The dealer’s room was located right next door to the registration hall on the fourth floor. It was nicely spread out to make the traffic flow easier. Greg Dean (Real Life Comics), Phil Foglio (Girl Genius), Yaya Han, Japan A Radio, and a few folks from the Washington state Asian Ball Joint Doll community had their own booths in the hall. I thought it was nice they had a separate section on Japanese culture – truly lives up to Sakura Con’s tagline – “bringing two cultures together.”

I found a few things in the dealer’s room such as a Pinky St Henrietta (Gunslinger Girl) figure. Unfortunately, it was going for $99. I will just have to stick with the plush or make one of my resin children cosplay as her.

And I also found a Chiyo-chan (Azumanga Daioh) plush. As an Osaka cosplayer, I wanted to find out how Chiyo-chan flies. Some things are too cute to live. PUNT!

Jared decided to cosplay as Fujitaka from the Card Captor Sakura artbook. I decided to wear Kaname Chidori from Full Metal Panic to show my support for the 24 the Animation video in the Anime Music Video contest. Of course, we went back to the the cherry blossom corner in the convention center park.

Sakura Con also has a reputation of having their Anime Music Video contest advertised as “bigger than (the) cosplay (contest).” I have seen this advertised on the Sakura Con and Anime Music Video forums. True, Sakura Con did have a nice venue on the 6th floor dedicated to anime music video screening. Jared also participated in the Anime Music Video Spotlight panel where he showed a few of his videos. We also stuck around to Vice-Chair Roy’s (Millennium Strife) videos and commentary.

The Anime Music Video contest started at 7PM on Friday night. The convention center ballroom was filled to capacity. In fact, there were multiple screenings of the Anime Music Video contest. We decided to hit the Friday evening showing. Action and Drama had maybe one or two memorable videos. Those two categories were lackluster this year. However, Offbeat, Comedy, and Trailer / Commercial won many applause from the audience. The three categories gained much positive reaction from the crowd. My favorites included Misa Regretting What Misa Said, SOS Dan (The Baseball Game), Die Onizuka, Who Needs a King, and Soldier A. Of course, Jared's 24 the Animation and The xxxholic Sense got a very nice reception from the crowd.

The contest ended at 9PM in the evening. The announcement for the AMV lunch was made for 8AM on Saturday. Seriously, what crazy otaku is up that early during a convention?

We checked out the ballroom dance. According to Sarah, the Sakura Con ballroom dance had a decent turnout when it started at 7PM. We arrived at 9:30PM and it was dead. There were hardly anyone on the dance floor. Sarah said there was a live celtic style band providing the music. Though we only peered in, it did not seem to live up to the epicness that is the Anime Central ballroom dance, or even the Fanime ballroom dance. However, a live instrumental band does eliminate any pre-tense of "The Macarena" being played.

For the rest of the night, Jared and I were wandering around the convention center looking for things to do. There were an number of people hanging out by the main events hall. Of course, the cosplayers were still around at 10PM in the evening. However, if you're a minor you had to be out of the convention center by a certain time.

Hector was also doing what he does best - playing anime tunes on the sax.

That evening, Jared and I decided to cosplay from Phantom Quest Corps. He was dressed up as Kozo Karino while I dressed up as Ayaka Kisaragi. Many thanks to Hector for taking photos of our cosplay.

Anime Music Videos are serious business at Sakura Con. The very next day, there was an AMV creator panel. Creators shared what they found overdone and cliched about amv trends. The best part was the Microsoft Word document on the big screen behind the panelists as it was Mystery Science Theater 3000-ing the panelists' answers to Vlad's questions. Jared will not dance to any of his amvs at his wedding.

Pictures are copyright by Scarlet Rhapsody (formerly Traveling Valentine). If I took your picture, feel free to use it on your site or cosplay gallery. While you're here, do sign the guestbook. This site was brought to you by the font Wicked Queen. Many thanks to Chaz Boston Baden for the image resizing and watermarking program.