The first image below is when I attended FanimeCon '99 in my "Half-ass" Youji costume. The rest are shots of me and the other cosplayers from the consequent cons. Click the image to enlarge.
Fanimecon 1999:
Anime Expo 1999:
Anime Weekend Atlanta 5 (1999):
Fanimecon 2000 (F2K):
Check the CG Images for more Weiß & Van-as-Youji images.
I made this costume intially for Fanimecon 1999 but it was thrown together terribly. The piece was finished and worn completed to Anime Expo 1999, as well as AWA 5 in Atlanta in October (1999) and again for a nice close, at Fanimecon 2000. My main change for the costume was the cut in my hair. My best friend Jey [who played Aya] and I both are/were really in to Weiß kreuz and since I resembled Youji the most and Jey resembled most Aya we both hacked our hair to their lengths and cosplayed as them at both AX '99 and AWA 5. ^_^; Anyway, my dresss/coat/smock thing Youji wears was just an ankle-length black trenchcoat that I bought at Hot Topic for the sole purpose of editting into Youji's shigoto fuku. Jey and I editted it massively to a rehaul of manga Youji's. We removed the collar and installed a black zipper down the front. We added a high "neck" collar piece that zipped as well. I removed the cuffs, pockets and hacked about 5 inches off the bottom and hemmed it. I also sewed on the while cross stripes on the arms. I bought nice black slack pants and a belt to wear for the cons which I wore. I also painted the boots I'd used in a previous year from my Sailorjupiter costume from green to black and wore them. They have a slight heel but otherwise make a pretty good replica of Youji's boots [they match him better than they matched Jupiter, and they boosted me afew needed inches]. At Fanimecon 2000, I wore the same 3" platform boots I had for my Touga costume and it helped me be tall enough to pass as Youji. I bought a pair of black satin gloves and hacked them at the wrist and hemmed them to get my gloves. They worked lots better than the cotton winter gloves I'd used at Fanimecon 1999. I bought a similar watch to his and wore it all the time atop the gloves. It was nice, since I had a watch [unlike Aya]. For the under shirt, I went to JC Penny's and bought a black tanktop [in June, for like, $6.99, it was great] and hacked the sleeves off and hemmed that. Then I hacked the shirt to a midrif and hemmed that. Afterwards we brought the shirt in so it wasn't baggy. What else? Oh, sunglasses are my normal sunglasses, I usually wear them atop my head a la Youji-style. To make up for the cigarette? I intially was going to have Jey just buy me a real pack [as I was still 17 for AX 99], but we ran out of time, so the morning of AX, I took computer paper coloured the bottom inch orage-yellow with a marker and rolled myself two cigarettes. They worked amazingly well, and several times I had to give them up for inspection by AX officals. ^^; Lastly, I bought a pair of tiny silver hoops at a jewerly store months ago, that I've been wearing since, and called it good. The night before AX, Jey used a pen and tatoo'd Youji's tatoo on my arm, but unfortunately after wearing my trenchcoat outside all day in the hot July sun of California, my persperation more or less wore it all off. ^^;;
This costume was also worn to AWA 5 and Fanimecon '00.
Cast list per con as follows:
Fanimecon 1999:
Youji -- Van Donovan
Anime Expo 1999:
Youji -- Van Donovan
Aya -- Jey Kama
Ken -- Kamui Shirou
Anime Weekend Atlanta 5:
Youji -- Van Donovan
Aya -- Jey Kama
Ken -- Jimmy Taylor
Omi -- Gilda Santiago
Schuldich -- Midori Branwen
Fanimecon 2000:
Youji -- Van Donovan
Aya -- Sam
Ken -- Logan
Omi -- Steven (I think, Sam's brother)
Birman -- Kamui Shirou
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