Brothers in Arms: Journey Through the Unknown [ONHOLD]

Chapter 2: Brewing Storm

By the time they arrived at the convention hall, the place was already jam-packed with people and activities despite their early departure from the airport. Evan was in awe with the exotic products being sold from the wide variety of stalls to the decoration and advertisement hung all around the hall. However, he was clearly distracted with the absurd numbers of people presented in this place. It felt like he was drowned in a rock n' roll concert.

Even though there was a moderate amount of cosplayers walking around, these people were no stranger to cosplaying their own character. He noticed their professionalism as they posed for a swarm of cameramen, and those hungry wolves were very eager to record every inch of his or her outfit. If he had to guess, the cosplayers were mimicking the exact personality and action of their characters. A couple of people even took their cosplay to a whole new level. Some noticeable examples were a woman walking around daringly in a bikini with high-heeled boots or a bright red skin-tight bodysuit.

Not that he was surprised by all the ludicrous appearance and design of the outfit, but he was just astonished by their commitment to go that far.

"Holy shit!" Junior exclaimed as he tugged on Evan's shoulder. "It's Victorique de Blois cosplay! Come and help me take some pictures with her, Evan!"

The kid ran off to catch the cosplayer's attention. The only thing he could do was shake his head in dismay and follow close behind. Junior's action pretty much reminded him of his kid when he brought them on their first trip to an amusement park. Both had the same kind of air to them, out of control and bottomless energy to run around. Evan eventually caught up with them to see the kid was engaged in an intense conversation with the girl. Probably talking about weeb stuff and complimenting each other's cosplay outfit.

The girl wore an extremely long black Victorian-ish dress that reached to the bottom of her ankles and a black hairband which was full of laces and frills. Surprisingly, with such a cumbersome outfit and a long golden wig that was barely touching the floor, the girl managed to move around with no effort. One other little interesting detail he noticed was the girl holding a white and blue porcelain pipe in one of her hands, acting like she was some sort of a Sherlock Holmes type of character.

"You are interested in the outfit, right?" Junior asked him when the kid noticed the studious and curious expression appeared on Evan's face.

"Yeah..."

When the girl was about to explain her outfit, Junior jumped in front of him and motioned his hand at the outfit with a very enthusiastic attitude. It was like the kid knew what he was doing, mimicking a salesperson introducing a very fine product to his customers. "Ahem, alright, let Professor Junior explain it for you."

"What you see right here is the vanilla outfit worn by Victorique de Blois in the anime Gosick. Compared to what you are seeing right now, in the anime, Victorique has a much smaller build, like a small child around the age of twelve. No offense to you, girl, you still look fine in the cosplay. Anyway, the outfit resembles a Victorian style like anybody first thought would be. However, to be more specific, this type of outfit falls into the category of Lolita, which is a fashion subculture from Japan influenced by the style and clothing from the Rococo period. In case you are wondering, the period is around the late 18th centuries in Europe. Most people immediately assume the word Lolita is similar to a young girl because it actually is.

"To be fair, Lolita fashion and the phrase itself didn't really emerge until some guy by the name of Vladimir Nabokov wrote a novel named Lolita around 1955. In any case, this kind of fashion is leaning toward elegance and cuteness rather than sexual attractiveness. Kind of ironic when you think about it. The novel Lolita is about the physical relationship between a twelve-year-old girl and a middle-aged man. I don't know how it turns out, but they even made a movie out of this book. Anyway, you see, Lolita fashion and cosplay are entirely two different things. Some people think these two overlap each other because there are so many of them at the anime conventions. Well, both of these types of stuff come from Japan so people usually get its mix together."