Sakura-Con 2011; A taste of the "Holy Grails" of Anime Conventions, Day 0 and 1

After 6 hours of traveling, we arrived in Seattle, checked in and headed to the convention centre.

While most of group were picking up their badges at registration. I received the opportunity to have an industry pass. Everyone picked up their pre-registered badges. We enjoyed our time left in the day, before the inevitable morning that was to come.

In the early morning hours and I started to work on the body paint for my cosplay. With help of two of my friends, Jamie/Nick, we finished doing the temporary tattoos by 11am. Unfortunately, I missed Opening Ceremonies even though the group agreed to miss it. With some extra time, I decided to go into and hang around the area of the Exhibitors' hall.

Scanty and Kneesocks with Avenger. Outside the Exhibitors' hall.

Blazblue Brofist!

The outside plaza was packed full of cosplayers and photographers. Thank goodness it was warm and sunny.

Milky Holmes cosplayers, done alright.

During the K-ON! Musical Performance, near the beginning, there was an audio issue for about 2 minutes in the performance. Stephanie Sheh (Yui Hirasawa’s dub voice actress) continued singing on without stopping. That shows how professional she is and I was impressed that they were signing the songs in Japanese. After the issue was corrected, the performance went smoothly.

After the performance, we were shown the first two English dubbed episodes of K-ON! In the screening of episodes 1 and 2, I was amazed at how well the dub was done, in my opinion; I think the English dub of K-ON! can be a good example on how dubs should be done right. At the end of the screening, I managed to get a quick photo with Cassandra Lee Morris, Stephanie Sheh and Cristina Vee.

When we had to leave, I decided to check the Outdoor Plaza again. During my time at the Outdoor Plaza, I managed to get a few photo shoots with a few cosplayers and cosplay groups.

Galaxy Express 999 and Maetel done right. *thumbs up*

Respect Samus, respect.

Ace, who also attended Tsukino-Con 2011.

Hsien-Ko/Lei Lei.

Akihito; "You need more muscle!"

Taokaka wondering, "what's that."

After some "brofisting" and respect knuckles. I asked if I could pose with her guns for a bit.

I left the Outdoor Plaza to rest up in the hotel room and prepare for the Anime Swimsuit Contest. With 2 hours left before the contest, I decided to leave the room early and see how active Sakura-Con was at night. Even though it was night time, there was a lot of activity going on from 8pm onwards.

In the contest, I managed to impress at least half of the room however that wasn’t enough to win and I had an awesome time participating, especially with last years’ winner who was Horo (from Spice and Wolf) and this years' winner Yoko. With this, I now have an interesting memory (and experience) for the future. In the future, I would like to participate again, when I have a new cosplay and have more ideas to use. After the Anime Swimsuit Contest ended, we had a small photo session with this years’ Anime Swimsuit Contest winner, Yoko. From it was approaching 2:15am and retired for the night. Check back for Day 2 and the final day of Sakura-Con 2011.

Sadly I don’t have any photos of the event since I was participating in the contest however; a few of our Tsukino-con group members watched the event and a Youtube video of the event is on Youtube. Left to Right: Zack, Mario (One of the judges), Me, Yoko (This year's crowd winner).

UPDATE: I have found a photo of last year's winner cosplaying as Horo for the Anime Swimsuit Contest at Sakura-Con 2011.

Horo sure loves her drinks. If you think this is awesome, here's a bit a jelly to go with that, I got to sit beside her and touch her tail. Too bad I didn't get a photo with her after the contest due to a wardrobe malfunction.