Sakura-Con 2015 – Days 2 & 3 – Saturday & Sunday

The post you didn’t know I forgot to post, for the con you should’ve gone to but didn’t.

Day 0 ‒ Thursday: http://www.crymore.net/2015/04/08/sakura-con-2015-day-0-thursday/

Day 1 ‒ Friday: http://www.crymore.net/2015/04/19/sakura-con-2015-day-1-friday/

You’re not missing too much if you haven’t read those. Though I do display (un)surprising prescience with my prediction that I’d only finish this series in 2016.

 

 

Day 2 – Saturday

For the majority of this day, puddi will be absent because he thought subbing Plastic Memories was gonna be a better use of his time than enjoying the only good anime con on the continent.

 

11:00-12:00 Cosplay Skits

Since I don’t have any video for this, I imagine we were told that all the skits would be going up on Sakura-con’s Youtube channel. And since the last thing uploaded to their channel was in 2013…

 

12:00 Crepes

Waited an hour in line for some dulce di luce caramel crepés. Spent about an hour eating ’em too.

 

2:00

Route A (+Rekyu +shcboomer): Arc Systems Works Interview

Route B (+puddi): Walkcon

 

2:30 Karaoke Idol Finals

As I had earlier bought out the Ponycan booth, I was offered an exclusive signing of my Yuki Yuna BD by Yuki’s VA, Haruka Terui… which was at the same time as Karaoke Idol. So I skipped the signing. Celebrity means next to nothing to me, but no-stakes fan competition?

I’d have a bunch of the best performances for ya here, but the lady running the contest told me that press (which usually means just me, cuz who else would cover these events?) was to be seated one row behind general audience seating. So every one of my shots was ruined by this annoying creeper and his friends:

 

4:00 Karaoke Idol Finals (cont.)

The rest of the crew came in toward the end of the contest, so we regrouped and stayed for a few songs after the room switched back into you-call-it-karaoke (which at Sakura-con is limited to anime/Japanese songs alone — sorry Disney fans; you can go ruin some other con kthx).

As we were watching people sing, some chick went up to Rekyu and non-surreptitiously snapped some shots while he was sitting down. Now, Rekyu wasn’t cosplaying, and this girl wasn’t staff or anything, so it came out of nowhere. As the boys and I were looking at one another like “Did that just happen?” she scurried off into the con with a quickness that could set records for awkwardness.

 

5:00 We decided to wash away the taste of Rekyu’s assault with pizza, so we headed back to the hotel.

puddi offered to walk three blocks down to a local pizza place and grab us a couple pies from there, but I was determined to save us $3 at any cost, so we ended up ordering from Domino’s instead.

Digesting what only technically qualified as food, we made ourselves some mixed drinks, but had no good way to mix them. …Until one of the boys pulled out a stick of pocky & invented the greatest drink known to man:

Can’t mix a drink without the things now, which is getting to be wallet corrosive seeing as my local Target raised the price of a box from $1.17 to $1.99. Yeah, it’s fucking bullshit.

 

6:15 Gardinelia/Kanako Ito Concert

Figuring we couldn’t do proper con coverage without at least giving the main event a shot, we traipsed on over to the concert hall to see what was up.

So we got in, joined the mosh pit, and waited 45 minutes for the concert to start while fucking Log Horizon music throbbed painfully in the background (and you’d best believe all the weebs chanted along to the one Engrish line from the OP they could remember).

After Kanako Ito finally got on stage and finished her first song (Hack Into the Gate), we figured we’d bounce and see what the rest of the con had to offer.

 

7:30 Hotel regrouping (the hotel’s like a block away from the con proper, so it’s always fucking convenient)

 

8:00

Route A (+All): Japanese Cultural Appropriation Panel

Route B (+None): Post Sakura-con pix on tumblr

I had max bonds going into the con anyway, cut me some slack.

 

8:45 Caught the tail-end of the panel

It was your typical captive-audience, race-based, narcissistic ranting from a petulant child whose clearly coddled upbringing addled their mind with the privilege of wealth & a complete lack of responsibility.

So no, I didn’t like it.

 

9:00 Walkcon, Smash, Kanzume

 

10:40 Down to karaoke, last call

Now, I’ve got some pretty sweet video of Rekyu & puddi’s ballad this night, but like my rare memes, I’d rather not share, so I’ll let you DIY their song of choice. (Feel free to post a link in the comments if you actually do — this may surprise you, but I’m all about self-promotion.)

After closing the place out, we threw back to our room to get a bit… tipsy.

 

12:30+

And tipsy we got. This was Rekyu’s first time doing shots with the boys (minus puddi who was fucking fansubbing), so we made it special.

Events:

• Test of courage’d our way to Hobo Bridge
• Attempted to climb the metal gazebo (Rekyu exclusive)
• Ninja rolled all over outside, cuz “Like Link, rolling makes me go faster” (Rekyu exclusive)
• Tried to start a Falcon-kick fight club (Rekyu exclusive)
• Introduced a Magic Kaito cosplayer to the most important magic of all: friendship

There were more events but I’d like to be invited back next year, so we’re gonna say the list ends here. \o/

 

2:30 Back to the hotel room so we could sleep with each other

I passed out almost immediately, but the rest of the boys have a bit more stamina, so they stayed up to watch bad anime until 4:30.

 

 

Day 3 – Sunday

Sundays are generally uneventful even at a con like Sakura-con. Hell, it’s a testament to the event that we managed to find anything to do.

 

8:30 Breakfast, early morning, Subway

God, Subway breakfast is underwhelming.

 

9:45 “From fan to pro, working as a professional geek”

With a title like that, we knew we had to visit this panel.

It takes a lot of cojones to run a panel presenting yourself as a pro when your highest # of views in a day doesn’t even come close to Crymore’s lowest.

And when you don’t make a dime off the site, despite your stated “best efforts”? When you have to work another job to pay people to write for you? When your greatest accomplishment was six fucking years ago when Huffington Post randomly quoted you in an article for information you copy-pasted from a now-defunct news blog?

God, what an awful panel. Though, you could say we had some fun dragging the aforementioned information out of him. :3

 

1:00 Rolling Grills

I was super hyped for this — a 2-hour q&a with Wit Studio? That’s what a special panel is supposed to be, baby!

Unfortunately, Funimation was in charge of the panel and decided to devote most of it to simply screening the first four episodes of the show.

You want a fucking screener? Show it in the vid rooms. Don’t rob the guests who flew out from fucking Japan by giving them only 30 minutes with an audience they would never be able to interact with otherwise… And especially don’t sabotage the questions by essentially limiting their scope to the first four episodes of the show. Poor fucking form.

Obviously, I didn’t stay. The anime was terrible anyway.

 

??? AMVs

This middle of the day’s sorta blurred, but I think I killed a lot of time in the AMV room with Rekyu before we got bored and played walkcon for the remainder of the day.

Have an AMV I don’t recall seeing but was good anyway, so fuck it:

 

5:00

Ran out to get some Sakura-ccinos.

These things are objectively bad, but goddamn are they delicious.

 

6:00 Comments & Suggestions -> Fare thee wells

We drop by this session every year. It’s a good way to make sure the con’s staying on track (RIP Ohayocon), and looks like it is. 2016 get hype.

 

 

…Speaking of hype, it’s about time to see my place, isn’t it?