31st of October 2006
After 14 long hours of flight from Italy to France and from France to Mexico (passing directly over the infamous "Bermuda's Triangle", and this time for real!) I arrived to the wonderful Mexico City, and waiting for me I found some of the organizators of the "TNT 12" convention: Paula (la marmota cosplayera), (Super)Mario and Daniel (Tazz's stunt double). In the meantime Ayaka, Otohiko, Mari Kato and Fumi (the japanese interpreter) were already there in the airport waiting for my arrive: I'm always in delay, also when I have to come with plane! :-)
The usual introductions (all first meetings except for Mari Kato that I could know during my presences at WCS 2005 and 2006), a great dinner with typical mexican food in a colourful tequileria and the day after wake up at 7:00 AM to go to appear into a TV show. With 7 hours of devastating jet lag on my shoulders and abour 1hour and a half by car we arrived at the TV studios where I just had the time to dress my brand new Katase Shima costume (from "Stellvia of the Universe"), smoke a cigarette to calm down my nervousness and we were ON AIR. Our schedule considered a brief introduction to "TNT 12" event by Paula and some questions to me, Ayaka and Otohiko about our "professional cosplayer" status, and to Mari Kato about the famous "World Cosplay Summit". Well right, because Mari Kato arrived directly from Japan to decide if mexican cosplayers could attempt the climb to success in "WCS 2007" and insert Mexico in the list of the participants to the world cosplay title contest.
They ask us some questions and in a few minutes our first presence in mexican tv ends between audience's applauses!
After that the TNT guys took us to a beautiful mexican countryside to relax riding some funny mini ATV (the 4 wheels motorcycles) in a big track in the middle of a wanderful place.
I soon realize to have a good feeling with Ayaka, the japanese girl, that besides she speaks very few english words she is a fan of male oriented sports, just like me! Speed races and lucha libre rulez!
Some hours after we came back to the hotel just to have a bit of wealty relax before being on the same evening again cosplaying (another brand new costume, Kasumi white version!) for the convention press conference. The organization prepared a conference in hotel's lobby and many persons arrived, magazine's editors, radio and television.
During my conference they asked me a lot of questions, and the audience was very curious to know something more about me and it was really funny to answer all their questions!
And I knew that also in mexico has been diffused the urban legend that tells about Francesca Dani's doll sold in toys shops in Japan! The most swanky girl of the whole world strike back!
The press conference closed with huge applauses and after a dinner with the organization I ran to the bed with my 420 minutes of jet lag hanging on my head like a Damocle's Sword but happy and satisfied of my first day in that magnificent city... This event already preannounced as "explosive", not for else it is called "TNT"!

1st of November 2006
Who knows me well knows about my extreme and almost maniacal passion for archeology and for all that concern ancient stuff, an heritage from my father that was usual to tell me goodnight fables with templar knights and evil inquisitors instead of Alice in Wonderland with the white cute rabbit... And since I was a child one of my dreams was to enter in Quetzalcoatl's Eternal City, commonly known as "Teotihuacan", or "the place where men becomes gods".
During my permanence in Mexico City I had the opportunity to visit this huge and undescribable place. I will never ever stop thanking Paula, Mario, Daniel and all the guys of TNT that let me touch the sky with a finger in every sense. Thank you very much!
Teotihuacán is the biggest precolumbian archeological site of North America. The city is located in San Juan Teotihuacan, about 40 minutes by car from Mexico City. Teotihuacán was built following a great urbanistic plan that was based on central axis, the famous "Death's Avenue" (Calzada de los Muertos), more than 2 Km long with the huge Sun's Pyramid on his side, in the heart of the holy way, and the big Moon's Pyramid as the ending point on the north side.
For a long time people tought that religious rites held in Teotihuacan didn't included human sacrifices, but when numerous sacrified clergymen's skeletons, surrounded by shells and cley figures, with their hands tied behind their back and pieces of jade in their mouth, it canceled any idea of Teotihuacan's peaceful rites..
Climbing up on Sun Pyramid and later on Moon's was a sort of suicide, I seriously started to think about quit smoking because arriving up there I felt like my heart in my throat because of all the steps we had to climb.
Anyway we were lucky, a wonderful sunny day let us take some beautiful photos that show this magical place in all his splendor and the "Marmuerta" that was going to be sacrified by me on the summit of Sun's Pyramid... LOL!

2nd of November 2006
And here we come! The very first day of "TNT 12" convention! We arrived to the location at about 12 AM, just in time to change and they immediately let us go on the "Cosplay Hall" stage for the international guests introductions, and where we met for the first time Alinah, a very nice girl being part of the organization that introduced us to the audience.
I and Ayaka we were both dressed like Morrigan Aensland (Darkstalkers), while Otohiko was a character from Full Metal Alchemist. As soon as we were on stage huge cheers from the audience immediately started and it was awesome to see how much mexican fans were happy for our arrival in their country! It was incredible!
After our presentation they took us to another area of the convention and that time on stage there was the great Gerry! Awww! It was wonderful to be introduced by him after that for months I heard his voice only on his radio show! ^_^ I <3 Gerry!
After that they quickly call me back to the changing rooms because there was a mexican radio asking for an interview. Some questions about cosplay and my carreer and then again to the crowd: the first autograph session was going to take place in the Cosplay Hall, a real "Meet and Greet"! The organization prepared some cards with our photos, three for each one of us (for me there were Francoise, Cassandra and Black Cure) that we were going to sign to the fans.
On the first day of the convention, the "meet and greet" queue was already very long that actually was going till out of the hall! O_O; And right there, between the people in the queue I met the great Viktor, founder of the "Francesca Dani Mexico Fan Club"! That's right! Now I have an actual fan club in Mexico! ^__^ It was very cool to meet Viktor, he is very kind and gave me as present the T-Shirt and the baseball hat of the fan club! Togheter with him there were also other members of the club, great guys too! Yooo-hooo! I love them all! <3 They just was wonderful, they followed me all the four days of the convention, with their fan club outfit chanting for me every time I went on stage! You rule dudeees!!
About half an hour signing pictures, the staff leaded us out of the Hall, our first TNT day was over, and it was awesome!
...but before leaving the convention to come back to the hotel, some photos: all the three Morrigan finally reunited from Japan, Italy and Mexico: Ayaka-Francesca-Paula! We Beautiful!!! Y(^_^)Y

Even Paolo, the official photographer of this website had success. In fact he was called from CosMode editor to do the official covering of the convention for the magazine: his photos will be published on the japanese magazine CosMode, in a special report to testify the high quality of mexican cosplays.
So even him had to work hard during the convention days: staff gave him a little photo studio where he took hundreds of pictures of cosplayers! For the lack of space I can't publish many photos, these are only some of the best.
Paolo was really successful, there was even someone asking an autograph also to him! ^_^;

3rd of November 2006
Second convention day has come, and with him the moment to officially wear my new costume of Katase Shima by "Stellvia of the Universe" ("Uchuu no Stellvia") anime series. I love that costume and the character of Katase, she is so funny! I'm gone mad to prepare the wig, but the result wasn't that bad!
Just some minutes to change and they ask me to do an interview for the official DVD of the event. Some question about cosplay, my feelings arriving to Mexico and my opinion about TNT's audience, plus various other questions about me and some curiosity to reveal.
After the interview there was the second "meet and greet" with again a lot of people asking for autographes, I couldn't believe my eyes! It was awesome to see fans arriving with my photos printed anywhere, posters, t-shirts, hats, all with my face on it and even big compositions of my pics.
In the afternoon took place the first official cosplay contest in "TNT 12", the one relative to groups. I was there in the jury togheter with Ayaka, Otohiko and Mari Kato and we were literally amazed looking the perfection of costumes and the wonderful interpretations.

And the winners of the group contest were:

- Best Performance: Gothic Gloomy
- Best Costume: Linage
- Prize of the Public: Shaman King

Immediately after the contest and after a big greet to the audience, we quickly ran out of the convention center just to arrive in time to watch a "lucha libre" show in the legendary "Arena Mexico"! Woooooooooooh! :D
I was so shamefully tired but it was awesome to see some of the most famous luchadores, unfortunately Mistico, my favourite, was missing, he was rightly enjoying his well deserved holidays...

4th of November 2006
Penultimate day of the convention and very big affluence for "TNT 12".
As always the wake up was early in the morning to have time to prepare myself and arrive in time to the convention.
I was going to wear another new costume (of wich I did a little preview during the press conference on the first day), Kasumi from Dead or Alive (white version), it was since a lot of time that I wanted to do this cosplay and I never had the time to make it!
On the late morning it took place the "Cosplay Passerela, Footstep for World Cosplay Summit 2007" in where cosplayers had to parade before of the jury (me, Ayaka, Otohiko and Mari Kato) to assure Mexico a place into WCS 2007 contest.
Till now Mexico has never been present in the participant list for the big cosplay event held in Nagoya, Japan, and so Mari Kato, came to TNT just to evaluate if mexican cosplayers could be capable to take part to the selections. And so, during the last two days, and even more during that parade mexico destiny for WCS would be decided!
Jury also had to give special awards to some of the participants, chosen personally from each of the members of the jury, in a few words the one we liked the most! After a lot of cosplayers it finally came jury's virdict:

Otohiko's Award: Jack Sparrow (Pirates Of The Caribbean)
Ayaka's Award: Rey Mysterio (WWE Smackdown)
Francesca Dani's Award: Queen Amidala (Star Wars - Episode 1)
Mari Kato's Award: Asuka (Evangelion)

I don't need to say that all the costumes were wonderful and mexican cosplayers were so easy to the approval of thery participation to WCS 2007!
After the parade, it was conference's turn, and Mari Kato, representing World Cosplay Summit, was going to answer to some question by the audience and she asked me to sit next to her and take place to her conference as former participant and winner of the "Grand Championship Award" of WCS 2005. The audience made us several questions about the event, the evaluation procedures and other contest related stuff, it was a pleasure to answer everybody.
The conference ended and it was time for the next autograph session and after that the second official "TNT 12" contest for male category. The selection was very hard but finally our virdict was unanimous:

The winners of the male contest were:

- 1st place Pyramid Head (Silent Hill)
- 2nd place: Predator (Predator)
- 3rd place: Lynx (Crono Cross)

Special Awards:

Audience Award: Mazinkaiser (Mazinkaiser)
Top Cosplay: Fumma (X)
Extravaganza: Patriarch (Saint Seya)
Cosplayers' Favourite: Valkirie VF1 A (Macross)

Some pics in the backstage with the winners and a quick change to wear back normal clothes: that night it was going to take place the TNT 12 party with all staff and many cosplayers! One of the funnyest night of my life, I met old friends and made many new friends and it was so fun to dance till late night and a lot of booze while performing sexy dances with "el Cuervo". Let me see your tanga, come on!!! XD

5th of November 2006
Last day of convention and biggest audience affluence! It was going to be an exceptional day but also very busy...
Some months before, Paula, my hermana marmota, asked me if I could wear again my Super Sailor Moon costume for the TNT final day, the one I worn for the first time at WCS 2006 because she and some other cosplayers was organizing a big Sailor Moon group. I liked the idea very much and so for this last convention day I went to wear again the clothes of the famous moon warrior, one of my favourite characters ever!
I had to be at the convention at 12 AM but I had to wake up at 8 in the morning because of the hairstyle of Sailor Moon, requiring a lot of time and doing it by myself it was a freakin'hell! After the hairstyling I had on my head about 1 Kg of iron because it needs an incredible number of hairgrips! I can't describe you how much painful it was!
I love Sailor Moon and this costume but I truly hate it because of the hairstyle similiar to a medieval torture! T_T And so please forgive me if I don't look so smily in the photos! Ehehe...!
Arrived at the location i met some very good mexican cosplayers that I saw many times on the internet and never in person, and... finally my dream came true! I gave a hug to Richie! Well yes, you got me, even Francesca Dani is a fangirl! I love Richie! And while I was waiting for photoshooting with Sailors mega group I had the honour to meet the "King of Cosplayers", ask him an autograph and get some photos togheter! Richieeee! *yhuuum*
Before the last photo session with the group there was the last autograph session during about an hour, and also that day the queue was very very long, and fans were very kind and nice: they gave me a lot of wonderful presents, so many that my baggage coming back home was going to explode! After that in the Cosplay Hall the editors of "Fandom", one of the best mexican anime magazine (where I write too!) asked for my presence for half an hour to their booth to sign the magazines to the fans. I had never singed so many photos and magazines like that day! Hundreds of magazines, t-shirts, hats and photos!
Then they called me on stage for the Sailor group photoshooting: Paula and the other girls were amazing, they created an awesome cosplayers group with all high quality costumes and very nice guys! I was very happy and honoured to take part to the photoshooting with them, it never happened to me to be part of a thematic group counting almost twenty people, and it was an incredible experience!
After that Paolo called me to take some photos with the members of the "Francesca Dani Mexico Fan Club" into the little photo studio, some shoots and some words with the guys that were so sweet as always and we went quickly towards the stage; next was going to be my conference and I was really excited and also a bit nervous, I'm always nervous in that moments! Thanks again to Marisol that supported me during the wait, I stressed her with all my weird speech!
During the few minutes before my conference with the audience there was the draw for one of my giant posters, and was a long list of persons that subscribed that lottery and I had to pick the lucky winner that would take home my poster autographed directly by me with a dedication. I'm sorry but I don't remember the name of the winner! T_T Please, forgive me!
And here it was the moment of my conference, questions an answers with the audience for about a whole hour.
My translator was Marisol (a mexican cosplayer very popular and talented), because I can understand quite well spanish but I still can't speak it, but I promise I will improve it for the next time! :)
The audience was very curious about me and they asked me many questions about various topics and mostly the guys of "Francesca Dani Mexican Fan Club" asked me many questions about my archeology passion and mexican archeologic sites. The questions were many and time passed quickly: it really was a pleasure answering to all people and they were very nice with me! They greeted me with a big round of applauses and I was almost moved! Thanks from the bottom of my heart to all of you!
After a brief jump to the backstage to drink something and relax a moment and I was on the main stage to take part to the jury for the female cosplay contest. The girls that subscribed the contest were many and it was really cool to watch all their performances and the quality of costumes was incredible . As always it was hard to choose only one winner because many deserved to win but the final virdict came and so let's go with the awards!

Winners of the female cosplay contest:

- 1st place: Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost In The Shell)
- 2nd place: Silen (Devilman)
- 3rd place: Ivy (Soul Calibur)

And then the special awards:

Audience Award: Asuka (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
Top Cosplay: Amazon Of The Red Dragon (Original Costume)
Cosplayers' Favourite: Sesshomaru (Inuyasha)

CosMode Award: Joe (Bakuretsu Tenshi), Sayuri (Memories Of a Geisha), Saint Tail (Saint Tail).
..

And so with audience's cheers, cosplayers greetings and the last lyrics of Larkspur, my adventure in Mexico, at "TNT 12" was coming to the end.
With so much melancholy I came back to the changing room, took off my Sailor Moon costume and went out to smoke a well deserved cigarette: but I suddenly noticed that even if the convention center was now empty there was a little group of my fans calling me from the other side of the stage. They were waiting for me I don't know how long! So I went to them for the last photos and autographs, and it was the really moving moment, it was incredible to see how much that people love me, people that I never met before in my life and that knew me only for some photos on the net or on some magazine. Really unforgivable moments, that I will bring into my heart forever!
So it't the moment for the last greetings to the staff guys, the backstage guys, bodyguards, editors of Fandom, Larkspur, Richie and El Cuervo, Gerry and all the others...
It was one of the best weeks of my life and I have only to thanks the people that I met in these days, that made my trip really unforgivable. I met soo many new friends and even old ones, unforgivable people. I came back to Italy with an huge bag full of wonderful memories that I will never forget!
Thank you so much for all you made for me...
.

Thanks to:
Paula ("Vamos! Vamos!"), Mario (the most patient guy of the Universe!), Daniel, Octavio, Ayaka, Otohiko, Mari Kato, Fumi, Richie y Toto , Viktor and all the guys of "Francesca Dani Mexican Fan Club", Antonio "AztecWarrior", Cuervo, Alin and her boyfriend, la BANANA, Alina, Ramon y Raul, Emilio, Gerry, Yoshie, Hitomi and her husband/boyfriend, Marisol, Fira, Hatsumi, Joon and all the guys of "LarkSpur" band!

I miss you all!!! I miss you all a lot!
P.S. From Paolo a special thank to Ulises! (Viva Mistico!)

Finally a last "special thanks": thanks to Quetzalcoatl (that finally, after years and years of dreams, let me enter in his ethernal city!) and thanks to Tlaloc (that granted us a week of good weather without rain)...

HASTA LA PROXIMA !!!
.