alley was located - and ran into Sallukka, Dongrieg and Jefu. The latter one also hosted a program at Kemin Mangapäivä (he gave tips about 2020s anime series worth watching) and Sallukka acted as a second cosplay judge, me being the other. 

Speaking of the cosplay competition: we quickly agreed to scout for participants from the venue. You see, in the Saturday morning we had two contestants. TWO. It's a bit hard to have a competition with just two participants so yes, we needed to do something about this. To be honest: even though I'm quite known to be stubborn af I even considered cancelling the competition. However, some gut instinct told me not to and I'm pretty damn happy I didn't since we actually got four more contestants to participate! Being stubborn can be either a curse or a blessing and in this case, fortunately, it was the latter one. Two of the new contestants were actually familiar faces from Kummacon - we were all a bit surprised when we recognized each other :'D 

A part of the Artists' Alley, pictured from the front door.

A general hallway picture.

Same hallway, pictured from the library's door.

Around 12 pm me and Sallukka started the pre-judging of the contestants. Each one of them were given 10 minutes to tell about their cosplay; what techniques they had used, their favorite parts of the costume, which part was the most challenging to make etc. I must say that making the decision wasn't very easy; all of them had put so much effort to making their costumes, tried new techniques and everything! However, me and Sallukka had agreed that there would only be one winner, also known as other prizes weren't given. This may have had something to do with our budget which was a very lonely and round ZERO.

It took us about 50 minutes to judge everyone - not everybody had that much to tell about their cosplay - and after that we could finally sit down for a minute. And I could eat my lunch. We didn't have that much time though; I wanted to check up with Shiro Samurai AND I needed to give some new instructions to Johanna before we would start guiding people to the backstage... Or, well, to the upstairs corridor from which we could enter the big auditorium, also known as the venue of the cosplay competition. So yes, I ate pretty quickly and then we - also known as me and Sallukka - walked to the drawing workshop. Shiro Samurai told us that there were some entries to the drawing contest; all of them just happened to be from within the same age group so he and Ilkka would have to re-think a few things, namely who to reward and the criteria for that. For clarification: originally there were three different categories based on certain age groups but since all the entries were from within the same one... Yeah. 

After this it was time to gather the cosplay contestants and go upstairs with the elevator. There were eight people in the same elevator and someone commented "Considering how much Finnish people like their personal space we make horribly small elevators" and to be honest I couldn't agree more - it was so crammed! :'D Luckily the ride up didn't take more than a few seconds and we could exit our metallic cocoon. 

We checked the stage quickly, I gave the last instructions there, the contestants formed up a queue and soon it was time for the competition to begin! To be honest it wasn't a long one, about 15 minutes or so since we didn't have any entr'acte or anything of the sort. But we managed to host it, yay! <3 I'm so thankful to all of our brave contestants (and some of them even said that they would take part next year too which almost brought me to tears, no joke), thank you for taking a part to the competition! A special thanks goes to Sallukka: I wouldn't have managed without you and it truly was an honor to work with you 💚

Oh, we also had a photo booth, the photographer being a student from Lappia! <3 Too bad I didn't have time to get a group photo with my friends even though we talked about it.

When the cosplay competition was over I noticed that Shiro Samurai had messaged me. He and Ilkka were now judging the drawings and we figured we could tag along since we were already done with our duties. 

Eventually me and Sallukka became some sort of judges for the drawing contest too. Shiro Samurai and Ilkka had decided to reward two drawings, one as a winner and one with honorable mention. If judging the cosplay competition was hard, this was even more difficult since the entries were pretty much equal in skill! D: It took us quite a while to decide the two but eventually we came to an agreement and could host the small prize ceremony. 

After that it was time for me to host my program; I had decided to act as a filler and host a same panel about cosplay memories I had hosted in Mericon 2023... As a filler xD Yes, we had some hard time first to actually get people to host programs but in the end there were three panels, a drawing workshop/contest, a cosplay competition and the pin workshop (plus the Artists' Alley which was popular even with the library's regular customers)! The third one to host a panel was Hannele from Piiri.

I was checking the time since the clock on the wall definitely didn't show the right time lol.

And after my panel Mangapäivä was officially over! I felt so damn drained tbh; even lifting a finger felt like a mission impossible. The front door of the library was already locked at this point so my duty was to check there weren't any people inside anymore and turn off the lights. I hanged out with Shiro Samurai for a while since he was waiting for a ride back home and when his mother came to pick him up I also drove home. 

And slept until I went to have a glass of wine with Sallukka. We totally deserved it.

As you can see, it was one hell of a hectic day but we made it, yay!

The date for the next Mangapäivä hasn't been decided yet but I can say for sure that the event will be organized next year too! 💚 Even though Mangapäivä will (at least very likely) be a small event in the future too we will definitely take into consideration the feedback we have gotten and do some things even better next year~!

...I mean, now we literally have a year for preparations so yes, there is actually time to do things better next time. However, I'm still very pleased with how we pulled this year through; even though I'm a perfectionist by nature I do realize that we couldn't have done nothing more. And, at least sometimes, doing your best is more than enough. This time it definitely was.

My next blog post will very likely be a circle lens review 'cause the next con I will attend is in May so yeah, no summaries before that. Already looking forward to that though! 👀

Until next time.

-Firith

Circle lens review: MAX Elegance Tri-Tone Gray

Hello everyone~!

It's time for another circle lens review~ 
This time I'll review a pair of MAX Elegance Tri-Tone Gray lenses. To be honest it took me quite a while to form an opinion about these ones. Why? Keep on reading to get the answer!
Photos are taken by Shiro Samurai, thanks a lot! ^^ 
And yes, these pics were taken a while ago too, oops.

Important note: I got these lenses from someone who totally lost interest in wearing and reviewing circle lenses. These lenses had a wrong prescription for me and I think that these were close to their expiration date/already expired so I can not grade the comfort. However, I will say a few words about the comfort in general - pretty much my first impression of these. Remember: wearing lenses that are past their expiration date/broken/have the wrong prescription for you is a dangerous thing to do and it can damage your eyes for good so seriously, don't do it. I wore these lenses for half an hour and then threw them away so I had these on only for this review. Thank you.

And, once again, this circle lens review is non-sponsored.

The vials of the lenses.

The lenses in their vials.

Base curve: 8,6 mm

Diameter: 15 mm

Water content: 42 %

Life span: 1 year (I recommend 6 months)

Inserting these was pretty easy. The right lens irritated my eye a bit at first though but it settled after a while. After that I barely felt these in my eyes. These were also pretty thin and overall comfortable to wear; had these not been expired I probably would have worn these a few more times.

One lens in to show the enlargement.

Ooooookay. I think these look even a bit creepy due to the enlargement effect - these sure do deliver! To be honest I didn't really have that high hopes for the enlargement since, well, a 15 mm diameter isn't really that big - especially not when compared to many I.Fairy lenses which have the diameter of 16,2 mm. But, as you can see, the effect is actually very notable. 
For some reason these lenses seem to give my eyes even a bit... Feral look, and I'm not sure if that's a bad or a good thing lol. In my opinion these look a bit unsettling in my eyes.

The color took me by surprise. When I saw these in vials I remember thinking "well, these don't actually look gray, but maybe they will when I insert these". What I sure didn't expect was a color bordering on light blue! To be honest I felt a bit disappointed at this point. The color sure is beautiful and I can think of a few mythical creatures (for example mermaids and unicorn gijinkas) it could work for but it really doesn't deliver the color that is actually stated in the name of these lenses. Well, there is some gray in these but... I don't know, all I see is blue lol. But hey, at least they work well together with light-colored eyes (as you can see, my eyes are mostly gray)!

The print is actually pretty nice even though it doesn't work for me that well. These actually made me think of winter and cracking ice. The print makes it possible for your own eye color to show through a bit but not too much. What I really do like about these lenses that these have pretty thin limbal ring - had it been any thicker these lenses would have gone to the "creepy af" category. 
I'd say that these would work pretty well for mythical creature (inspired) costumes for example! However, otherwise I don't really see MAX Elegance Tri-Tone Gray as a cosplay lens.

Honestly, it took me half an eternity to actually form an opinion what I really do think about these lenses. They're very beautiful and unique in their own way, however these don't really deliver the color they promise (at least not in light-colored eyes) and they look a bit too creepy for my taste. So yeah, still don't really know - except that I like these more than I dislike them.

To the lens photos it is!

These pics were taken on a half-cloudy midwinter day. These haven't been filtered in any way, they've only been re-sized. 

Natural roomlight.

Bathroom light.

Flash photo.

Facing window.

Back against the sun.

Facing the sun while standing under a shadow.

Facing the sun.

From the distance.

• The color is 7/10. It's quite beautiful and even unique in some way - however I couldn't call these gray even if my life depended on it.
  
  
• The design is 7/10. Not the most creative out there but beautiful in its own way. Gives my eyes a stern and feral look though - not sure if good or not.
  
  
• The opacity is 7/10. These lenses let my own eye color through quite a bit if you ask me - that might be because of the design but yeah, not the most opaque lens out there.
  
  
• The naturalness is 3/10. I mean, the color kind of is natural, however the design and enlargement effect make these look quite unnatural. 
  
  
• The enlargement is 9/10 - a lot more enlarging than I expected!

So that's it for now~!

Even though I'm still not sure if I like these ones or not I would be interested in trying out the other colors from this lens series, especially the gold ones. Maybe in the future! 💛

There are still many lens reviews to come so if you like these, stay tuned~

Until next time.

-Firith

Konekocon 2025 - My con hype was seemingly on vacation

Hello guys~ 

Less than two months into this year and I'm already writing a con report? Must be some sort of a record, honestly. 
But yeah, this is my report of Konekocon 2025 which was held on 1st of February at Kuopio, more precisely at Kuopion Taidelukio Lumit. If you wonder why the name of the event sounds familiar it's because Konekocon is actually a "kitten" version of Nekocon (I mean it's quite literally in the name)! 

The entrance to the con building.

(All pictures are - as per usual - taken by Shiro Samurai).

We - meaning Shiro Samurai and I - left for Kuopio on 31st of January, also known as the day before the con. This time we took the train to Kuopio since my car doesn't really like winter that much (also known as I didn't really trust it to take us to our destination and back) and this also affected our choice of an accommodation.

You see, usually we stay at the Rauhalahti Spa when we're in this very specific part of eastern Finland. However, it's located a few kilometers away from the city center and thus it became a part of "not on option" list quite quickly when we started going through our options a couple of months before the con. Why was that an issue this time? Well, we didn't have the car this time and there was no way we would pay 20+ euros per each taxi needed since neither of us is Flintheart Glomgold ^^'
It was at this point when I remembered one thing. Back in the days when my family still traveled all over Finland with me when I attended conventions we used to reserve a room at Sokos Hotel Puijonsarvi when we were at Kuopio. I think we were once in Scandic but I have a feeling it wasn't as good option for some reason. I quickly checked the hotel's website and noticed that the rooms still had an affordable price - and after a few clicks the accommodation for the weekend was secured. Phew!

Eventually we arrived at Kuopio, took a taxi to the hotel and checked in. After that we dumped our stuff to our room and pretty much immediately headed out to scout for a place where we'd eat dinner. It didn't take us too long to find a Nepalese restaurant which was located in a shopping center called Apaja. The food was really delicious and even though the restaurant wasn't exactly cheap I sure would eat there again!

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and watched National Geographic for the rest of the evening and I miserably failed in trying to get some con hype. Eventually we went to sleep - I think neither of us slept that well though since it was so damn warm in the room. I need to take medicine these days so I could have a proper sleep and even that didn't really help me sooooo... :)))
Morning came way too quickly and I had zero interest to get up but obviously had to unless I wanted to skip the hotel breakfast. Since neither of us didn't want to do that mistake we zombied our ways downstairs and ate a very yummy breakfast! 
...still a bit salty about not getting a macaron though. When I try to make those at home I always manage to burn them a common skill issue but they also cost a lot at a grocery store so yeah, I was a bit disappointed for not getting one :((

When we had eaten it was time to shower and put on a costume - which, in my case, meant a shiny Jigglypuff gijinka! 
...and guess if putting on the costume went smoothly? Nooooooope. I have literally no idea what had cursed our con morning but clearly something since things were so difficult, especially doing the make-up! D:< Shiro Samurai's eyeliner wings ended up being quite asymmetrical and my face didn't want to co-operate at all. Most of my eye shadows didn't have enough pigment - eventually the one I picked doesn't even show in the pics so that was a good-for-nothing headache -, I kept fucking up my eyeliner and had a blending hell with my blush and almost ended up looking like a fucking clown! -__- I first considered putting on some fake eyelashes for extra cuteness but I probably would have glued them onto my eyeballs so I skipped them. 
Next time I will count the perkeles during the make-up show and publish the result in that con's summary.

Eventually we were ready to leave for the con. We took a taxi since it was quite slippery and it looked like it was going to start raining so yeah, nope. 
It didn't take us long to arrive at Lumit and the first thing we did was exchanging our PDF tickets to wristbands. We had agreed on taking some proof pictures of our costumes after that since there still was some natural light outside. And, as you can probably guess at this point, it didn't go very smoothly. I mean we had fun but it took quite a while to get decent pics since I ended up looking like a damn puffer fish most of the time :'D

Character: Jigglypuff (gijinka)
Source: Pokémon
Cosplayer: yours truly
Photos & edit: Shiro Samurai

"You weren't paying attention? Well, what kind of mustache do you want? >:C"

I don't know how to be cute okay ;__;

After taking pics we went inside since it wasn't exactly warm outside lol.

The cloak room area.

The 1st floor lobby.

To be honest I felt a bit... I don't know. "Disappointed" isn't exactly the word but I to be honest I had expected to see a bit more theme-related decorations etc. Yes, I wanted kittens in my life. I also know that the event had at least 500 attendants but somehow the venue seemed quite empty. There were 1000 tickets for sale but the event never got sold out so yeah, the venue was a bit too spacious for the amount of people there. Usually it's the other way around; I think that this is the first time I've ever seen it be this way.

The first thing we checked out was the Artists' Alley/Merchandise Hall which was located in the gym hall - also known as the same room where the gaming consoles were located in Nekocon. There was plenty of space to move around and personally I think this was one of the best Artists' Alley experiences I've ever had! 

Omg so much space!

I didn't buy that much stuff this time though; just a few humorous stickers I decorated my calendar with (can't remember the artist, sorry!)  and a pair of black spider earrings made by bunicorn_design, also known as Momo. I've known them approximately for 10 years but since we don't live close to each other we don't meet that often. It was so nice to chat with them and their assistant (who recognized me before I recognized her, oops)! 💓

After checking out the Artists' Alley we decided to check out the flea market... Which, to be honest, turned out to be quite interesting experience and not in a good way. I don't really mind that the tables were pretty empty - I mean, that's something that can't be affected since it's dependent on whether people want to sell their stuff there or not. But could someone teach people about pricing policy? I mean... At least I'm not ready to pay 20-30 euros for an item that is about to break into pieces even from a very gentle touch. 

Of course it's more than okay to sell stuff you have made yourself - just check its condition first and let that define the value. Something that comes apart just by looking at it is definitely not worth 20 euros or more.

After shaking our heads in disbelief for a few minutes we decided to check the second floor of the building. There we found some non-stop activities, such as gaming room and a karaoke room. There was also 'silent room' - a place where one can hang out in total silence. They have become more and more common in conventions and I think that they are seriously a wonderful thing; if someone gets overwhelmed or anxious or just wants some peace during a hectic con day they can just go there and charge their social batteries. 

Karaoke going on.

The gaming room.

The stairs leading to the first floor and the stage.

I have a small complaint about the karaoke though. I mean, it was mostly very well hosted (and the microphones' volume was really low so the singer's voice couldn't be heard - perfect for people who want to sing but are anxious about their voice) but the queuing system was basically non-existent. I would have wanted to sing at least something - would have even fit the character! - but when I realized that getting a singing turn was a speed competition I gave up and just sat there for a while, watching others sing. 

I seriously do hope that this gets fixed in the future. A clear queuing system is always the best in these kind of programs; at least I don't really find it fun to run for the mic to get a turn. 

After a while we decided to go to the main lobby. The program we intended to check out - Snowflake Harmony, a Miku Hatsune dance show - was about to start anyway so yeah, we left the karaoke room and almost immediately walked to Black Box, also known as the room where the dance show was hosted. 

Emi as Miku Hatsune.

I really didn't know what to expect from the show; I mean, the host was a minor and this was her first time performing solo. But I must say that she did very well; the lip sync was basically perfect, her dancing skills were good (and the choreographies were at least mostly the correct ones!) and she even interacted fluently with the audience in between the dances - and stayed in character all the time! Performing is a skill that can always be developed further but I must say that she's off to a great start on that path.

And it took me a week to get World Is Mine out of my head.

This kind of made me want to start dancing again tbh. When I was younger I used to dance but had to quit the hobby many years ago - and I have missed it ever since. I have never been talented in most sports but dancing was something I actually enjoyed... Well, maybe in the future since I actually have some cosplay plans related to dancing!

...though I must really polish my skills before that. They're very rusty lol.

After Snowflake Harmony we considered watching the cosplay catwalk which was the last program of the day but eventually gave up on that idea since we were quite tired and just wanted to get something to eat lol. 

At the hotel we took off our costumes and relaxed for a while before walking to a nearby (very cheap but very good) pizzeria to eat.

#tired

Some drinks and snacks for the evening!

We stayed at the hotel for two nights which means that in Sunday morning it was time to eat some hotel breakfast, pack our bags and check out of the hotel - and that basically was the end of our Konekocon weekend.

I must say that I'm not very likely to attend Konekocon again. 

By this I don't mean that it would have been all bad or anything; it did have its moments, there was a lot of entertainment and Lumit is a good building for hosting a convention since there is a lot of space and it's very near to the city center. So yeah, not all bad and definitely worth checking out if you live at or near Kuopio!

But is this con really worth traveling from the north, paying for the train tickets, accommodation etc.? To that I must sadly answer no. Konekocon was a nice experience but it kind of... Lacked something. I don't know if it's the lack of people, the problems with the current time of the year or what, but I just somehow didn't get the con hype I usually do (eventually). I also didn't feel like I would've belonged to the target audience of the con; I mean, I felt like I was 10-15 years older than most of the other con visitors! D: 

So yes, this was very likely my first and last Konekocon. I will still attend the summer version since I've always enjoyed it, but this... Wasn't really my cup of tea.

The next convention of the year is right behind the corner - and guess who is at the organizing end again? :D So yes, expect to see another con summary (and a bunch of circle lens reviews) in the near future~!

Until next time.

-Firith