Sakura Con 2016

As someone who is an anime fan as well as some who has gone the convention for almost every year since it's founding, I went to Sakura con this year. Like most years I rode the bus down to the convention center because a bus ride is the cheapest and most efficient way down there as well as a good way to travel home after you are dead tired from convention going. I arrived early enough that the preregistration line was non existent and wandered about the convention for a while. I wandered about for about a day and half at the convention and did various thing there. Here are a couple of notes of the more salient things that I noticed and did.

1. went to two of the idol panels and learned the following things. The idol boom is so big because there are a significant number of female fans. Thus both the Love live and Idolmaster panels were packed in a way that a To Love Ru panel could never be.
2. I went to the Sentai panel, no not company, the stuff that is turned into Power Rangers when it comes to America. It was interesting to learn about what was an inspiration for so many anime shows.
3. I saw Anthem of the Heart. A review will be coming soon but in a nutshell this movie was really good. Sometimes you get to watch a movie at a convention and this was one of the times when it was truly worth it.
4. I went to the dealers room to get some anime related goodies. I noticed that there were few items about shows that started last year. Offerings seem balanced between shonen dominated by One piece and Dragon ball, Various moe shows, and the trinity of Fujoshi bait shows, Free, Kuroko's basket and Haikyu.
5. The noticable favorite in terms of Cosplay this year is Undertale although like last year there is a good mix of different shows.
6. I did get one figure from Love Live. I decided that throwing fifty dollars for a random figure in a bag was the Love live way. I ended up with a Rin figure.
7. I ended up doing less that I had hoped to but I was undone by dehydration. Remember to drink plenty of water before you go to the convention and get your hands on any free liquid you can. 
   
   
   You can find the various convention pictures I took at think link

Sakura con 2015 late late blog

I know it has been a while since I have posted and I am sorry about that. Also I have noticed that I have forgotten to post my report of the last convention that I went to and I am even more sorry about that. So I have what I have written and I will post my next Sakura con report in a much more timely manner.

Like a good anime fan I went to at least one anime convention per year and for someone that lives where I live that means I go to Sakura Con. I live close enough to the convention that I can go to the convention site by bus, and given the nature of downtown Seattle it is better that I go to the place via bus rather than pay thirty dollars a day to park a car. I woke up early and was able to make it to the convention center at around eight thirty in the morning, and the convention wasn't entirely up in running and preregistration lines were very short, to the point of being non existent. I had a sandwich after that so I wouldn't have eat lunch at around noon when the lines are crazy. Over my time at the convention I went to several convention panels and learned several things along the way. Here is my list.

1. I had my first taste of Taiyaki on Saturday morning of the convention. Now I understand what Ayu was talking about although it most Japanese deserts it is lest sweet than American deserts. Although it might be hard to get I think that I would totally want to put Azuki paste on my Eggo's (for those who don't know what Taiyaki tastes like image said Eggo waffle with a slightly sweet jam in the middle.
2. I learned the rules to Japanese Mahjong. This is important because various countries have their own rules to Mahjong and Japan has one of the most complex sets of them all. It took about an hour to learn and I probably should have played some games to further set the rules in my mind. At least I think I understand the whole flow of Saki the next time I watch any of it's three seasons.
3. I saw the Jojo's bizarre adventure panel. I only learned a little about the series but if they ever make an anime of Diamond is unbreakable I will totally be all over that show.
4. I saw one of the Idolmaster panels. I won't be getting too much further into the fandom than watching the current anime but I got some more appreciation of idol fandom and how there is a whole format of the glowing sticks you see when there are concerts and how there is an interplay between the idols and fans.
5. There was plenty of cosplay this year. I found there was no truly dominant show like Attack on Titan was last year although there was a sizable Fate Stay Night contingent.
6. I played a couple of games. The most interesting of which is a drawing game called Mangaka which is available on kickstarter. I found it quite interesting and one that you can play with just about anybody.
   
   
   And here is the cosplay photos I took 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Sakura Con 2014 Back again

First of all I would like to thank all of the people who read this blog for putting me over ten thousands views. It's things like these that keep me wanting to keep at it.

The anime convention is a big social event for anime fans and detailing one's convention experiences is a necessity if for no other reason it breaks up the blogging monotony of seasonal previews and reviews.

I have no epic tales of my travels to the convention simply because I live about as close to the convention as I do to work. The only difference between my trip there and a usual day is that I took the bus there because parking is as expensive as a wall scroll and hard to find in downtown Seattle. The preregistration line was all but non existent as I got there at eight thirty and I was left to my own devices before most of the stuff was open.

I decided to go to the manga library first. Even though there was only a scatter-shot manga collection I managed to find a couple of things to read, namely a volume of Skull man and Flowers of Evil. Although I have only seen a couple of episodes of the anime version reading the manga gave me some better context for the story.

Another big part of my convention experience was my trips to the dealer's room as if you live in a English speaking country without Akihabara or even a decent Mandarake around convention is your best chance at getting anime merchandise. Even though I have gone to conventions several times before  I think I realized that hopefully one of the most permanent ways to spend money there was to buy figures and this time I decided to start building a of collection figures there. You can see my figurine buys below.

I went to a few panels at the convention. I learned a couple of interesting things (particularly about the up and coming Kantai collection fandom) a few of the panels ending up sounding a bit rote to me, probably because I have seen something something like them before. I know it might sound slightly arrogant but maybe I should try my hand a running a panel in a future convention.

I found that I was spending several hours in the AMV room during the convention. As the years wear on I seem to find that music videos that anime fans make take a lot of work and creativity to make and the people that run the AMV room always seem to find the best videos around so it beats waiting around ten minutes or so to see if the video you downloaded from AMV.com was worth downloading.

As fun as I found the convention I found my activity to be cut short (as well being part of the reason why this post has been delayed by about a week) by some rather ill defined fatigue. So I leave you with one final lesson, always remember to take care of your health because nothing ruins fun like sickness.

Also  I should post all of the cosplay pictures I took at the convention.