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15 Years of Cosplay, Questionable Wig Decisions, and Learning the Hard Way

Lost in the shuffle of planning Dragon Con and my upcoming Japan trip is a milestone that completely snuck up on me.

A special anniversary. No, not a relationship anniversary…well, not in the traditional sense anyway.

This year marks 15 years since I started cosplaying regularly, which is honestly wild to think about. Somehow a decade and a half has gone by since I decided to jump headfirst into one of the most fun, chaotic, and occasionally wallet-destroying hobbies out there.

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Solo vs. Tour: Why I Chose to Plan My Japan Trip the Hard Way

There are two ways to plan a Japan trip:

Outsource the stress…or become the stress.

Or, if you want to sound more professional about it:

Book a tour and let someone else plan everything…Or become a full-time project manager of your own vacation.

Naturally, I chose chaos. Not reckless chaos, but the kind where you’ve got multiple tabs open, a running notes app, and just enough structure to convince yourself everything is under control.But I didn’t start there.

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So I’m Planning a Solo Trip to Japan (Send Help… or Pocky)

Japan.

The land of the rising sun, ancient temples, neon-lit cities, and the birthplace of anime. For a lot of us otaku, it’s less of a vacation and more of a pilgrimage — the kind you spend years saying you’ll take someday.

And after more than 20 years of saying “someday,” it finally looks like that someday might actually be happening this year, which means, naturally, I’ve decided to plan the entire trip myself.

Because apparently I enjoy stress.

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Dragon Con: Chaos, Costumes, and Questionable Decisions

In my last post, I casually mentioned that I’m finally going to check off a bucket list item with my first trip to Japan. You know, the one that could potentially end with me attending a once in a lifetime concert if the lottery gods work in my favor? Yeah, that one.

Well, what if I told you that about a month and a half before I even board that flight to Tokyo, I’m crossing another item off my list?

Not a “that would be nice someday” item. A core memory loading item.

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Plot Twist: My Japan Trip Might End at Love Live’s 15th Anniversary

I’ve only casually mentioned it before, but it’s actually happening — the pieces are falling into place for the Japan trip I’ve been talking about for what feels like a lifetime. Dates aren’t locked down in permanent ink yet, but the blueprint is there: three weeks, late October into mid-November, Tokyo as the main focus with equal parts cultural deep dive and full-on anime pilgrimage mode (yes, Love Live is absolutely on the list). And then, because the universe apparently thrives on chaos, and impeccable timing, the 15th Anniversary live in Nagoya gets announced…and just like that, my carefully structured plan immediately pivoted.

To be fair, the dates shifting doesn’t actually derail anything I’ve been building — it just means extending the trip a few extra nights and carving out time for Nagoya. The Tokyo-heavy plan would remain intact. The cultural stuff? Still happening. The pilgrimages? Obviously still happening. This is just… adding one more layer.

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