Sac-Anime General Report

Two weeks into the new year and I’ve already checked off one of my resolutions for 2007 – attending a convention. This past weekend I went to Sac-Anime and decided to interview some of the vendors and artists, using my MP3 player’s built-in microphone. So over the rest of this week, I’ll be posting audio from those interviews along with transcriptions because it might hard to hear what’s being said when there are hundreds of people in the same building.

I had never been to the Scottish Rite Center before so I didn’t have a good sense of space before I arrived. I had pre-registered and intended to be there before 9:30 so I could but I woke up a hour later than I had planned to and got there a little after ten. There were four main rooms to explore: the vendors/artists hall, the anime room, the panel room, and the video game room. The vendors’ hall had a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament going on during the morning and afternoon and the gaming room had the usual of Mario Kart, Halo, and DDR along with the PS2 import Bleach: Blade Battlers, which I played with some stranger and we had to get used to the idea that Circle meant “Confirm”.

Goods:

A lot of the tables inside the main hall were vendors. I tried to keep myself to a $60 budget and I did except that I wish I had brought a little more to get some cool bookmarks… Anyway, among my purchases were New Cutey Honey, Genshiken Vol. 1, Nodame Cantabile Vol. 2, Haibane Renmei 1 + Artbox, and the new Gumby issues #1 & #2.

I also got free in my registration bag a program book, a wall scroll calendar featuring characters from NecrOphelia, and a mini-figure of Sango and Kirara from Inuyasha.

Random Pictures:

This was one of the sample iron-on designs laid out on a table and too strange not to take a picture of.

As I was walking out for lunch, I saw a car that was all white except for the Japanese on the driver’s side door. After translating some of it, I think it’s the “personal use” car of a shop owner.

David I-forget-his-last-name (sorry, dude!) had some VERY nice prints at his table and you could have him draw something for you and pick it up a little later.

The screening room was almost barren in the morning and then filled up gradually until it was flush by mid-afternoon. This picture was taken during one of the Haruhi episodes; I’m sorry you can’t see much of the screen, I used a flash.

I only took one cosplay picture — this Domo-kun box person — because (1) I felt uncomfortable asking people to pose for me and (2) there wasn’t much space inside. There was this guy who looked like Koizumi but he walked away before I could get my camera out.

Interviews:
This was my first time interviewing people in a public space so please excuse me if I accidentally held the microphone close to my mouth early during the first two or three or if there are awkward silences. I have about 2 1/2 hours to sift through and chop stuff out but hopefully they will all be posted (with transcripts) by the end of the week. The people I talked to include, but are not limited to:
Bay Area Artists Unite (BAAU) [site]
Ayame Sakuma (Yaoimakestheworldgoround.com) [site]
someone from Gumby Comics [site]
Che Gilson [site]
Manga contestant Megan Lawton (Tale of an Emo) [entry]
Yoko Molotov & Amanda (Demented Dragon) [site]
Fat Rabbit Farm T-Shirts [site]
J-Rock Connection [site]

Related posts based on tags:

• SacAnime Winter 2009 Edition (0)
• I Enjoyed Sac-Anime 2008 But It Could Become A Bit Better (0)
• Twelve Moments 2009 Day 6: Hanging Out at Conventions (0)
• The Spoils of Anime Expo 2009, in Many Pictures (2)
• Strange News Story Involving A Missing Teen and A Convention (1)