Again, my purpose for the e-mail was not to overthrow the rule of the Jafax staff or bolster my own ego, but I can see now there's no possible way we can see eye-to-eye on this one. You claim that we've been a problem from the beginning, yet made no mention of this until we're down to the wire before the third time we're going to cosplay. What do you think when you receive and A on a test several times in a row? You think you're doing a great job. That's the case with us.

I know it's a minor element, but mincing words over "convention" versus "festival" and "cosplay" versus "costume contest" is a moot point. Jafax IS a convention because it shares almost everything that pay conventions do, except, of course, price. No one I've ever talked to goes to the "Jafax anime’ festival." Nope, we're going to the "Jafax anime’ convention." Don't sell yourselves short. I'm trying to tell you that Jafax is great.

I can't help but be insulted by the implication that I'm not busy myself. I have a job, school, girlfriend, housework, website, and whatever else pops up. Such is life. No, I'm not slaving over at Jafax, mainly because of geology, but I've volunteered twice out of the three times I was able to attend, taking time out of the convention that I traveled to just to help out. Granted, the cheap rooms are a perk, but I figure (especially this time around) if I just went up there for the day, it would all balance out, time-wise, with a single day and be cheaper. Regardless, I want to help out.

Yeah, things happen in life, and I'm not suggesting that the entire staff should be glued to the e-mail server 24/7 just to answer my questions, but checking the mail once a month and giving me the same exact answer is better than feeling like I'm being ignored. I was told the videos would be complete within a month, and here it is, a year later. Two of my friends moved away and didn't have an opportunity to savor the experience while it was fresh. I'm certainly happy to receive the tape at all. I’m just saying that I work in the AV business, and I doesn’t take this long. And I was never asked if I paid once over the course of the year until recently. I’m not going to give out money for something that doesn’t exist. How was I going to know if the tape got lost? Getting my money back would have been a nightmare.

I can't help but take personal offense to the "bad costumes" lines. That's simply an opinion. Granted, there were by far more superior costumes up on display, I can’t deny that, but for our purpose, "good" costumes were unnecessary for the skit. You wouldn't use a high-end HD video editing station to simply surf the Net, and we don't need a 1/16 scale fully-function Eva Unit 01 to be funny.

I can't for the life of me wrap my mind around this plagiarism thing. Under this rationale, all cosplayers are plagiarists, taking images from some else's work for their own use without permission. Ironically, Big Uncle Fuku would be the only legal character out there, with the other characters in my skit (save for Kintaro) too generic to be an issue. I assure you that no anime' distribution/production company in the world would sue Jafax for this sort of thing. What's the point? It's a parody, which is legally protected, and it's free promotion for the companies besides. If anime' companies were this fickle, you can bet fan subs would be a thing of the past.

I'm a writer, too, and I'd be pissed off if someone took my work and claimed it as their own, but if a group at the "Insane Authors Convention" did a skit with my work, I'd not only be flattered and laugh until I fell to the floor, I'd probably insist on joining in on the fun. If anyone has a problem with my work, you send them straight to me.

It would take an idiot not to sense then message by your tone, and clearly I'm no idiot. As you clearly want, I will withdraw my intention on entering the cosplay this year, unless I’m misreading you on this one. Next year, we have an NES theme cosplay planned, which I will send you well in advance to avoid any problems.

Though I must say that I'm disappointed in the fact that it took three years to hear the truth. I suspect the staff thought we'd simply go away, but that clearly didn’t happen. I'm disappointed beyond words how you downplayed the desires of the attendees (and not just me). I'm certainly not suggesting that Jafax conform to me, but rather the attendees as a whole. On that accusation, we've "conformed" many times to Jafax cosplay standards simply to be a part of it, and we've been accepted both times, with fantastic results. The statement that we're suddenly not good enough is very odd to me.

My friend just asked me why we're being blackballed when we clearly deserved those awards and (most importantly) those laughs. I can't answer him rationally or logically. Regardless of what anyone thinks, it's the fans that make the anime' or convention or festival or whatever, not just the people who organize it.

I will still be attending Jafax and I will still volunteer. I'll even still come to Jafax again and try to enter next year with more costumes on hand. I'm very upset that things turned out this way, but I'm willing to bury the hatchet on this matter and attend as an anime' fan and volunteer, but not a cosplayer. Not this time. Thank you.