San Japan 1.5 - San Antonio, TX: My First Anime Convention

Note: Heavily Loaded entry full of pictures. 56k users, you have been warned!

On Saturday, August 9th, 2008, Cynthia, her brother and I took a trip to San Antonio, TX to attend the San Japan 1.5 Anime Convention. We left Sugar Land, TX / Katy, TX at around 8:45am and arrived at San Antonio at 11:40am. The drive was pretty peaceful. Considering that I was driving my new 2008 Honda Civic Si, it was a piece of cake. The navigation system of my car helped us get around town. We also brought along MP3 CDs of Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop for our listening pleasure, but eventually tuned in to my XM Radio's comedy channels.


It was pretty easy finding the Auditorium. Once we saw a bunch of otakus in costume, we knew that we finally made it. We went in, we registered and we roamed around for a bit.  Now when I saw the dealers area, I came, I saw, I ^_^!!!


About 90% of the people there were in costume.  It was a totally different world for me, but I knew I was going to enjoy this!  Once we got to the dealers area, I started taking pictures.  Here's a few pictures I took while I was down there (Dealers / Artist area):



Ok, so I purchased a few things: [adult swim] t-shirt, a Shinobi Bladerunner ninja sword, and a sterling silver cross (from Hell Girl).  After this, we went to the other side of the Anime Convention, which was held at the Holiday Inn Tropicano Riverwalk.  On our way there, I took some more pics:



Once we got into the Holiday Inn El Tropicano Riverwalk, here are some of the pics I took:



After that, we went back to the Auditorium to find my girlfriend's brother. We ran into a few interesting peoples:




Then we found her brother. We went back into the Auditorium to watch the Chibi Project, no comment... Then we ran into these people:



We decided to take a break from the convention and decided to walk to the Alamo and to the San Antonio River Center:



After that, we returned to the Holiday Inn to get a glimpse of what's left of the anime convention.




The longer we stayed, the more it felt like home was closer... but it wasn't. We drove for about three hours to get back to Sugar Land, but the drive wasn't all that bad.

Here's a list of the Anime Conventions that I plan to visit:

• Oni-Con: November 21-23, 2008 @ George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, TX
• Ikkicon: February 6-8, 2009 @ Hilton Austin, Austin, TX
• Anime Matsuri: April 10-12, 2009 @ The Woodlands Waterway Marriot Hotel @ Convention Center, The Woodlands, TX
  (this is going to present a bit of a problem because...)
• KamiKazeCon: April 10-12, 2009 @ JW Marriot Hotel Houston, Houston, TX
  (...I planned to attend this one.)

And believe me, I already put a lot of thought into what I'm going to wear as far as cosplay is concerned...