Fanime 2011 Review by Rukazu

Review for Fanimecon 2011
by Rukazu

So I'm back from Fanime, tired and still sore from walking and dancing around in heels and a bit saddened now that the con has ended. Nevertheless, I had an awesome time this year and I hope to come back again next year!

Day 1
And now to report on each day of the convention. I had originally planned to come up to Fanime with my friend his car but he got sick and I ended up taking mine instead. The drive up here wasn't too bad, just tedious more or less. My friend from anime club was driving my car because I had gotten no sleep the night before so I was not going to risk it. We got in about 1:30 in the morning and I fell asleep for a few hours before having to wake up, get my badge and start taking photos on day 1.

Overall, Day 1 wasn't all that exciting, I took several photos and did three cosplays, but other than that, it was not all that great since they had the AMV contest right during the opening ceremony and no other major event during that time. I cosplayed at Nagaji from Pop'n Music for a little, before switching to Sergeant Fury from Full Metal Alchemist and hung out a bit with the FMA cosplayers. After that I switched for Hitsugaya the rest of the night and just talked to people and took pictures and played a chess tournament and built a puzzle in the game room.

Day 2
This was probably the craziest day of the entire con. We had an interview with Rick Meyers, author of anime at 9:30 and that went on for about 45 minutes and we were commenting on the moe trend that animes have been taking for the past few years.

I had a bunch of gatherings to attend and run starting with CLAMP at 11:30. Then Ryan, Matt and I had Shin Megami Tensei at 1:30pm.


After that I had to switch for Naoi Ayato for the Key gathering at 3:00pm which went okay since we didn't have a very large group and as I was finishing up, I noticed the tales of gathering was disorganized so I offered to help run their gathering as well.

At 6:00pm I had to run Code Geass because Kannazukii, the original organizer, told me she couldn't make it, and we had planned to hold it outside, but had to move inside because of it started raining a bit


Before I could catch my breath, I had to run across the street and line up for the Musicfest concert which was amazing in my opinion. The first act was Yuya Matsushita and he performed a few songs from Black Butler and Durarara! And he really impressed the audience with his singing and dancing skills.

The second act was FLOW and I was so happy that they were able to come back this year.

During the middle of their concert, FLOW mentioned about the recent tsunami and how it sucks and that Japan is doing its best to rebuild. They added that while this sucks, they're not going to let it keep them down and thanked the audience for their moral support and in thanks, they said that they wanted to sing their hearts out to us. It was the most heartwarming thing I have ever heard at a convention like this and I truly do thank them.

The final thing we did at the end was a midnight Persona gathering in the Lobby that lasted for about half an hour.

Day 3
The day wasn't too bad as it was a lot less hectic than the previous day. 10:30 was the Hetalia gathering and it was way more organized than last year as we had a committee of 10 people or so to get everybody lined up and positioned for photos. It was huge! Not kidding I'm estimating almost 180 people in cosplay and almost another hundred photographers.

I swapped for Hitsugaya again really quick to do Bleach which was right afterwards and I did him for a bit and then went inside to switch for Lyrica for Touhou which was at 2:00pm. What was really cool was that right before the gathering started, we had four dancers do the Bad Apple dance to open the gathering. Again I was not planning on running the gathering, but I decided why not.

I stuck with Lyrica until the Masquerade and I was invited to the backstage to take photos. I've never had the chance to take pictures backstage so I thought why not. The nice thing about it was that you get to see some of the most amazing cosplay right up front and in detail. The battery on my camera died midway through and another photographer was kind enough to lend me his camera, and put it on a CD for me later.

After finishing taking photos I had to run back to the hotel to switch for Lelouch one last time for the Black and White Ball. I managed to dance a few times with a CC in a black dress and I was really happy. By the time the dance ended, my feet were killing me and after getting back and taking a hot shower, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out for 6 hours.

Day 4
We didn't do much on this day actually. We planned to get up at 8:00am, but we were so tired the night before that we slept in to about 10:30am. I decided to take one last look at the Dealer's Hall and Artist's Alley to see if there was anything that I'd want to get and I decided to buy a Rise Kujikawa figurine. I had to head back to pack up and although I wanted to stay a bit longer, when I found out that once I pulled my car out of valet to pack, I couldn't repark it so my friend and I decided to just take off. We had some homework and stuff to take care of so it was probably for the better anyways.

I want to say that looking back at this con, it and probably AX will be my favorite ones in all my con experience to date. I looked at the Masquerade videos and they were alright, too many dance routines I think although the cosplay was amazing. The Dealer's Hall, Artist Alley and Game Room was superb as always. The one thing that got me down a little bit was the scheduling as they didn't have a schedule for the panels on Day 1. Other than that, the gatherings were good and the cosplays were amazing. I really do hope I can come back next year to do Fanime again!

I'll be posting pictures and comments about them soon.

This is Rukazu signing out!