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There were lots and lots of people who dressed up as various anime, sci fi, video game, and comic book characters. People put a lot of effort into their costumes, and made the convention even better. Here's a bunch that I took of people who were dressed up and walking around the convention the convention. Everyone was perfectly happy getting their picture taken.
There's the Great Saiyaman from Dragonball Z and Deedlit the high elf from Record of Lodoss Wars. Great costumes!
Ryu and Bison from the Street Fighter series mingle with some other characters. The fighting pose was my idea. On Saturday night, the big costuming event happened. The Masquerade was a huge deal, with tons of people filling up a large room in order to watch the cosplayers walk on stage to show off their outfit or perform skits. The MC was Gordon Rose, who has done a number of masquerades in Toronto (I saw him at a Star Wars convention years ago. He was great), and he had the whole audience in stitches. And what an audience it was! We were loud and enthusiastic the whole time.
Before the main event, we got a special treat. A group called Chivalry House had a big medieval style sword fighting presentation. They were swinging swords (REAL swords) at each other pretty hard, which created satisfying clanks and even sent sparks flying. The occasional line of cheesy dialogue ("You can not defeat me, Green Knight!") made it even more entertaining. Best of all, though, was when the audience members would randomly yell out various fighting cliches, like "By the Power of Greyskull!", "It's Morphin' Time!", "Finish him!", and of course, "There can be only one!".
Then the masquerade began. I took as many pictures as I could, but some of them didn't turn out as well, and sometimes I wasn't quick enough to get the shot that I wanted. I didn't bother to stay to see who won the contest, but I had a great time while there and I think that anyone who took the time to make a costume and play as this character for a weekend deserves respect as far as I am concerned.
There's Super Saiyan Gohan from Dragonball Z and Link from The Legend of Zelda.
There's Fuu Hououji from Magic Knight Rayearth and Misato Katsuragi from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
It's Gene Simmons from KISS and a group doing a skit parodying Princess Mononoke.
There's Ra's Al Ghul, the immortal foe of Batman, and from Gundam Wing, here's Lady Une.
Here's a group based on the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena.
Cardcaptors was a very popular costume source this year, but I don't think any of the Sakura cosplayers could compare to this costume of Kero. Very impressive!
This was a great number based on the live action Sailor Moon stage show from Japan. This was certainly one of the better group efforts.
Oh my my my, it's Mai! Mai Shiranui from the Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series! Needless to say, this was a very popular entry, and the audience appreciated her efforts. Well, the male portion of the audience any ways. I'd have to say that she was my favourite for much of the convention, at least until the one featured in this next set of pictures took the stage.
It's my favourite babe-a-rific kung fu fighting under cover Chinese cop, Chun Li from the Street Fighter series! Again, obvious reasons made her very popular amongst the male portion of the crowd, but in all seriousness it's a great costume. It was very accurate. Believe me, I know! Besides, it's Chun Li! Yeah, I'm a fanboy. Bite me.
There were plenty of other costumes around the convention that I never got a chance to photograph, and still others that didn't turn out so well, but regardless, those who did show up in costume did Toronto proud.
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