Sakura-Con 2013: Day 1

It was so exciting to finally be able to dress up as Kirito from Sword Art Online (from the first arc). Initially I had planned on going as Riki from Little Busters, however my friend decided to go as Misa from Death Note first instead which was fine. It all worked out in the end to which I will detail soon.

So I woke up at around 7ish to drive to Seattle. Interestingly, the traffic wasn’t too bad on the way there. I also managed to find parking in the Convention Center parking lot! It was amazing! So I took my tripod and my camera with me to randomly take pictures as I walked around. I also forgot to take a picture of myself before leaving so I did that exactly. I also took some pictures of some cosplayers before I decided to wait in line for the Exhibition Hall/Artist Alley.

As I was waiting, I managed to take a few pictures of some characters that I enjoyed and found to be fairly well done. I still had a lot of time before they opened the doors so I decided to roam around again and take some more pictures. I didn’t think I’d find a well done Touhou group and I’m glad that I did! Also, finding Snake cosplayers is great too. There’s one of Tohsaka Rin that I thought was really well done! The cosplayer herself I thought was very cute as well. Now as you can tell, the area began to start getting crowded as it got closer to the opening of the halls. I also managed to find a Sket Dance cosplayer! I was thrilled (and she too was thrilled that someone actually recognized her and asked for her picture)! I of course, had to take a picture of AkiraKirai and purchased a few prints from her. Afterwards, I decided to try to find Yuumei (yes, you know who I’m talking about). I had issues finding her until I finally decided to check her DeviantArt to see the graph that she had posted and I finally found her way later. Yuumei was kind enough to let me take a picture of her. She’s very pretty, as many of you can tell.

After spending too much money in the halls, I decided to roam around once more. I often went in and out of the halls and continued to bother poor Yuumei and purchased some more prints from her ahaha. It was around there that I finally met up with my friends, Leah and Jack. If you ask me, I think she did very well in cosplaying as the character Misa. There’s also something comforting knowing that Jack is around too. I dunno what it is; older brother aura?! And I still roamed around the halls because I’m dumb like that.

I did finally manage to wait long enough to start going to the Reki Kawahara autograph panel. I purchased a wall scroll that’s apparently exclusive to Sakura-Con. I also did forget to mention that Sword Art Online was the big thing going on in Sakura-Con and that’s why author Kawahara Reki,  and singers Aoi Eir and Haruna Luna were coming to Sakura-Con. It’s also their first convention in the United States. It was also the singers’ first time performing in the US as well. Anyway, I got my wallscroll signed and I was happy. You can see the poster towards the end of the gallery.

So, do you want to guess what I did while I decided to wait on the next panel? That’s right, I roamed around and went in and out of the halls, again. I also decided that I wanted to take a picture WITH Yuumei this time and she was very kind to do so.

Finally it was time to get in line to get autographs from Aoi Eir and Haruna Luna. Let me tell you, holy shit they were cute. On the way up there, you apparently could purchase some large boards specifically meant for them to sign. You’ll see them towards the end of the gallery here. They were hilarious when they saw it. Apparently Leah and I were the first ones to present the large ones to the singers. They asked if I wanted the entire thing signed and I decided WHY NOT. I BOUGHT TWO OF THEM. Thanks to that, they sit quite lovely upon my walls. The FUNNIEST AND MOST GREATEST THING IN THE WHOLE GOD DAMN WORLD THOUGH that had happened while Jack, Leah and I were waiting. I was complaining that I saw no Little Busters cosplayers even though I was already prepared for it. About five minutes later, I take a look at the person in front of me. I see the jacket and then I begin to think to myself, “Oh wow, that jacket looks just like Masato’s… WAIT!!” I checked the hair and noticed it had those same spikes that Masato did. Then I saw the headband and I knew in a HEARTBEAT THAT THIS GUY WAS COSPLAYING AS MASATO. I asked just to make sure and he seemed pleasantly surprised to find out that I knew who he was. He happily posed his kinniku pose for us. I was so freaking happy. You honestly don’t know (except for maybe my friends Leah and Jack).

So after that… guess what I did?! GOD DAMN IT YES, I FUCKIN ROAMED AROUND TAKING PICTURES IN AND OUT OF THE HALLS AGAIN. Something happened while I was in the Exhibition hall though. I was suddenly stopped to get complimented on my Kirito outfit and was promptly asked to attend to the Sword Art Online cosplay contest hosted by CrunchyRoll. I figured why not, considering the fact that I was doing nothing. So I go in there and of course, there are a lot of Kirito cosplayers. There were some Silicas, Leafas, Yui, and some African-American guy that they had thought he was cosplaying as Agil but wasn’t. The contest apparently made decisions on the likeness of character, response to answers, enthusiasm and time spent on construction. I bought mine entirely, so I figured I had no chance whatsoever of winning. I found it quite impressive to know how much time some of the people spent on their cosplay. One of the girls that cosplayed as Silica spent around 100 hours on her costume for the sole purpose that she liked the character and wanted to spend more time with Kawahara Reki (which I always found her around him whenever he was in some panel).

The contest gave a grand prize to two winners. The girl I had mentioned earlier won the first ticket. At  this point, I figured that I really had no chance. However they began to say something that reflected upon what I had said and I ended up winning the second ticket. When they had asked me why I wanted to cosplay as Kirito prior to them giving out the prizes, I had answered similar to this, “I really enjoyed the character that Kirito was. The struggles that he faced was something that I found profound and attractive. I wanted to cosplay as Kirito to represent the obstacles and struggles he had to face.” Apparently this answer had given them the “feels” and they found it outstanding and gave me the second ticket to the grand prize. It had something to do with Kawahara Reki so I thought that was cool.

There was still some time before the Guest Reception so yeah. I’m not gonna even say it anymore. The one guy cosplaying with hair over his eyes and rupees on the ground was outstanding. He wasn’t JUST cosplaying, he was role-playing as well. He spit out the same lies that you’d normally hear from Zelda: Majora’s Mask. He even did the gesture when someone would come close in the game.

When the three of us decided to take a small break, I took out my cell phone to affirm whether or not the guest reception was at 7pm. It wasn’t. It was at 6pm and it was already 5:40pm. It was then that I had parted with Jack and Leah and headed towards the Sheraton hotel. It was very crowded as you might see in my picture and it took a while for them to check off everyone and allow in. I also took a picture of the table that I sat at but I decided not to take anymore pictures until the guests came. It was a little saddening because everyone was arriving except for Aoi Eir and Haruna Luna. They finally arrived though and everyone at my table was overjoyed. It was fun being able to talk to them in person. Of course, after people had started to notice that they had arrived, they started lining up at our table. Eventually when enough people had finished getting their autographs and pictures taken with, I got up and decided to join in. I’m terrible with poses and it seems that Haruna Luna wanted to do a similar pose to whoever she was posing as and it was hilarious! She’s very adorable and totally made me feel conscious about my smile.

Afterwards, I hung around and decided to take pictures with the director of Sakurasou, Ishidzuka Atusko and finally with Kawahara Reki. It was funny though because as I was having someone take my camera to take a picture of me and the author, someone had shouted, “OH MY GOD EVERYONE, REKI WITH KIRITO. TAKE PICTURES!” That night was probably one of the most fun I have ever had in my life. It was an experience many will never get to experience.

After taking pictures, I hung around for a bit and there was a guy who was probably the most obnoxious, loudest, and awesome guy ever. He spoke Japanese pretty well and was acting chuunibyou the entire time. For those of you who don’t get the term chuunibyou, here’s an example of what he did. He would reenact some scenes from animes, talk very loud with wild gestures, all sorts of other things. He was very enjoyable though and definitely made the two singers laugh a lot. His name was Nathan and he had came from Canada. I don’t think he has added me on Facebook yet, but I can probably expect that after the Con is over.

Finally, I decided that I had stayed long enough and decided to go home. It was quite a bit of stuff to take back from the care (it doesn’t look like it but it was), but it was fine. Took me a bit to put some space away and put posters up that I had purchased from Yuumei and Akirakirai. I even had to move the DeadSpace 2 poster onto the ceiling just to get some room. If you were to ask if I felt satisfied, I think I could honestly say I was.

I’ll be doing Day 2 soon! So just you wait and you’ll know what I did on Day 2 of Sakura-Con 2013!