I did something unbelievable on Saturday morning. My cosplay choice was Panty from Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt: Sex and Daten City. While I admit that the GAINAX series is on par with “Whatever! You’ll Pay to Go See It, Fuck You!,” it does have its moments such as the Sex and the City, Mean Girls, and Transformers parody.

I began the day by perusing through the Hilton Hotel. Thankfully, Fanime Con still had their box lunch special for attendees: $6 for sandwich, chips, and soda. The Hilton side also had the Cosplayer’s Lounge. With a name like that, I expected a champagne room, but alas, it was a cosplay repair station that was stocked with safety pins and needle and thread for anything that needs to be patched up. This was a great idea for Fanime Con to have!

We did more exploring around the dealer’s hall. The dealer hall was set up in a similar fashion to how it was set up in previous years. There were only a few DVD and manga dealers. Most of the booths held toys, accessories, and website promotion. The booth variety was nice and there were plenty of opportunities for figure collectors to get their hands on rare figures. The aisles were very crowded at places, but it was not impossible to get around.

The dealer hall also included the silent charity auction. There was a large group of people around the booth, but there was nothing that really appealed to us. Right next to the charity auction booth was a booth set up by the Red Cross. As blood donors, Team Scarlet Rhapsody were happy to see them at Fanime trying to reach out to people for relief support. Neither of us could donate at Fanime because we had both given earlier in May.

We also stopped by Stage Zero to check out the Steampunk presentation by the Bay Area Steampunk Society. They gave the audience a Steampunk 101. What was interesting is that they had their own established characters and personalities to go with their original costumes. While cosplayers are people who dress up as characters from pre-existing media, these Steampunk people were very hardcore. Live action role playing may not be for everyone, but this was a very insightful look into this genre of costume play. It should also be noted that Fanime Con 2011’s theme was Steampunk.

Throughout Fanime Con 2011, there were sporadic Asian Ball Joint Doll gatherings at the Marriott lobby. There were about of handful of doll collectors that showed off their resin kids. Scarlet Rhapsody did not bring their collection, but it is always nice to see other people’s dolls.

Fanime Con also has its share of cosplayers. The most popular series present at Fanime Con were Panty and Stocking and Garterbelt and Hetalia. However, our personal favorite group was the Anchorman guys. Unfortunately, Saturday did not have any daytime programming that caught our eye. This was a good day to check out the dealer’s hall one more time for window-shopping. Upon perusing the dealer’s hall, I found the elusive Moon Cycle and Sailor Moon vanity set. Who needs henshin when you have a vanity mirror?

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