Touga Kiryuu

Touga Kiryuu. "Kono PUREIBOI". ^_^ He's definately my sort of character. Seems only natural I'd advance from doing Youji to doing Touga, eh? I went as Touga to Fanimecon '00 in February where I had a host of other Utena cosplayers, all female, who I had a blast hitting on. Not only did I have my own little Utena/Anthy/Nanami to hit on, but I had all the other Utena cosplayers and GIRLs in general there too. ^^; DOOBORU JAAKUPOOTO! ^_^ Here is just a rehashing of the makings of the costume and it's pictures. ^^;;

Fanimecon 2000 (F2K):
Van as Touga Duelist Touga! Irvine Kinneas (FF8) and Touga o.O Karaoke with the KoyasuNut More karaoke with the KoyasuNut KoyasuNut singing Beautiful Alone Van as Touga, Seri as Anthy, Kim as Nanami, Michiru as Utena Michiru as Utena, Van as Touga, Kim as Nanami, Seri as Anthy
Van as Touga, Michiru as Utena -- from the masquerade Van as Touga pimpin' it with his harem of girls Van as Touga, Mike as Cherry, Cici as Otaru Van as Touga with the Seele boxes and his beloved CHAIR!!!

Anime Expo 2000:
Van as Touga Michiru as Utena, Aimee as Felicia and Van as Touga Van as Touga with DuoJosh as Takeo, Makkura as Miyama, Van as Touga, Utena and Aya as himself. Van as Touga with Saionji Van as Touga, Love Meeko as Uranus Van as Touga, Ashley as Neptune

Photoshoot, May 2004:

Touga Kiryuu
My biggest fear for this costume was the wig, and it was a nightmare that came true. I ordered a wig from an awesome place called WigTech, but they never replied to my emails or anything, so that fell through. With the con date drawning closer, I had to just break down and buy a cheapy little red-wig and cut it and style it myself. X_x; I hated it, but most everyone says that it looked okay. *shrug*
The uniform itself was a disaster as well. I thought I'd cut myself some slack and have a reputable anime-costume maker who was a friend of a friends online make it for me. I just sent her such-and-such money and a week and a half before the con, she send me something that was far less than the quality I expected [however the seller has since contacted me and made arragements to make a replacement jacket in order to make-up for the rushed job, so thing are okay here]. Anyway, here I was with this crummy suit and a gawdy wig a week before the con, about to just say "screw the whole thing" when the lady across the street comes to my aid. *THANK YOU!* She was a seamstress before she retired and together we embarked on an all-day trip to JoAnnes and flipped though pattern books. We finally decided on a pattern. ^^;; It was of the confederates uniform [I'm one of the blue and the gray!]. It really was perfect, just with a few alterations, as noted below.
The material was this nice suit-like material that we picked out because it was thick and stretchy. I wanted my costume to look like a real uniform and not a costume [I'd be wearing it on the plane, after all]. I wanted them to ask "What band are you from?" and not just STARE at me. ^^; I think it worked, for the most part. I opted for gold trim instead of yellow, to make the realstic look better. The red trimming is a satin ribbon ironed and sewn on. The gold trim is just gold ribbon. The rope cord is the same rope cord on every other Touga cosplayer but I got small pieces of wooden dowels, cut them up and sprayed them gold and glued them on to my rank-pads for a more regal and realistic look. The shoulderpads themselves were thin slabs of wood I spray painted gold and decorated with this neat gold-sparkle glue I have. It worked well. Lets see. Gold buttons, gold fabric for the collar buttons. Basic red zipper was installed and that was that. The pants were just nice white pants made of the same material as the jacket [mostly for matching sake].
For height, I searched high and low [both online and off] for FLAT platform shoes. I barely found anything until, one-day, while walking out of Hot Topic in the mall, I saw this totally awesome girl walk by on these kickass three inch heeled black boots and I was like "WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE?!?!" and she directed me back into Hot Topic [she was the manager!]. Turned out they had one pair left, in the back of the store, and they were MY SIZE! So I purchased those suckers and was off! (The reason for me getting 3" platforms [which Touga doesn't wear] is because my Utena cosplayer was only three inches shorter than me, and I wanted to be as much taller than her as I could be). All in all, it looked good.

Lastly, I had a a dueling sword bought for me by my Utena-cosplayer friend Michiru. Inexchange, I had my friend Jey get us doujinshi made Utena cosplay rings [can't be a duelist without them!]. They're really nice rings too, and I almost like them more than the authentic ones. ^^; I also got a dorky little red flower to pin to my lapel for my dueling rose. Yay.
Overall the con was amazingly fun. It's the most fun I've had in a long time. I even got to stand-in as Youji for a Weiß kreuz cosplay group of the Weiß boys who was missing just Youji. ^^; Talk about fate, eh? ^^;

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