In the life of every anime fan, there are many precious anime moments: watching their very first anime, seeing the last episode of their favorite series, passing out after playing an anime drinking game...and, of course, going to their first anime convention. This is the heart-warming story of my very first convention. You may laugh, you may cry, but one thing is for sure: you will pause, perhaps have a cup of coffee, and become nostalgic about your own precious anime moments (Please ignore the nonsense of the preceding sentences...this is being written during the summer, and all the mindless, sappy summer movies are melting my brain :P).

It all began on the drizzly Friday evening of April 27, 2001. I was sitting in my basement watching TV (Iron Chef, probably ^_^) when I got a phone call. It was myself three years from now, calling to tell me to be careful around traffic...no, wait, that's what happened to Kyosuke in the second Kimagure Orange Road movie...Actually, it was my boyfriend (now fiance) Josh, and he was calling to ask if I wanted to go to Sakura Con with him the next day. Apparently, his mom was going to spend the day in Seattle with one of her friends, and she was willing to drop us off in Everett for the convention. I had been planning to go see the Centennial Invitational track meet, but I decided that the convention was more important, and agreed to go.

The next morning I got up early (like, 8:00 ^_^;;), got ready for the convention (meaning I put on my Magic Knight Rayearth shirt, and then proceeded to bug my parents for money ^_^), and waited for the arrival of my chariot to the convention (in other words, the dirty little Kia). After Josh and his mom picked me up, we went to go get her friend. Let me tell you, getting lost in the suburbs around Portland is NOT fun...we actually ended up turning around in a bike path that we mistook for a driveway...Anyway, once we found the woman's house and got onto I-5, it was smooth sailing. Josh and I entertained ourselves by having thumb wars and playing Jan Ken Pon (I usually lost, since he's a habitual cheater at those particular games :P). We were making pretty good time...that is, until we reached Seattle. Suddenly, the freeway was packed with cars, and we inched along at a snail's pace for about 45 minutes as we drove by the city. Once we got out of that mess, it was once again smooth sailing the rest of the way to Everett (which was only about 20 miles). As we drove into town at about 1:15, we realized we weren't sure which hotel the convention was at, so we just turned into the first one we saw, which was a Holiday Inn. We then immediately realized we were in the right place when we saw some people in costume...Josh's mom began fearing for our safety ^_^;; We arranged a time for her to pick us up (8:00) and went into the lobby. And so, the adventure began...

The first thing we had to do was register, so we got into line. A guy came up to us and gave us registration sheets, telling us, to our horror, that they were out of Saturday passes and we would have to buy the three day ones. We were thinking that it would really suck to pay $40 for one day. We started filling out the registration sheets anyway, hoping that things would work in our favor somehow. As I was filling out my sheet, I noticed it said that people under 18 had to be accompanied by a guardian (I was three weeks from turning 18 at the time :P). When I innocently asked Josh what I should do about my age, his simple reply was, "Lie." I don't like to lie (damn my guilty conscience!), but alas, I wanted to get in, so I was forced to say I was born a year earlier than I actually was...I felt so dirty :P After we filled out our sheets, we still had quite awhile to wait in line, so I went to the hospitality room and got some ice cream. This was followed by several more trips to the hospitality room, as both Josh and I were hungry. One of the times I came back to find him holding a minor's Saturday Pass. He said he had bought it from someone for $15. Well, so that solved my problem...now I wouldn't be forced to feel guilty over registering with a false age ^_^ After about half an hour, we were finally near the front of the line. We were both handed bags full of free stuff, including a catalog, a bunch of posters, and an event schedule. Josh got his pass and we found out why we had been told earlier that they were sold out; apparently, they were out of adult day passes, but, instead of forcing people to buy three day passes, they were selling minor's passes with a note on it saying that the person wasn't really a minor :P Doing that, of course, opened them up to having a bunch of minors writing the same note on their own passes to pass themselves off as adults, but oh, well...all that's important is that we got in ^_^ By the time we were both registered, it was about 2:00, and I was ready to begin experiencing my first anime convention.

We walked on over to the other building of the hotel, which is where everything was being held. I immediately began wishing I had brought a camera, because I saw a lot of great costumes, including a really good Ascot. At first, the two of us just wandered around seeing where everything was. Finally, we got in line for the dealer's room. The line went fairly quickly (The line controller, by the way, was a guy Josh calls, "The guy from Missoula," a guy he had seen at the Con the previous year). Once inside the room, I needed a minute to take it all in. There was tons of stuff to see: Manga, tapes, DVDs, posters, models, cels, pins, CDs, and even a booth with cosplay materials. I looked at all the booths before I bought anything, as I knew that some things might be cheaper at different booths. After my careful price comparing, the first thing I bought was Trigun Maximum 1-3. There was up to 5 out at the time, though I thought 6 was out and asked the guy if he had it...(but that wasn't even out when I wrote this report...). Anyway, he didn't have any more manga...However, there were some Trigun sunglasses at that booth, which I stupidly did not buy...man, I really wish I had now, though, since those things usually go for $175 on Ebay...Anyway, after that, I picked up two Ever Anime bootleg CDs of music from the Rayearth OAV series...I love that music, and it was the first time I'd seen the CDs for sale. Later, I bought The Dragaonball Z Hit Collection 8 (The one with all the hilarious character songs). Man, is that CD funny ^_^ It was cheap, too, but not because it was bootleg; I got it from a place that sells second-hand CDs from Japan, which is fine with me ^_^ Another one of my purchases was the Animerica Gundam special. Josh also bought a few interesting things, including a model of the Swordfish II from Cowboy Bebop. After we were finished with our purchasing, we left the dealer's room and got some stuff to eat at a table that was set up near the pool of the hotel. We spent this time to look at the video and events schedule. We discovered that there was anime showing on different TV channels in the hotel rooms, which Josh said they hadn't done in previous years. This really sucked for us since we didn't have a room and thus couldn't see all the shows we wanted to. As we ate and looked at the schedule, we loosely planned out the rest of our day: At 5:00, we would go to the Vancouver room and watch the Magic User's Club (Err, from now on, I'll just call it by its Japanese name, Mahou Taukai Tai!). We would stay in that same room for the 6:00 showing of a "Special ADV title" (Come on, with a listing like that, they're just inviting curious people to come watch ^_^). At 7:00, we would either try to catch the broadcast of the cosplay in the Pacific room, or watch the music video contest in the Coho/Chinook room. It was about 3:30 when we made our plan, so we still had a bit of time to look around for other stuff. We tried to get into the cosply area, but we were turned back by a door guard saying only cosplayers were allowed inside. Then we went to a room that had a bunch of fan-art for sale. Some of the works were really amazing. Later, we looked in on a Tenchi Muyou RPG...if all roleplaying is as scary as the few seconds I witnessed, then I'm not sure I ever want to sit in and watch Josh and his friends at their roleplaying sessions o_O;;

At about 4:30, we were running out of things to look at, so we just decided to go to the Vancouver room to catch the end of whatever was showing before Mahou Tsukai Tai! We walked in at the end of the first episode of Black Heaven, which was being shown subtitled, and saw the entire second episode as well. It was a pretty interesting show, althogh the concept just seems really goofy. I mean, here we have your average salary man whose "sound" (In other words, his guitar playing) can save the world. Well, it was pretty good, anyway, and it had a really odd opening theme song/sequence. At 5:00, the English dub of Mahou Tsukai Tai! began (we weren't sure why that, when they had the DVD, they were actually choosing to show it dubbed...). We saw the first two episodes, and I must say that they were different from what I had been expecting...but that isn't a bad thing ^_^ I really liked what I saw; to me, the episodes were very funny and interesting, and I can tell already that there must be many romantic capers in later episodes ^o^ It's a series I would really like to see more of. After that, we all waited in anticipation for the "Special ADV title." Once the title screen came up, we saw it was Orphen, a series that I had never even heard of before. We watched three dubbed episodes of it (once again, DVD...dubbed...why?), and it was a pretty interesting start to the series. We have the guy who looks like Heero training the guy who looks like Quatre, while the adventure-seeking girl who looks like Minako tags along ^_^ Of the anime I saw that day, the one I'd most like to see more of is Mahou Tsukai Tai!

We emerged from the Vancouver room a little after 7:00 and tried to get into the room where the cosplay was being broadcast. However, we soon found out the room was full. OK, Plan B: We then went to the room where the music video contest was being held but, alas, that room was full as well. Hmm, our fool-proof had been...well, fooled :P Looking at the schedule, we discovered that the cosplay was being broadcast on one of the hotel TV stations, but that didn't help since we didn't have a room :P We wandered around for awhile, got some more stuff to eat, then finally ended up at the hospitality room, where, lo and behold, they were watching the cosplay on TV. I had really wanted to see it since it was my first convention...My god, American cosplay sure is scary o_O;; I vaguely remember a couple of the skits I saw (Most have probably been blocked out of my mind for good reason ^_^;;). One of them involved a bunch of characters trying to find a date for Piccolo (Who, by the way, had a great costume). In the end, he ends up running off with Dende. I think my personal coolest costume award goes to the person who was dressed up as Deatchscythe Hell...I never knew a Gundam costume could look that good! It was amazing, and must have taken weeks to put together, and was probably very difficult to put on and walk around in. But anyway, most of the skits I saw were frightening, and are swimming around somewhere in my unconscious where I can't access them, but will probably end up describing to a psychiatrist years from now. About the time the cosplay ended, sushi was brought into the hospitality room. Soon after that, Josh's mom arrived and we headed back home. After arriving home around midnight, I listened to my CDs, looked at my manga, and eventually went to asleep, having successfully survived my first anime convention.

All in all, I think I had a pretty good first convention experience. Even though I was only there for about 6 hours, I still got to buy some cool stuff and was exposed to new anime. I hope I can go again next year, and possibly stay for the whole weekend...after all, I didn't even get to participate in the karaoke contest because it had been on Friday ^_^ What would really be cool would be if an anime convention started up here in Portland...we're a semi-big city with a lot of devoted anime fans (some anime showings at Portland State last year were apparently standing room only every night), we deserve to have our own convention ^_^ Ahem, not that that makes a difference, it's just what I think ^_^ Anyway, Sakura Con was a good experience which helped get me acquainted with the convention "scene," and I plan to attend many more in the future.

Pictures (err, make that "picture" ^_^;;)

A scan of my "legally acquired" pass...really ^_^;;