With the pandemic, I hadn’t been to an anime convention since Anime Expo 2019. This past summer, Otakon on the east coast went back to holding its convention in person. A month or two later, SacAnime, one of California’s long-established anime conventions, did the same.
I’d never been to SacAnime before, but I had a personal reason to be in Sacramento, so I combined the two things. And so Labor Day weekend found me there.
I should say at the outset that I don’t do con reports the way I used to. I don’t take cosplay photos anymore, so if you want to see those, you should check out SacAnime’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
(If you’re interested, the last major con report I did was on Anime Expo 2019. That post has tons of photos, panel coverage, philosophical musings on the anime industry, everything but the kitchen sink. You can read it here.)
Of the four major cities in California, Sacramento is the only one that is located inland, i.e., not on the coast. It is the state capital of California, so in spite of jokes that it’s kind of a cowtown and not the most dynamic city, it will always be important because it’s where the business of state government takes place. Being inland, and located in one of the largest agricultural valleys in the U.S., it gets incredibly hot there in the summer months. When I was there, the temperature was in the 90s and low 100s. The day after I left, the temperature in the city was forecasted to be 107. It was hot.
I’ve been fully vaccinated since May or else I wouldn’t have risked going to the convention. I’m in good health but I’m older now, so I’ve been pretty careful about events that are 1) indoors, and 2) have too many people gathered inside.
I’ve been to Anime Expo and Comic Con where there were more than 100,000 people attending. So I thought, how crowded could SacAnime be?
It was pretty crowded for a small convention. I was taken aback. It was a pre-pandemic scene all around. This is California, where we believe in science, so fortunately nearly everyone followed the mask mandate indoors, but still.
I already knew in advance that I wouldn’t be attending many - if any - panels or events, because SacAnime’s focus is on American voice actors. In the beginning I used to watch anime both in sub and in dub, so I remember VAs like Crispin Freeman and Yuri Lowenthal and others that I liked, but I haven’t followed any American voice actors since then. It was really that I was in town for something else and just wanted to see what it was like going to an anime convention again after all this time.
I didn’t dress up in any way, but I did carry my ita bag:
I wish I’d taken pictures of the exhibit hall, because it was way bigger than I expected. It was maybe half the size of Anime Expo’s exhibit hall, but by that I mean - it was huge. The sheer number of distributors there surprised me. SacAnime may be one of California’s established anime conventions, but it’s a regional convention and a small one compared to Anime Expo or Fanime, or even Crunchyroll Expo or Anime Los Angeles. But when I think about it, Northern California has even fewer genre conventions than it used to, what with the demise of Yaoi Con and the loss of Wondercon, so maybe the distributors really have to show up at as many of them as they can.
One thing I still like about conventions, and hopefully will never get too jaded to enjoy, is the artist’s alley. SacAnime’s artist alley was located in the exhibit hall and I went down each aisle and bought a few things. I like to encourage young artists, particularly in their work in anime/manga art styles.
SacAnime is known among California anime conventions for being family-friendly. I saw many young fans accompanied by smiling parents, which I always like to see.
Although I barely did anything at the convention, I got out of it what I intended, which was to see what it was like to attend a convention in the pandemic/post-pandemic era. And basically, it was like attending in the pre-pandemic times – only with masks on. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, I was convinced there was no way Comic Con and Anime Expo would ever return as in-person cons, but I’m beginning to think they probably will. The pandemic will end one day, and before that there will be a period in which we reach herd immunity or come close enough to it that people will feel comfortable about attending events like these again.
Anime Expo – for all things anime, manga and Japanese pop culture – and Comic Con, the gigantic industry/fan celebration of all things film, science fiction, comic book and genre entertainment, are enormous events that should be experienced at least once if you’re a fan. I recall going to Anime Expo in my early days as a fan, looking up at the giant screens at L.A. Live and watching huge projections of anime characters in light and color with my heart in my throat. Anime was such an overwhelming passion for me in those days that I almost didn’t have the words to describe my feelings for it, and Anime Expo was my big once-a-year experience of community with others who felt the same way.
And Comic Con... Imagine the entire downtown area of a major city (San Diego) taken over by genre culture and fandom to the point that it becomes a city within a city. Like Anime Expo, it has to be experienced to be believed.
I’ve presented panels at Anime Expo and Yaoi Con, and done business with publishers at conventions. I think that in future, unless I’m doing a panel or have business reasons for attending, this is probably it for me. I’m hanging up my ita bag, because the magic isn’t quite there for me anymore as far as cons are concerned. It was a great run but I’ll let the young ones negotiate those crowds. ;-)
