Article: Sakura con 2004 another round of con

Sakura con 2004 another round of con

Like every year I went to Sakura con as my yearly anime convention and like every year a had a lot of fun. I got there early and pre registered so I got in almost immediately. I then headed straight for the programming staff room to get my work schedule. I had a few hours until my first work shift so I decided to get something to eat so I could figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of the convention. Lesson #1 A planning session at the beginning of the convention Is always a good idea so you can make sure not to miss anything important to you.

Then after seeing a couple of shows I headed to the panel room the convention wanted me to watch for a couple of hours. Lesson #2 Panels are really cool and attending them is usually a good idea. Unlike the video panels which show things that you can eventually watch any time of year the panels are only available at that time. Industry panels are the best of these since I was able to get a lot of free stuff including the new crown jewel of my anime collection, a Haibane Renmei poster autographed by Yoshitoshi Abe.

You also can learn a lot of information from panels. At the industry panels the various companies tell what new shows they licensed. I was manning the room at the time the Funimation and Geneon panels where being held so I learned what they where going to bring out. Funimation is bring out Spiral out sometime earlier next year. Geneon is has licensed the EX Driver movie and is releasing Kyougoku Natsuhiko - Kousetsu Hyaku Monogatari under the name Requim for the darkness. I missed the ADV panel as it was being held at the same time as the Fred Gallagher (who is the creator of Megatokyo, my favorite webcomic) panel.

I was able to catch the music video contest but my convention work prevented me from going to the other major events at the convention. I had no intention of attending the cosplay contest anyway since cosplayers are walking around just about everywhere the convention is being held. Standing or sitting in a well traveled hall until security asks you to move would be almost as effective and doesn't have a line and the cosplayers will generally let you take pictures of them. Naruto was the most popular thing to cosplay as this year.

I spent a lot of time in the wired (a huge room devoted to gaming and showing music videos continuously), a good deal more than last year. I also realized how much I suck at multiplayer shooting games, probably since I don't play them that often. Lesson #3 Be careful how much you play the more physical games like dance revolution or police 9-11, a shooting game that I got hooked on. Too much and walking can become difficult and you need to walk to get to different places in the convention.