Tokyopop Awesomeness!!!!

So the last 4 days have been OMG!!!!

It all started 5 days ago actually.  Tokyopop is having a contest for Hetalia Cosplayers (12 winners get to be in the first volume of the manga) and I submitted around 13 pictures of some VERY fabulous Hetalia cosplayers I know! (That Russia picture better win!!! *shakes fist*)  Around 3 hours after I posted that last picture to Tokyopop's Facebook page (part of the rules) and I get this message from Tokyopop.  My first thought was 'Is there something wrong with the pictures?' followed by (as the message is loading) "Maybe they just want to thank me for entering the pictures....NOPE!

What I read in the message has me breathing hard and shaking from excitement.  Tokyopop wanted to film me and my Hetalia buddies!!  I was breathing harder at this point.  I scrambled to grab my phone I HAD to tell them!!  I started the message off with OMG but because I was shaking from excitement I accidentally pushed the send button.  Crap! I just started up another message to the same people and continued with the message.

I was soon bombarded with 'What?' and 'Really?'  It was a phone call from Sara (our Romano) that thankfully calmed me down a bit.  She asked the questions that soon everyone was asking me; 'When and where?' and 'What costumes?' I promptly responded back to Tokyopop and started the waiting game. I didn't hear anything back from Tokyopop until the next day (Thursday) they said they were happy we wanted to be filmed and asked if I had a phone number or email to so that the Production team could get a hold of me directly. I gave them both.

While waiting for Tokyopop to get a hold of us we (me, Molly, Sara and Kayla) went up to Molly's dad's place to try to snag some FIFA pictures.  Kayla put on her Italy wig and Germany jersey and we took a few pics.

As Spain had beat Germany in the Semi-finales earlier that day we thought that a ball flying at Italy's head would be rather entertain.  First we tried with Molly holding the ball and I just made sure the arm was not in the shot.  I manages to take this pic of Kayla being freaked out by a stationary ball.  The funny thing is after this Molly just threw the ball at Kayla's head repeatedly until we had a few shots of the fall hitting her.  I tell you it was NOT easy!
With fading light, work, and no response from Tokyopop we went back to Denver and had dinner.

The next day I did finaly get a response from Tokyopop asking to film us on Sunday at 2.  Several of us are World Cup fans so that time was not good so I tried to get it moved back to 3...so at least the game would be over (in case you forgot this is BEFORE the final game against Spain and the Netherlands so we thought it would be over by 3) While waiting for the response Molly, Kayla, and Sara came over to my place and we walked over to the park and took some pictures of the Twins dressed up at the Italy Brothers (they are sooo good too) and of course some Lithuania pictures as well!  The Twins then changed into their FIFA jerseys; N. Italy into his beloved Germany's jersey and Romano into his beloved Spain's jersey.

They now had some pictures to submit to Tokyopop's Hetalia Cosplay contest!
At dinner I got a call and I look at my phone and I did not recognize the number but I did recognize the area code being from Los Angles (I did live near there for 4 years) and I answered it. It was Tokyopop Headquarters....that's right Tokyopop called me!  The moved the time of the filming to Saturday at 5:30pm.  This was excellent!  Now we could have our Spain and Romano!!

Saturday, July 10, 2010
We arrive at Washington Park.  We pretty much had the world with us!  There was America, England, Spain, Romano, N. Italy, Japan, Hungary, Lithuania and me the photographer!  The Tokyopop didn't arrive in their spiffy bus but that's ok it was still awesome!!  They set up 2 cameras and rigged Kayla (N. Italy) with a mic and we were filmed for their show that will be airing on the internet later this fall!!

The Premier Hetalia Cosplay Group in Denver with the lovely ladies who hosted our segment for Tokyopop's show!

The Tokyopop crew who are traveling the country looking for the biggest Otaku!  They were an awesome bunch!

After the filming was over we still has several hours of daylight left; here in Denver it doesn't get dark until around 9pm.  The following are some of the funnier pictures I captured.  I will be making a more indepth blog post with more pictures from this Tokyopop experience.

Creeper Italy~

Hungary defends herself from Italy with her frying pan!  This is a candid shot.

A very nice picture of Shannon as Japan!  She sewed that cosplay with help from Kayla.  Loot at that detail!

Spain does not approve!  Another candid shot.

 ORLY?

Yeah RLY!


Sunday, the day of the FIFA World Cup Finals!  It was Spain vs. Netherlands!  The game was really and I mean REALLY GOOD!!!
We (me, Molly, Kalya and Shannon) ended up in a Chili's for lunch.  I noticed they had the game on TV in the bar area so we moved over there to watch the game and OMG it was sooo tense!!!  We were all communication to Sara and Diana via text talking about the and OMG and WTF moments!!  Spain kept kicking too high and Netherlands kept getting WAY to close to the net for comfort.  I was rooting for Spain!  After no scoring in the 90 minute regulation time it was in the added minuted that Spain scored on a free kick, the bar area of Chili's erupted in cheer, whoops, and hollers!  Only a few minutes later the clock ran out and Spain had won the FIFA World Cup for the first time!!!  It was great!!
We managed to capture a small group celebrating on the 16th Street Mall!

It was great they were singing/chanting Ole, ole, ole and as you can see they were very festive!  There were soo many people wearing Espana jeserys downtown today it was great!!
Viva Espana!!!!
I so want to be in that country right now, they won't stop partying for another 4 years!!!! (until the next World Cup!)

Until tomorrow!!