fuckyeahtarepanda

We entered the Dealer's Room and the FIRST BOOTH by the door is ShopKawaii! from whom I've bought Tarepanda stuff before. ONCE AGAIN, I take this as a sign and after skimming their booth  hurriedly purchase a 9" Sitting Up 15th Anniversary Tarepanda plush (can be found here) for $33. (On Sunday I picked up a 5.9" Plushy Face Pouch for $13.99 as well). 

It turns out this was the only booth selling Tarepanda merchandise (unless I overlooked or other booths sold out), so I'm glad I picked up what I did, when I did. 

Maybe next year there'll be more if there's enough of a demand. 

The Sunday of the convention I went to the Arpakasso panel and learned some useful information on where to purchase kawaii merchandise online. I also learned about the FuckYeahArpakasso tumblr and would be interested in possibly collaborating with her one day. I talked to her after the panel, and was super excited and told her about this blog. ...I don't think she was nearly as excited as I was. ;0;

I kept talking to myself/cosplayers around me (I came with my best friend http://austininkblot.tumblr.com/) about how excited and happy I was just lovingly looking at the Tarepanda and vocalizing whenever the person who was holding it on their head kept moving around or seemed to disappear. Imagine that. Some weird short girl is cosplaying as Sailor Saturn and keeps mumbling under her breath, "tarepandaOHGODTAREPANDA IS HERE. please don't leave. I want to hold you first! I will run to you as soon as I can. AAH WHERE DID THEY GO. oh, false alarm everyone, they were just moving around, they are still within our line of vision. emergency over."

So as soon as someone announced they were doing Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask-only photos I made a beeline for the Tarepanda. I can't remember what I said something along the lines of "ASDFGHJKL;ILOVETAREPANDA CAN I GET A PICTURE?! No, not of you, I want a picture of /ME/ with the Tarepanda ifyoudontmind. >___>;;" 

Luckily, I was at an anime convention, so the guy didn't think I was weird at all. Turns out, he was holding the panda for his wife, who was taking photos of the Sailor Moon photoshoot. She is also a Tarepanda enthusiast! We started excitingly talking about our respective collections and exchanged contact information. (I'll be taking updated photos of my collection this week to show her).

"They're selling Tarepanda in the dealer's room this year! Lots of them!" she told me excitedly.

"OH, I KNOW. I AM ON IT. 8] I'm headed there next [my friend already told me there was a bunch of stuff this year]." 

So I went to Ohayocon last weekend and while standing around for the Sailor Moon photoshoot (I cosplayed as Saturn) I spotted a Tarepanda on someone's head!