Anime USA 2016: My First Anime Convention

As you all know, from Twitter, Anime USA 2016 was my first ever anime convention. Anime USA 2016 was held at the Marriott Wardman Park during October 21-23. Since I live in the metropolitan area, I didn’t stay at the hotel so my friend and I attended just Saturday and Sunday. Since it rained the day before, Saturday was very cold and breezy. 

There's one thing I have to remember next time is to bring an ID, when we went to pick up our badges at the pre-registration line, we didn't know that we had to bring and ID (Which I guess is to determinate if you're allowed to go to 18+ events). We were able to get our badges anyways since the staff was nice, we didn't plan on going to any 18+ events anyways since we were going to leave around 9pm. 

Since the dealer's room was right next to the registration desk, we decided to go there. This place, of course, was amazing. I tried not to splurge all my money at one time. It wasn't before long before we both bought a merchandise. The first shop we went to was selling anime t-shirts, plush, and blind boxes. My friend bought herself a Fullmetal Alchemist shirt and I got myself a Kaneki Ken plush.

 

As you can see in the photos above, I splurged my money on other stuff such as the Selector Infected WIXOSS Blu-ray and Naruto blind boxes. On the last day of AnimeUSA, I was able to get a good deal on a Asuna figurine for $30.

 

We headed out to the gaming room, which of course was full of people. We played a lot of old games such as Takken 4 but we also played Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm. There was one game that we played on Nintendo 64 but I couldn't find the name of it, it looked like the game was translated by fans but I'm not sure.

After getting lunch and walking around some more at the convention on Saturday, my friend and I went to go watch the Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends until around 9pm. We went home after that since we weren't staying at a hotel since we lived in the metropolitan area. The next day was full of cosplay photography.

IG: amitycosplay

IG: riyuski

IG: liger041 IG: inertiacosplay

My friend and I went around finding great cosplay to photograph for the last day of Anime USA, above is what I got and I wrote down the IG for those I can find. I also went to one panel called "Majik Mystery Loot Brawl" where you pay $10 for the game where there's a table full of wrapped gifts and you take turns opening one and you can choose to keep it or "steal" another players gift. I got a Lupin the III mug which I ended up selling to a twitter friend. After that we just waited outside the ballroom for the closing ceremony.



All good things must come to an end. We got to hear from all of the directors and volunteers of Anime USA and congratulate them for a great convention. People also got to voice their comments or thoughts of improvements. The 2017 date was also announced:
Anime USA 2017 The Christmas Special: Christmas in Japan December 8-10 2017
Of course the time frame is farther away from the usual but it's because it was hard for them to secure a time frame in October/November. I'm really looking forward to going again as I enjoyed my first ever anime convention.