Anime Destiny took place on November 13, 2016 at the Martin Luther King student center at the UC Berkeley campus. I have heard of UC Berkeley’s anime con during my time as an undergraduate student at San Francisco State. I never had a chance to attend the student organization run anime convention. I’ve always heard great things about it, I just never had the chance to attend. With regards to my colleague, Lady Saiyan, I decided to go as a last minute attendee. $10 got you into the student run event that lasted for a good chunk of a sunny Sunday. Anime Destiny is a small con. If I were to eyeball, it would be less than 100 or so attendees. This is great if you want to chill with friends or talk to artists in artist alley.

This Cal alumni and student driven event had a few panels run by current students, local cosplayers, and college professors. Students ran a karaoke room in the morning. Most tracks were played of karaoke video streamed from YouTube and Nico Nico Douga. Vocaloid, J-pop, and anime songs were typical choices of those who sat in on karaoke. Local cospalyer and Cal alum, Carmilla Jo, also hosted a How to Sew panel and also invited Q&A for sewing newbies. Another panel hosted by a Cal professor was about Japanese grade school traditions from uniform styles, why students had two pairs of shoes, school calendar, and other aspects about Japanese school culture that differentiate from the American K-12 system. The same professor also did a presentation on translating manga in the context of fan made scanlations. He made interesting points on how a scanlation group was run and legal red tape that runs through this grey area of fandom.

Other interactive events included Anime Jeopardy where people in the audience and the audience can answer anime trivia for fun and prizes. There was a cosplay contest later in the evening where about five entries (myself included) showed off their costumes for fun and prizes. The event was judged by the cosplay guests, Carmilla Jo and Princess Marley. Anime Destiny had a robust artist alley. This artist alley had about 50 or so vendors. Unfortunately, because of the low attendance, some artists barely broke even. The artist alley was open until 6PM and this is where most attendees gravitated towards. There was also a game room on the upper floor where people can play various rhythm games and tabletop games. If you came with friends, this was a nice, quiet space to pay something like Cards Against Humanity.

While this wasn’t quite a cosplayer photoshoot event, the UC Berkeley campus, particularly this side of Sather Gate is great for photos. I was even tempted to Disneybound as Mike or Sully from Monsters University because Sather Gate was right there. A version of Sather Gate and the campus tower appear in the Pixar movie. There’s some really nice places in Zellarbach Plaza where you can have some nicely done urban shots. Because of the school setting, there’s a few places within the student center where you can have some school themed shots - great for sports anime cosplayers! Overall, this was a very chill event that was very much needed after the tumultuous presidential election the following week.

Most attendees were locals to the East Bay and students of Cal. It was a younger crowd, but for the most part, the kids were well behaved and respectful of the UC Berkeley campus facilities. In terms of programming, while there was quite a bit to do, I did find myself wishing I had more of my peers at this event. This is a great con to meet up with friends to catch up. I would also reccomend this event to cospalyers and photographers for some amazing photo backdrops. I have very few complaints - one was the lack of food services in the student center save for the coffee place that was open later.

While Berkeleyis foodie heaven, not all of restaurants in the are an easy grab and go. Also, once you wander off campus, it’s bum central which can be uncomfortable for attendees, particularly if they don’t know the area. Additionally, there needed to be more staff outside directing lost attendees to the third floor of the student center. I ran into some people who didn’t know where to go and I was more than happy to point that out. However, it would have been nice if there were signs outside pointing to the direction of Anime Destiny.

Cal Animage has a reputation of having alumni in the anime industry and the convention scene at large. The students and recent alumni who made this possible did a swell job. I am glad that Anime Destiny is still around after all these years since my undergraduate days when I started blogging about Bay Area Conventions. This was a pleasant and mellow con, given the state of affairs of our country. Sometimes you need that event where you can just chill.

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