Fanime 2017 Day 1
For the first day of Fanime 2017, I decided to cosplay as Gin from the short movie Hotarubi no Mori E. I had barely seen that movie a few months back, but immediately fell in love with it, and had to cosplay the main character. It was my first time wearing the costume all together, which is risky for most cosplayers. I didn’t know how it would turn out, but I figured I’d roll the dice. A handful of people recognized my cosplay and asked for pictures, which was great!
I roamed around the convention center for awhile so I could get to know the place. Honestly, it wasn’t that much bigger than the Sacramento convention center. Pretty much everything was on the second floor, which meant I only had to show my badge once and then I had access to everything. At SacAnime, I had to show my badge at pretty much every door to get in.
The biggest issue I had was locating the event / panel rooms and figuring out what days and times each panel took place at. The Fanime book listed the events, but they didn’t say where they would be or at what time. It also seemed as if all the events and panels were at the nearby hotels, not the convention center. The convention center was saved for the exhibit area, artist alley, video game hall, dance halls, and karaoke.
The exhibit area was the largest part of the convention, as expected. There was just about anything you could think of in terms of otaku items. I saw art work, dakimakura, figures, props, costumes, video games, and a lot more. They also had some food in the back of the exhibit area. Of course, the food was over priced, but it was still pretty good. There were sandwiches, takoyaki, churros, fruit cups, milk tea, soda, and a few other things I don’t remember the name of.
A completely separate area was for the artist alley, which was a bit unusual since there were a few artists in the exhibit area as well. I wonder if you have to have some experience or something in order to move from the artist alley to the exhibit area. Or maybe you just have to pay more.
The video game hall was massive and included so many different video games. If you go to conventions to play the games, Fanime is definitely the place for you! They had recent PC games like overwatch, classics like Super Mario on older Nintendo Consoles, fan favorites such as Super Smash Bros on various Nintendo consoles, Dance Dance Revolution games with the metal dance pads, arcade games, and much more. It was far superior to SacAnime’s video game room.
As the day went on, I met up with HezaChan again for a quick interview. She then introduced me to a few of her friends, one of which created a line of outfits called Bloomeruni. You can see her designs and buy one for yourself if you’re interested.
The last thing I did that night was visit the swap meet. It took place in this large air hanger / tent sort of place. There were so many awesome things, and a number of people were willing to negotiate on prices. I found a few video game instruction booklets for two dollars! There were also some cool toys for a few bucks. However, there were a few sellers that way overpriced their items. I saw some used video games for around $25-$35 when I could get a brand new one for $20.
After shopping around for an hour or so, I went back to my hotel and packed up. I would be checking out of the first hotel the next day and checking into the second one right next to the convention center.