My First Ever Anime Convention
SakuraCon 2008

It was a chance in a lifetime for me to get to attend my very first anime convention- and I reserved that right for the only convention in Washington State... SakuraCon 2008.

My friend, Colleen, and I departed from Clarkston on March 28th. at 10:30am. We did run into some slow traffic on Snoqualmie Pass when a car skidded off of the road, but we made it by 5:50pm. that evening- making me hope that next year, if I do attend again, I make it on time for opening ceremonies. The first night was dedicated to exploration of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, where SakuraCon has made its new home due to the number of fans showing up. After an hour of being there, we headed for our hotel room where I spent my first night in complete anticipation of Saturday.

Saturday we got there at 10:30am and spent the day visiting different panels and areas. I got to see a lot of characters on that day and a few were from my favorite genres, Shoujo Anime and Sentai. There were lots of characters from Shounen, but the ones I was interested in were from those 2 areas- of course, cosplayers were there with Sailor Senshi costumes but there was a few there who chose other animes, including 1 who cosplayed Angel Hikaru from Angelic Layer. As to Sentai, 2 were there cosplaying Nanami Nono and Kouta Bitou from Ninpu Sentai Hurricanger in their school uniforms, complete with Hurricane Gyros- but the biggest surprise was on the 2nd. floor, where one cosplayer dressed the role of AbareKiller from Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger perfectly, complete with helmet. I wish I had charged my battery Friday night, because I wanted to have pictures of all that I saw- but even though I didn't, I did find that LLNN was covering SakuraCon very professionally- and they even have the pictures to prove it. But I did my best to promote SailorMoon America at the convention- now, I hope to see a few SakuraCon attendees visiting the site and leaving comments on it.

Sunday morning, we started for home at 9am and, with the exception of some avalanche control measures on the pass which delayed us about 45min. we got home without a lot of mishaps and dampened spirits. This may have been my first time attending SakuraCon, but it will not be my last... and next year it will be even better!
One thing I'm going to make a reasonable effort to do is assemble an anime group where we can do anything that we can- and that even goes for attending any anime conventions we can do. Keep looking here and where I post on the web for more updates on my personal adventures in anime and cosplay.