anime north 2025
26/5/2025
good news everyone!! this is a timely post all about my anime north 2025 experience! this may be the first time i am actually writing a post i said i was going to write.... miracles do happen.... i'm going to talk about each day individually and then wrap up with a little general reflection, so lets get into it!
day one
on friday i put together my very first decora outfit! i still don't think i went hard enough with it to really hit the decora mark, but i felt really cute and got lots of compliments nonetheless!! i made the dress out of this really cute bedsheet i found at the thrift store, so it was really comfy! the fabric was very light so the back kept riding up a bit when i walked. luckily i had put bloomers on underneath so it wasn't a big issue, but i might reinforce the hem with some horsehair braid or something to give it more weight (i think the increase of fullness it would give would be cute, too). necklaces tend to bother me, so i opted for decorating my big collar with pins instead. an ita collar, if you will.
though i've been going to anime north for years now, this was the first time i really went into the nominoichi, a market event for people to resell old memorabilia. i've always skipped out on it because it seemed like more trouble than it'd be worth (the line is always super long and that specific room in the convention center is always insanely, unbelievably hot), and i only went this year because a friend told me someone posted about selling golden kamuy merch there on the forums prior. but boy was i wrong!!! so many gems in there!!! i got the golden kamuy vasily plush that i had reserved on the forum and then found a little koito tsumtsum-style plush that the seller sold to me for ONE DOLLAR!!!! ONE DOLLAR!!!!!!!! i felt like i was committing a crime.
i also came across someone reselling vtubers merch from the corpo i like, but my oshi was already sold by the time i got there. i was pretty sad! but then i ran into my internet-but-she-lives-in-the-same-city-as-me friend later and found out she was the one who bought it, so i'm glad it went to her at least!! i know she loves him just as much as i do, if not more.
aside from the nominoichi, we did a little bit of shopping around artist alley and also checked out the doujinshi dealers vendor booth to see if they acquired the sugio djs i had requested. they hadn't.... they did have some other golden kamuy djs, but they were all koito x tsukishima, so i didn't end up buying. nothing against that ship, i like them together too! just not one i would get a dj for.
in the end, i stayed within my daily budget and ended up snagging a few great items!!
day two
on saturday i wore this dress i made styled after a nile perch one i had saved! i'm really proud of it, it's super comfy and the care bears pattern is sooo cute! it's a bit long, but since i was rushing to get all my sewing finished i didn't bother making it shorter... and i'm kind of glad i didn't!! since i'm on the shorter side i tend to shy away from longer dresses, but it's nice to get out of my comfort zone and not have to worry about my ass showing so much! in addition to the dress, i also made the bear headpiece i'm wearing! both items got lots of compliments too, so i spent the day feeling pretty proud of myself hehe
my friends maomao cosplay came out really nice too!! honestly making the hanfu top was a BIG struggle... i had to adjust the patterns size to fit my friend and working with a shape i'd never worked with before was a real challenge... i'm so glad everything turned out fine in the end! my friend likes a lot of characters that wear hanfu, so now that i have the pattern ironed out i can easily make her some for future cosplays :D she said it was really comfy too!
we spent the day hitting artist alley hard. i kind of went crazy on purchases, but that's what the con is all about for me so i'd say it was a successful day! i always say i'm not buying any more prints and somehow end up with some anyways... but how could i not pick up johan! monster merch is a rare find!! and the falin art just looked so cool!!!
you may notice an outlier in this image... it was pretty funny, the booth actually had it covered with a little sign that said something along the lines of "warning: harsh language. adult gay people ONLY" and when you flipped it up you were met with this. making the purchase was so funny, i had showed it to an internet friend of mine and she wanted one too so i went up to the booth and hit him with the "two slurs please!" he seemed very tickled by this. my two slurs were ethically acquired.
day three
sunday was a comfy day for me! no sewing required, just home-printed i ♡ my girlfriend tee with ogata on it. i was really happy that a few people recognized him!! one was actually an artist who was selling golden kamuy stickers that i had TOTALLY missed when i looked at her booth on saturday! we bonded over shared ogata love and i, of course, immediately made the purchase.
i also finally managed to pick up a couple of stickers of himmel from frieren! i wanted to get something of his last year but didn't end up snagging anything, so i'm glad this year-long mission has been completed. and that was about it for sunday! a little last minute shopping, and then we wrapped up and left pretty early!
overall
i had a really great time this year! one thing that surprised me was the sheer amount of stamp rallies! i participated in like five or six, and one of the artists i was talking to said they'd heard the total going on was in the forties... it's really nice to see a bunch of different communities coming together!!! that being said, i was a bit :/ about the tasks... almost every booths stamp "task" was just to follow them on instagram. i think the emphasis on engaging with the persons art and supporting them was nice, but i also really enjoyed the little trivia and questions that i did during the dungeon meshi stamp rally i did last year. i don't know, it made it feel a little cold to me? i guess it's easy for me to criticize as someone who isn't an artist though... if you have any differing thoughts about this, i'd love to hear them! i'm a bit on two minds. maybe i'm just being selfish!
where i succeeded in my goal of getting golden kamuy merch (beyond my wildest dreams, actually!) i failed in my mission to acquire that 6%dokidoki mesh shirt. i did not, in fact, have enough money by the end of the weekend to go back for it. but it was actually okay because it was the first time in years it wasn't there anyway (unless i just missed it???). still no money to hit that shop downtown for an acdc rag piece either though, but that will always be there in a few paychecks time!
the biggest pro of the con this year was that they actually had seating in the artist alley hall. when i used to go before quarantine they'd always have somewhere for people to sit, but after the con came back they wouldn't and there'd just be this big empty space. then they'd always make people get up if they sat on the floor as it's a fire hazard... which i understand to an extent, but c'mon man... so the return of rest seating (with tables!) was a massive W. a little ironic though, because me and my friend had purchased these little collapsible stools to rest on for this year and then didn't end up needing them at all!!
the biggest con was that it was stinky again. i guess last year was a one off fluke. which was actually weird because it was Much colder than it usually is this year???? c'mon ontario weebs.......
and just because i like to see everything together, he's a complete pic of all my spoils! thanks for reading!!
matryoshka (cover) - gavis bettel and bettel 2