Sakura Con 2011 Report

Admiring from a distance... Delicious Perfect Grade.
Easter weekend fell on the final weekend of April this year and Sakura Con followed suit. Things kind of worked out: worked furiously at my portfolio up until the week of Sakura Con to then work furiously on the changes for my costume. Thanks to stress, I had the worst migraine the night before but I managed to recover enough.

Thursday - Day 0
Would've took the day off from work if the workload wasn't so disgustingly big in the last month. Fortunately I was able to jet early and headed home to do some last minute packing before gathering the gang - ToFu and Sty. We ended up leaving Vancouver way later than planned due to all sorts of delays but luckily we still beat the border rush. We made a stop at the Premium Outlet which lasted longer than we originally wanted but it was a nice break from all the sitting.

When we finally got into Seattle, we decided on Kylie's Chicago (deep dish) Pizza for dinner, a mere half n hour before the place closed. After filling up we headed to Garret's place around 10:30ish to finally settle down. We stalked the Will Call page for as long as we could before we decided to call it a night.

Friday - Day 1
Will call finally opened early in the morning so we finally registered. We made our way to the convention to make it to VOFAN and Jo Chen's first panel where they demoed how they collaborated and completed the Sakura Con exclusive Japan relief poster. The level of complexity of the two art styles (Jo Chen and her 3D-style; VOFAN and his character design process) and watching their progress fast forwarded was pretty amazing.

After our first panel we checked out the Artists Alley and then took a visit to the Exhibitor's Hall where I tried really hard to find something I really wanted. I did spot Fate Testarossa Movie version for a whopping 280$ (overpriced 2x) which came out earlier this year. Sadly not happening. With a passing interest in the panel's title, we stopped in to see Jo Chen's BL Circle panel where my respect for her grew even bigger. :D

We finally had our first meal of the day at the Tap House before returning back to check out the "How to Talk to Girls" panel. To our dismay it really was just a counselor girl studying psychology? telling us that anime is not real life. Thanks for the wake up call. We escaped a few minutes into the panel to revisit the Artists Alley before heading to this year's Iron Artist where ToFu reigned supreme again against Garret. After kicking some drawing ass we went to the Swimsuit Contest. Horo and her can crushing with her thighs of steel was kinda cool. Just saying. We have no idea who won though since we left before the results.

Saturday - Day 2

Here's some Moriyama.
Autograph day: VOFAN & Jo Chen, Mitsuishi Kotono (fsking long line + angry fans), Moriyama Daisuke and finally Atsushi Suzumi. Since Atsushi's autograph line was short, we were able to request artwork as well. Lined up on her table were some of her other works and Tokyo Ravens caught my eye so I decided to request that from her. A pouty Natsume was completely up my alley!


Dancing girls in the distance.
Finally after hours of autographing, we hung out outside for some fresh air and watched some photoshoots happen. Checked out the Berryz Koubou concert a bit before heading to Cheesecake Factory for some food and to meet up with the SF gang. I had some firecrackers:


After food we loitered outside before I was spotted by some Touhoes. Decided to check out their little pre-party meetup at Gameworks and, yeah, lots of people showed up. I helped myself to their veggie platter to keep myself busy. P: There was some sort of role playing happening in one corner, Touhoes on a laptop in another, a bunch of non-cosplayer friends chatting to each other or karaoke (aka a capella). Eh. Anyway, I wanted to see that one DJ from Japan at the dance so I headed back to the convention. Unfortunately there was no schedule for the DJs performing so I didn't get a chance to hear that guy's music and I sure wasn't willing to wait around until 4am to find out.

Sunday - Day 3
We failed to leave on time in the morning and ended up missing some of the potentially interesting fashion shows. Following the schedule, we went to VOFAN and Jo Chen's final panel for some fun, free for all Q&A time. We ended up throwing a number of entertaining questions at them. We suspected that VOFAN was probably holding back on some of the answers to the questions since his wife was in the audience.

VOFAN and Jo Chen
Stopped by the Touhou panel after the Q&A to find that they were already doing the photoshoot. We made our final visit to the exhibitor's hall for any last minute deals and purchases to finish off the convention.

There was also an amusing encounter with the niconico.com stream. I'll just leave it at that.

Post convention: we made our way to Uwajimaya and Kinokuniya for some more shopping before heading to Crab Pot for dinner.




What a delicious mess.
My damage which mainly consisted of games I bought and shipped to my friend's place for my pickup convenience:


Gawd too many games.
Then came Monday and normal work life resumed.