[Sakura Con ’25] Red

We’re happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time. It’s miserable and magical, oh, yeah.

I flew into Seattle on Day Negative One. Easter Week flights are not cheap. Thankfully, I have a place to stay on the east side. On Day Zero, I was hearing reports of long waits to pick up badges. My hotelmate and I ended up walking from the Westin to the Summit building of the convention center. It was 9:30PM; half an hour until closing time. We figured we would be able to get our badges in no time. Wrong! While I was able to get my press badge in an hour, my hotelmate was there until a few minutes until midnight. The registration hall extended their pick up hours. It appears there was a computer error in having things moved efficiently. This was the longest I ever had to wait for badge pick up. At least we were indoors, unlike the time I waited in the ADA pick up line for nearly two hours in 2023. 

Sakura Con 2025 was an off year. However, I still managed to have a good time. I appreciate the “by fans for fans” three day weekend all day anime event with a variety of programming. I felt three days wasn’t enough to check out everything. Sakura Con is divided into two buildings – the Arch and Summit. 

There was a different vibe compared to last year. For starters, I didn’t like how we had to access the website on our phones to check the schedule. The Eventeny app wasn’t the best choice; it was hard to navigate. We were asked to use the website on our phones instead. Even then, it did not specify which building panels and events were in. You had to open the event on a map to verify. Even if you were wandering around the Summit building, where most panels were held, the rooms did not have a schedule outside of what panel was being presented. Printed versions of the schedule were not available. I played a lot of “panel roulette” at Sakura Con! 

In addition to hosting two fandom history panels at Sakura Con, I like to attend panels unique to Sakura Con. However, because of the issue with the schedules, I would go randomly into a room to find out what was going on. I went to the Final Fantasy Name That Tune Panel to rest up my feet. While most of my FF knowledge is from XIV, I thought this was a fun one to sit in on. I also went to the Citypop panel. While I had a surface level knowledge of this topic, this gave me more recommendations to listen to. I had to leave once they asked me to stop singing the opening bars to “Stay with Me” by Miki Matsubara (can’t help it, it’s a catchy tune!…and more Japanese karaoke machines need to have it!) 

While I didn’t check out as many panels as I normally do, Sakura Con still had some programming that I was curious to check out. One of which was the cosplay swap meet. This is where you can bring in a cosplay and swap it with some other person’s cosplay they wanted to get rid of. They also had one for manga as well. I wasn’t sure if payment could be made “under the table,” it appears this was discouraged since swapping was permissible. In this economy, especially when AliExpress prices are skyrocketing, something like this would be ideal for all conventions to have. 

I also went to the manga library. The manga library is a good quiet space if you needed to take a breather. I do appreciate seeing rare, out of print Tokyo Pop manga in their collection. You could also read Japanese manga and books about  fandom as well. All you had to do was check your bag in, find a book, and claim a cozy spot to read. This is a good zone to de-stim from the Sakura Con crowds. 

I also went into the model kit build room. While this was mainly focused on newbies to gunpla, all skill levels were welcomed. They had complimentary entry grade kits and supplies to share for newbies. I did see quite a few builders bring in kits they bought from the vendor hall. They also had a gunpla contest on display as well. The gunpla staff was very friendly; we talked about getting into the hobby and how this was a newbie friendly space to start building. I wish I could say the same for the BJD (Ball Joint Doll) group I ran into at Sakura Con who thought their dolls were actually sentient. I mean…M3gan does take place in Seattle…

I also appreciated that there was a free cosplay photo studio hosted by Mahou Photo PNW. While I do support the amount of paid private photoshoots at the con, the range some of them were asking for was about $75 to $300. In this economy? I do appreciate a studio that had you have 3-4 poses in a simple studio set up and would then edit and upload them for free. A service provided by the convention is admirable. “Everyone should have their photo taken!” said the head of the studio. 

As a Californian I do appreciate going into a vendor hall with unique booths that I can’t find in Southern California. While I did see some of the usual jewelry vendors, I do appreciate that there was a kitty petting zone benefiting an animal rescue service. I did see some repeats of some tea vendors from Emerald City Comic Con. I loved that there were booths selling physical media. Yen Press had a booth selling manga from all sorts of genres. I stopped by a manga booth that had a rom-com manga I was looking for, “Cutie and the Beast.” Every year, I also have to stop by Royce on Easter Sunday to get my chocolate fixings. I also spotted a booth that sold very rare Sailor Moon merch from Universal Studios Japan. 

Artist Alley was huge. It took up the entire floor of the Arch building. While I did see some local repeats from Emerald City Comic Con, I took my time to browse Artist Alley. Unfortunately, on Saturday morning, a grease fire broke up at the Cheesecake Factory. Thus, most of the programming in the Arch building had to be shut down for most of the morning. A few panels were canceled because of the smoke in the building. Artist Alley would open up again at 3PM and would extend their hours until 9PM. This was an unfortunate accident that was out of Sakura Con’s control. 

However, I did like seeing flowers, jewelry, notebooks, sticker books, Y2K aesthetic prints, etc being sold at Artist Alley. This was a tough one to keep my wallet in my purse. I broke down and got a girlypop themed notebook in a pink Y2K aesthetic. After all, I need a new notebook to write my Y2K girlypop book…

I was a participant of Cosplay Wrestling Federation. I debuted as Hollywood Persian from “Pokemon” representing the Neko World Order. Our first show was at 10AM. We had an unfortunate time slot competing with opening ceremonies and the registration line. The line still snaked around the Summit building on Friday morning. Many attendees had to sacrifice their Friday to pick up their all access weekend pass. 

Both Cosplay Wrestling Federation shows went great! We had a new room to work with on Saturday for our big show where I competed as Sailor Mars (and made it into the finals). Even after running two panels on fandom history at Sakura Con, I very much appreciated that Cosplay Wrestling Federation gave me a special honor at the end of the show acknowledging 1) establishing Neko World Order (NWO) and 2) honoring my debut as a writer of fandom history with my book, “The Fangirl Diaries.” I signed a few copies of my book at the con. 

I did attend another event, on pure accident while waiting for my panel. I checked out Oriana Peron’s drag show where she cosplayed as Eternal Sailor Pluto. I was hearing cheers from Ballroom 1 and I had to check out what it was. In the spirit of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Oriana Peron hosted a drag inspired show getting participants from the audience. With help from Eternal Sailor Uranus (who came out lip syncing to “Red Wine Supernova”), both eternal Sailor Senshi gave participants drag race inspired challenges (ie: pose off) and made them lip sync for their lives if they were in the bottom two. I have never been to a drag show before and I really enjoyed this one! 

Overall, even with the vibes off at Sakura Con 2025, I still enjoyed it. I would rather be at a convention by fans for fans than a stuffy, corporate convention that is interested in showing off celebrities and influencers. Even with the issues Sakura Con was dealing with, many of the attendees hope that this is a moment for Sakura Con to learn to maybe consider mailing badges in advance, use a QR code system to scan badge confirmations instead of manually entering information in (which seemed to be the case for the long wait times), etc. I do appreciate there’s a lot to do at Sakura Con. I had missed out on the AMV rooms with themed programming, arcade (which I loved last year), and the ballroom dance, but that’s okay. I got to check out more things that I haven’t had done previously. 

I hope for next year, the Sakura Con board and staff take 2025’s feedback seriously. I still consider Sakura Con to be an A-tier con worth checking out. I’m still disappointed I didn’t get my interview with Sora Tokui, but as a long time con reporter, stuff like that happens all the time. Yet, I was happy they still brought out the voice of Nico Yazawa nonetheless. While it was confusing to find panels to check out, I still appreciate the fact that Sakura Con allows fan submitted content for programming (I can count the number of anime cons in Southern California that allow this on my hand). While Sakura Con may be a 2 hour plane ride on one of the most expensive travel weekends, this con is still worth checking out. So, I’m likely to come back next year…at the very least, just have a printed schedule somewhere.

And when you’re Neko World Order, you’re Neko World Order 4 Life.