Article: Sakura Con 2010 The power of love, peace and energy drinks

Sakura con 2010 The power of Love, Peace and energy drinks

My yearly Sakura Con experience began as usual on Friday. What was not usual was that I was unable to get that Friday off of work and so the first part of the first day was spent attempting to get my convention pass. Unfortunately I learned the second most painful convention experience (trumped only by 2005’s lesson that Do not park violators will be towed signs are not to be trifled with or skirted around). Namely I spent an hour and a half in the pre registration line before giving up going to my afternoon work shift. The moral of the story never expect the convention to run smoothly.

Five hours later I returned to the convention to see that there was still a line. However I was informed that the line was only for those poor fellows who did not preregister like I did and so I waltzed right up to the booth for my convention badge with all the ease that I hoped I would have in the morning. With only a couple hours before the beginning of the second half of my work schedule (I know split shift are the worst) I realized that I had forgotten to bring my digital camera and thus I was locked out of one of my favorite convention activities, taking pictures of the cosplayers. I was able to see a couple of videos in the constantly showing Anime Music Videos Theater as well as checking out the free manga library. The next time I was free was at 3 in the morning on Saturday. Any normal or sane person would have gone to sleep but I am an anime fan and so the previous description does not apply to me. Thus I drove back to Seattle and read some more in the Manga Library. I also learned that trying to read mystery stories (in this case the first volume of Case Closed) is a fool’s errand.

Around 5 am I drove back to Everett in order to avoid paying for parking as well as securing my way back to home via bus, which is the only way to travel when sleep deprived. I arrived back at the convention in order to do the one thing that truly typifies Anime conventions, standing in a line for at least an hour. The reason that I did so was that Sakura Con was the place that the world premier of the new Trigun movie would be and even though Trigun is nowhere close to being my favorite show I simply had to see the movie; so much so that I trusted the unpaid and even more sleep deprived convention staff with both of my valuable electronic gadgets. It turned out to be a good experience as I enjoyed the movie even though it was played in untranslated Japanese which I have very little understanding of.

After the movie I wandered about for the rest of the day in a daze which consisted of meandering between various rooms for several hours. A lot of it was spent in the huge room set aside for all the vendors who had something to sell. I think I went there about three times before deciding what to buy. That was also the time that I took the vast majority of the pictures I have of the convention. I have noticed that I have developed a bit or wariness over what to buy at conventions but after a couple of goes through I went for some 20 percent off manga, a cheap model and some Touhou Doujinshi.

After a couple of hours of near aimless wandering it was time for the last event that I had even the minimum of lucidity for, the Touhou panel. Just like ninety five percent of the people that attended the panel I knew just about all the information given out but It was still very fun to go to. As for the rest it was just my trip home.