Being a longtime fan of anime in my mid-twenties who has lived in Orlando for my whole life, it’s a bit embarrassing to admit that it wasn’t until this year that I really decided to take the plunge into our local convention scene. I had been vaguely aware of the popular cons that come here- Megacon, Holiday Matsuri for example. But now that I have spent the past half year almost obsessively checking out each and every anime and pop culture convention that comes into town, I can say with confidence- I have truly been missing out on wonderful and one of a kind experiences.

In an effort to make sure that other people don’t end up in the same boat, watching cons from afar and wondering how it is to actually attend them- I want to start a series of blog posts where I relay all my experiences with each event I find myself going to throughout the year. Things I enjoyed about a particular convention, things I think could be improved, or even just talking about the programming I attend at a particular event. If I can convince even one person who sees this to go check out a convention local to them, I think it will have been worth it for me to write these.

So! With that lengthy introduction out of the way, I have a bit of a triple threat of conventions to talk about in this inaugural blog post. I want to talk about my experiences attending “Animate! Orlando,” “Ecchi Expo,” and “Sugoi Expo” this year!

Full transparency before I begin- I did only attend the last day for each of these conventions. With all of the conventions I have been attending this year, it’s not always feasible for me to get a weekend pass for every single one. And I think there’s still plenty of fun to be had in ending your weekend by checking out what is typically a more quiet, relaxed day at these events compared to the rest of the weekend.

I’ll start with “Animate! Orlando” though. This was actually the first year that this event has taken place in Orlando, and as such it had a bit more of a laid back vibe than other more established cons usually have, in terms of the crowd that was there. The exhibitor hall was full of great artists, and there was a fun area with different backdrops to take pictures with! Plenty of cosplay meetups in this spot for fun photo-ops among fans.

The closing event for this convention was one that was uniquely fun, and especially pleasing to me as a wrestling fan! The convention put on a roughly hour long amateur wrestling show, with the twist being that all of the performers were in cosplay! Given the nature of pro-wrestling already being theatrics with fighting as a vehicle for storytelling, fully marrying the idea of character-acting (in this case specifically for preexisting characters) and wrestling made for a truly engaging show to watch, and an extremely fun way to cap off the last day to this convention. I would definitely consider attending this event again for a full weekend in the future.

The next event I attended was “Ecchi Expo”! Given the subject matter of this event, I must admit I was rather nervous about attending it. However, once I got past the initial shame of attending a convention like this, I am delighted to say that it was a great time! The exhibitor hall was smaller than most events I’ve been to, but all of the artists I spoke to there were kind and easy to approach!

Even though the subject of the event was more adult-oriented than what is typical, there were plenty of artists and vendors there that had completely SFW pieces and crafts as well. And the NSFW oriented vendors that were there had a varied selection of art and merchandise to choose from. Regardless of which end of the spectrum you found yourself on, there was a healthy selection of vendors to check out.

The panel I checked out here was also a unique one to other conventions I have been to! It was a class on learning “erotic Japanese,” and was as fun as I expected it to be. The presenter was well spoken and good at getting the audience involved in the panel too, and presented the information in an engaging way that made practicing pronunciation along with her a great time! I left the panel remembering more phrases than I had initially expected I would, which I think speaks to how fun the host made the process of learning Japanese vocabulary.

While I found the panel a great time, there wasn’t a lot of other programming taking place on that final day. This event was a fun time, but I think checking it out on the last day is how I would do it again in the future too. Unless there was a panel I was dying to see on one of the other days, I think I would be content just attending the final day for this event next year too.

Now for the most recent event I found myself attending, “Sugoi Expo”! This one was the smallest not only of the three events I’m writing about here, but the smallest among all of the events I’ve attended this year. The exhibitor hall was small, I found myself able to see all of the vendors there after around 20 minutes of browsing. The selection of panels taking place on the final day was pretty sparse, though they saved what I assume was one of the most anticipated panels for this last day (though I have clear bias in the subject of the panel), being a reunion of old- and contemporary- voice actors from across the series of mainline Sonic games. The panel was a Q&A format for the cast, and it was nothing short of a blast being in the audience for this one.

Other than that, there was a cosplay masquerade contest that me and the friend I went with were able to catch the tail end of. Cosplay is something I haven’t touched on much in this post, but it is one of my absolute favorite parts about attending all of these conventions. Though I was basically only able to catch the intermission and subsequent results of the contest, I was able to see some extremely well crafted cosplays from both the participants and even just some attendees in the crowd!

Even though the panels I attended were so fun, given how small the exhibitor hall for this event was, I’m not sure that I would return again next year (even for just the final day). With so many other events surrounding this one, especially one of the biggest annual conventions on the horizon in “Holiday Matsuri”, I find it a bit hard to justify returning to this event again next year.

Despite these feelings, I am still glad that I attended all of these events (and many more) so far this year! There’s something truly wonderful about being around the community of people who make up these events, and attending so many of them with one of my best friends has easily been the one of the highlights of this past year for me.

I’m still not done, either- there are a few smaller events happening in the next couple of months, but then the big one for the year takes place in December, “Holiday Matsuri”! I can’t wait to write about my experiences for that one, especially seeing as how I will be attending the full weekend for that convention. Until then, thank you for checking out the ramblings of this mid-twenties weeb and all of the events I have checked out this year!