Anime Revolution 2012 - We're Back!

After a long three days of tireless work, we're finally back from Vancouver's first Anime Revolution. Attending this convention was exciting in more ways than one, especially since this is the first local large-venue anime convention we have attended. Add on top the fact that we had a chance to meet with most, if not all of our local comrades, this was certainly a very memorable experience for us. We had the pleasure of speaking with and interviewing several special guests at Anime Revolution, including the well-respected and highly prolific Nakata Jouji, Sugar Lyn Beard, Terri Hawkes, and Ron Rubin just to name a few. Speaking of special guests, we were fortunate enough to have a chance to sit down with Nakata Jouji himself for a one-on-one interview, which is featured exclusively on SUTORAIKUanime. This post serves as a brief summary of the events we attended at Sakura-Con 2012.



The opening ceremonies were rather brief and simple compared to some of the other conventions we've been to, including Sakura-Con and Kumoricon, respectively. I expected to see the special guests make their way on stage, but instead, we were welcomed to Anime Revolution with several speeches, including one from the Japanese consul general of Vancouver, and the president of Anime Revolution Can Ngo, as well as an array of musical performances.

As the opening ceremony closed, we made our way into the con, and into the exhibitor's hall, as we do with every con we attend.

The exhibitor's hall at Anime Revolution was somewhat minute in size compared to some of the other cons we've been to, which is perfectly fine as the content was there. I do wish there was more variety to choose from however, since it was such a large exhibitor's hall, it was a shame not all of the space was used as effectively as it could have been. Nonetheless, we spotted some great stuff that's definitely worth sharing in our Anime Revolution merchandise post.

There were several cosplay-related events which we attended, including the swimsuit contest and cosplay "walk-off" where cosplay and improv dance performance were combined. There was decent amount of high quality cosplays which we managed to spot and take photos of which are featured in the Anime Revolution cosplay post.

Anime Revolution welcomed the English voice actors of Sailor Moon which include Sugar Lyn Beard, Terri Hawkes and Ron Rubin, as well as the legendary Nakata Jouji. You can find our SUTORAIKUanime interview with Nakata Jouji in our SUTORAIKUanime exclusive interview post, and extensive coverage of the Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary panel featuring the three aforementioned guests in our Anime Revolution special guest post for a brief outline of our special guest coverage. 

This was a great start for Anime Revolution. It still has many things it needs to iron out, but everything needs to start somewhere. A big thanks to Can Ngo for bringing such a great and much-needed event to Vancouver! Please look forward to the categorized feature posts for more in-depth coverage of each individual event.