Coming to you all live from Sakura-Con 2023! Yesterday was day one (to me I’m still in it), and it was a bit of a battle. Although, I am so happy with the end results to this strange but great first day at con.
The first struggle was finding motivation to just leave our comfy beds at the hotel, we stayed up too late on night zero picking up our weekend passes. We actually heard about this little hidden bar, an anime bar called Taku Seattle. My new favorite, not just because of the food, but because of the anime everywhere! With anime going round the clock on the tv, anime music playing, stickers and prints everywhere. We also grabbed the Sakura-Con special drink, very pink with some strawberry pocky in it (very yummy!), and don’t worry we grabbed some really good chicken from here too!
The second real struggle was walking back and forth between the buildings for the con this year, with the main events at the Summit building and small stuff and artist alley (which is in no way not a main event!) in the old building. Yes, there was more space to walk around in for both the artist alley and exhibitor hall, but having to decide about how many times you want to go to either is a lot. It was hard for me, because I kept forgetting stuff and then had to run to another building for panels.
The last two parts of my struggles for the first day was spending money and cosplay. I have never been so happy to have brought so many backups for cosplay, I completely went off the rails for my Sakura-Con lineup. I ended up doing Dressrosa Lucy (Luffy from One Piece) and changing into Nico Robin for later in the night. I do have to say both cosplays were very cute, fun and comfy! As for the spending… Well, let’s start with the One Piece sticker hunt through artist alley. A group of booths made a hunt to visit and buy from every booth on their map, and once completed you win a little prize pack that they all put together. I of course won, since I will always be obsessed with One Piece. I also bought so much One Piece merch I saw, not a whole bunch this year and I don’t regret any of them either! I also hit the exhibitor hall for an hour towards the end of the day and found so many great finds! I promise I’ll share my loot in my wrap up article because I still have two more days to pick up more goodies.
After taking a break for food and changing cosplays, my friend and I headed out to a later panel, How to eat like a hero, done by the always amazing ChefPK. We were the first ones there (and in One Piece cosplay to support Paul in his Afro Luffy cosplay), and I did the hard One Piece quiz and won! I won one of his One Piece devil fruits (the gum-gum fruit) hot chocolate bomb and a mini devil fruit (the flare-flare fruit) chocolate. The panel was fun and we had a blast with everyone, but the night did not end there. We found half of my One Piece (new) group of friends we made at Kumoricon, and ended the night at a pretty wild party (where we all talked anime once the majority of the people went onto the anime rave happening).
To say the least, the struggle for Sakura-Con in the beginning was rough, but the payoff for it was amazing and well worth it! I am so excited to start day two and jump into making new friends and buying more of my favorite merch!
Are you at Sakura-Con? Let us know in the comments or chat with us on Twitter at @TheConCollectve!
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