This trip was a little odd to begin with. With the trip being last minute, it was only Tim and I going to FanimeCon 2012 in San Jose. Unlike past trips to San Jose, we would leave a Thursday morning, run around town all day, checking out the mall, riding the light rail, going to Japantown and walking Paseo De San Antonio Walk in downtown. This year I started a new job and couldn’t get those day off. Even though I accumulated enough vacation for a couple days, I did not was to use them, but for July.

The plan to meet at my house around five in the afternoon. Something came up the last minute and Tim showed up 30 minutes later. I was a little worried because I was thinking, “it was holiday weekend” and there’s going to be traffic getting out of the Inland Empire. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Luckily I got gas earlier Friday so I wouldn’t have to worry about it on the way to the airport. I was astonished to see that there was no real traffic through Riverside. Sure there was a slowdown, but no traffic, so we made it to Ontario International at no time at all.

After I parked, we got our boarding passes and breezed through security. You would’ve thought it was early morning or something. We had another hour and a half before our 7:30 flight, but at least we got there in plenty time. Once we got seated on board our place, it was packed to the rim with people—full house! Luckily I got an aisle seat. Good thing the flight lasted only an hour. It wasn’t too bumpy and landed a tad earlier at San Jose. After we got our luggage, we got a taxi and arrived at the Motel 6. Is it me or was our taxi driver unsociable? Oh well.

We got our room after we checked in. When we entered the room, okay, it looked clean, but it want really clean. We were only going to be there a night we thought to ourselves. We unpacked and Tim realized he forgot his camera battery charger for his “good” camera. So throughout the time we ate at Denny’s next door, we were looking online for open store that remotely sold camera equipment—but to no avail. All were quite some distance away. We didn’t have a car and it was already going on ten at night. Oh well, we tried to crash early, but can’t. All night long there car alarms going off, people walking up and down the aisles, people talking, strange noises coming from some unknown places. We tried to sleep, but I think Tim got more sleep than I did—I think about 30 minutes.



We arrived at FanimeCon the morning of May 27, the second day of the convention. For quite some years now, we haven’t arrived at FanimeCon on the second day, so we weren’t sure what to expect…registering. We left the motel, we stayed at that night, very early. We caught the 5:36 am light rail to arrive at the Fairmont Hotel a little after six. It was too early to check in, but it was worth a try amyway. When the front desk clerk checked for any available rooms, there were none, which was expected. He was supposed to call me when rooms are available, like he said he would do, but we never got a call. We check in our luggage at the bell desk so we wouldn’t have to lug them around.

Day One

It was around 6:30 am when we walked up to McEnery Convention Center to get our badges. Tim didn’t pre-register, so he had to go to that line. I went to the pre-register line. It was a couple hours before registration was open. Still, I met some good people to talk to during that time. Since we got there early, both lines went fairly fast for Tim and I. We got our badges at the same time. Time for breakfast at Peggy Sue’s.

Back at the convention center, a little past ten, we were about to go to the Exhibit Hall. There was a line…a long line at that, so we decided to go later when the line dies down. Instead, we were about to walk into Artist Alley to look around and to look for prospective artists for our magazine. We didn’t know there was line for that also, which mixed into the Exhibit Hall line. We stopped in time before going in and before people in line started yelling at us. Funny, we got that far—probably because Tim and I were a little too dressed up for Fanime—in our sports jackets. I wanted to change into cosplay, but we didn’t have our room yet. We decided to join the growing crowd of cosplayers outside the center and take pictures…material for the magazine. They way we were dressed, it seemed we were there for business rather than pleasure, but it was for both.

Before we went to the Exhibit Hall, we took a quick sideline trip through the Gaming Hall. It was same as last year. There was a great selection of games for everyone. We finally made it to the Exhibit Hall. I’d also say it was the same as last year, but every year, as with most conventions, there will be vendors who always show up, not show up and new ones. One such vendor I noticed from last year was the one who sold vintage anime merchandise near the Exhibit Hall exit. Being the way I am, that’s what I look for, vintage and rare items. Most of the other vendors sell much the same things. I picked up a few vintage art boards and books that I thought I would never find there, but that was the next day.

Right after lunch was the Kia Asamiya panel which was at the Marriott. His most famous works are Silent Möbius, Kidō Senkan Nadesico, Compiler and Assembler 0X to name a few. He’s also did a mange adaptation of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. We got in line for that and was one of the first few at the beginning. Soon after, the line became very long. This was person I wanted to see the most and was very excited to see him. Once the panel started, this was the first time I’ve seen him in person. The panel was all questions and answers…mostly stupid questions. Mr. Asamia is a fan of western culture and comics, primarily Batman and other DC Comic titles. This influence shows in his works. He’s also a big vintage car otaku, in which many his characters appear in his car drawing as race queens. One thing—he’s never owned any of the cars in his drawings. After the panel, he had an autograph session at the Fairmont Hotel. I was supposed to bring an original, Japanese version, first print, first volume of his Silent Möbius manga, but I forgot to bring it with me.

We haven’t heard anything yet from the hotel and it already going around two o’clock, so we went to hotel to see what was going on. I walked to the front desk clerk again—the same damn one—and there were sill no room yet. About an hour more they said. At this time of the day, I needed some coffee, so we stopped at a nearby Starbucks to kill time. While there, we realized that we need a few things and may see if we could find a camera battery charger, which Tim forgot to bring. We bought was we need minus the charger from a Walgreens a couple blocks away. One thing I learned—maps are useless if you don’t know how to read them. On the way back to the hotel, we stumbled into a Ross. It was worth a shot, but they didn’t sell the charger we need. Tim asked a security guard of there’s anywhere nearby that might have something remotely similar. he told us to try a pawn show or the Verzion store down the way. We talked to people at Verizon, but no luck. The pawn shops seemed sketchy.

Back at the hotel, we finally got our room. We had our bags sent to our room while we rested and refreshed for a bit. To keep us going, we downed a couple of energy drinks. Hopefully, they’ll work because we were already too tired. Our luggage arrived soon after, unpacked, check our equipment, changed into my redone Macross Frontier, Ozma Lee cosplay and set out to the convention center. I realized that this debacle with the hotel, wasting our convention time, could have been avoided if I had more properly planned for it. But a two-month plan to a convention is short-notice. Hopefully Tim’s camera batter will last us for the rest of the convention.



I felt totally great being in cosplay and to be in full convention mode. I did feel like I had more energy now. With no plans to do anything for the time being, we enjoyed walking around the convention center, taking pictures, buying stuff at the Exhibit Hall, taking more pictures, talking to people and so on. All this time, I was keeping in mind to look for some people I know and meet up with them. We also had plans to check out the Square Enix panel at seven. I didn’t know there was a problem with them. Instead, we met up with Tim’s cousin, who showed up and showed him around the Fanime convention, since he was in the area from Salinas. This was all new to him despite being a fan and had gone to other conventions in the past.

Dinner was up next and we all decided to eat at Original Joe’s a couple blocks down the street. I had to go back to the hotel to change out of cosplay. One thing I learned about Original Joe’s from experience—they frown on cosplayers and regularly dressed people because the restaurant is a classy place, despite being a major source of revenue during Fanime. I got back into my sports jacket and met up with Tim and Eugene at the lobby. Around the time we finished dinner, Tim and I were totally spent, so we turned in for the night. It’s hard to think that our day started 4:30 am that morning, with no sleep the night before and do all the things we did the entire day—amazing stamina.

Day Two

We were well rested the next day. After changing into my Space Battleship Yamato, Susumu Kodai cosplay and getting ready, Tima and I went to have breakfast at the usual place. Back at the convention center, we took it easy, walking around then finally, got in line for the UC Gundam vs. Other Gundams panel, at the Marriott, moderated by Gilles Poitras. While the line, Tim noticed some One Piece cosplayers walking into the convention center who could have been friends I have been looking for. It’s like searching for a needle in a small haystack.

The Gundam panel was very interesting. There were many more things I learned from comparing the “official” Universal Calendar (U.C.) from all the other “calendar” Gundam shows. For one thing, the other Gundam show, may appear, but don’t have such an intricate storyline and background story to the official one. In the U.C. universe, even though many people worked on the different series, their story lines could be tied to main events in the U.C. and not disjointed.

After the panel, we made it to the other side of the convention center to the Fanimaid Café to have a little snack. We were too busy to out, walk a couple blocks and eat real food. The best thing about the Café, other than the pretty and cute maids. Okay, the second best thing is that you’re seated with totally random people and having awkward moments. One of two things could happen, you could open up, meet and converse with your table mates or totally ignore them and stay within your group. Good thing I like to initiate meeting and talking to new people. It depends on the other people at the table if they want to converse also. The first group we met were pretty cool. We were then introduced to our cute maid, Chika-chan. At one point, we were going to play some table games, but more than half of us opted out. But instead we talked over having snacks. Moments later, another group was sat at our table and they seem to keep to themselves. When Chika-chan started talking to them, because a couple of them had those expensive, robotic cat ears that “moved according to your thoughts.” I had to admit, they were very interesting, though pricey. Chika-chan tried them on and it looked cute on her. Good thing because the whole table became involved in the conversation. When we finished having our snacks, we had out picture taken with some maids and set off the Stage Zero for the Fanimaid Live show. The Fanimaid show was fun and cute. The huge crowd around Stage Zero was proof of that.



We had time to kill before our next scheduled event, the screening of Space Battleship Yamato 2199 in one of the video rooms. There’s were many great talented people at Artist Alley as we walked the aisles. Though many of the works were from many popular anime titles, the artists applied their owen particular style to it. I do admit that some of the artwork looked better than the original character designer’s work. Many were also selling arts and crafts, homemade jewelry, accessories and so on to suit any taste people could have. We also went outside to take more pictures. By coincidence, there were a group of female, Afro-American, cosplayers that I had a feeling that I recognized. After taking their picture, I asked them if they were from the East Coast and had attended KatsuCon. They told me that they’re from Los Angeles and that they had attended KatsuCon. My hunch was right, they were Chocolate Covered Cosplay (C3). We had an article last issue about World Cosplay Summit Preliminaries at KatsuCon. C3 was in the article and made the top ten in the WCS Prelims.

It was almost time for Yamato 2199 to start so we made out way to the video room. Yamato 2199 is a retelling of the original Space Battleship Yamato (Uchū Senkan Yamato) from the 1970s with new character designs and new animation, mixed in with CG (computer graphics) scenes. Even to this day, every time I hear “Uchu Senkan Yamato,” the opening theme by Isao Sasaki, I’m overwhelmed with emotions. There’s no describing it, but it gives me goosebumps all over. During the screening, I realized the guy sitting next we was the same guy I met at the pre-reg line the first day. After the screening, we talked for a while in the hallway. Come to find that we had much the same interests, other than vintage anime.



After we freshened up at the hotel, we went to the Cosplay Spectacular even at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. We had waited until the line was gone before we went in. In the meantime, we took pictures at the convention center until the lines were done. Good thing though or I wouldn’t have met some interesting people at the convention center. Over the years, we learned that it was kind of useless waiting in line for events at the auditorium. No matter where you sat, the view of the stage was always good, except for the main floor, unless you were in the front. The further back you sat, increasingly, more heads get in the way of the view of stage. While most of the skits were good, there were some that stood out. One of them was the IdolMaster skit where the cosplayers performed one of their songs. The Black Butler entry was also cool and memorable to me. There was also the Ranma ½ skit that was interesting. I liked their mirror idea. The Pokémon Anonymous skit was also hilarious. Another good one was the guy with the dancing lights. He reminded me of Hawaiian fire dancers, but to techno music. Honestly, I can’t remember whether the performer was guy or gal. Sorry. The one that was the most legit and topped my list was the Princess Tutu performance. The ballerina’s performance was spectacular, beautiful, emotional and delicate. There was no way that performance could be faked by a regular coslayer. She had mad skill. We called it the day after Cosplay Spectacular. But that not all. There were many other panels going on late at night, most over 18 panels and other such things.

Despite being tired most of the time, attending FanimeCon was well worth the trouble of getting there. Actually, the one thing that surprised me was a pocket schedule was included in the swag bag. I missed it for most of the our first day here. This year, we had a better idea of what was going on. We didn’t waste time going to the information booth every other hour and remembering what panels and events we wanted to see, like we did last year. The one thing I do regret is not being able to come two days before and be at the convention for all four days. The first day, the night we arrived in town, there was a Leiji Matsumoto (Yamato, Captain Harlock, Cosmo Zero, Galaxy Express 999) cosplay gathering which I wanted to be part of because of my cosplay. All in all, we most certainly had a great time, attending events, meeting people and sharing a common hobby with like people. The slogan for FanimeCon, “by fans, for fans” is true to it’s word. Even over the years since my first FanimeCon in 2002, FanimeCon has still remained the most fun convention I’ve attended.

Day Four

Monday was our last day so we decided to take our time doing things. I regret not seeing Kristen and her friends in cosplay while we were there. I still did want to meet up—at least for breakfast. They must’ve waked up late because by the time she texted me back, Tim and I already had breakfast and ready to head out to the convention center. By the time I met up with Kristen, we were in the Exhibit Hall, and met briefly. Still I thought it was cool to meet someone, at a far away place, from our neck of the woods. After the Exhibit room, we had to back to the Fairmont and get our things packed.

Even though we packed fairly quick, it was another story checking out. If you were at the middle floors of the hotel, it was a pain taking the elevators. It was always pack with people from the upper floors. Instead of waiting for minutes upon minutes, we took the “bat cave” way down. It was sure easier going down the stairwell that the elevator, but we had to navigate through the hallways to the front desk. When we did arrive at the front desk area, it was like a madhouse. There was a long line for people checking out. We didn’t check out, but got into the line for holding our luggage. And that took almost 45 minutes! After we left our luggage, we walked back to the convention center. We pretty much relaxed for the rest of the day, taking pictures, until the convention ended at four. By then, we got our luggage from the hotel and took a taxi back to the airport. Is it me or are all the taxi drivers in San Jose totally unsociable? They suck rocks! Now, the airport is another story.

Whilst we waited for our flight and had “dinner,” there was this totally obnoxious man that sat next to and started talking to us. Nothing but complaints about this and that. He even blamed “our” generation about all the problems that was going on with the United States and the rest of the world. Talk about a bitter old man! It’s scary to think he’s going to be in the same flight. This man was either psycho or unpatriotic because he married a Russian woman after three failed marriages. He wasn’t Russian, but an American for Southern California. What a bitter old man—to put it kindly! There was a point where a couple kids, that sat next to us, whom we found out later came form FanimeCon also, were getting nervous around him. So being the person I am, I saw between the lines and started having a conversation with this guy. Though most his stories were about him while in Russia, I do admit some stories were interesting, but egotistical. He even called American men…girly-men. Men were not men and Well, I can see that. But anyway…can you believe this bitter old man! After he left, we all felt relieved—to put it kindly. That’s when we started talking to those kids from Fanime. So the otaku united! Good thing the flight back wasn’t too crowded.