Sakuracon 2012 Day 2 Wrap Up

By Dan Morrill On April 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In Conventions

DSC_0310 (Photo credit: Dan Morrill)

Day Two of Sakuracon was the bomb, the sun was out, and there were so many amazing Cosplayers that having to decide to be in the building or out taking pictures got to be a real decision at some points. We had one of those rare April sunny days, and this brought out not only some of the best Cosplay costumes I have seen in a long time, but also the horde of Cosplay photographers to take pictures of them.

Add to that the “there are a lot of things on tap” to the menu and people were having a blast watching movies (and sleeping in the theater), going to panels, picking up some Sakuracon merchandise, then going out and seeing the amazing costumes on display. Some of these costumes people obviously spent some serious time on and should pass easily in the perfect 10 of 10 rating for how these things were put together. The merchandise hall was packed as usual, but with the main theme we picked up on yesterday, everyone was being very relaxed about the whole thing. Dealers are already starting to sell out of stuff, which is making for an awesome dealer vendor day on the show floor.

Overall this is turning into a huge Anime party on the west coast. I had the chance to speak to some national dealers yesterday. A National Dealer is someone who goes from show to show selling stuff, and he was saying that this is one of the biggest and best shows he has been to in a year. That bodes well for Sakuracon, although I am also seeing the people with money coming in with tight budgets, and not having enough money for more than food. This will put a crimp on some dealers, and some of the locals did not come this year. Selling Anime is a very tough choice for some store owners, the industry changes too fast, and there are few solid heroes outside of the retro Pokémon or Mario Brothers. The Cosplay costumes we have seen have been awesome, and people sunk some serious money into them, but as for buying stuff, we are watching some participants going home with little else than memories. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Anime industry now that books and DVD’s are pretty much so dead. Some of the book and video vendor’s shops have been like ghost towns in the middle of shopping fantasy land for Anime.

Here are the pictures though, hope you enjoy them. Feel free to share; all these pictures are share and share alike, Creative Commons 2.0, credit back to the photographer.