_ When one’s been going to the same convention over the years, they tend to notice the good, the bad and ugly that tends to come with it. SacAnime’s 2012 Winter Con was no exception. While the con had a good stock of great voice actors, gatherings, cosplayers and a great atmosphere that a con usually has; there were a few changes that came off somewhat distasteful to many of the congoers. While I can’t say that my con experience was reflective of the other attendees, I will say it felt good to go to SacAnime, something we can all agree on.

_                                                                                            Gaming Room

It’s no surprise that as of late, I’ve really been getting into fighting games and the whole fighter scene as of late, so I was quite pleased when I saw that they moved all the fighting game tournaments to a larger venue. Last time the fighting games were in this small room they had set up, but due to so many complaints about size being brought up (or so I would assume), they set up an additional room to better accommodate gamers, catering to casual and hardcore gamers alike. The fighting game tournaments were handled pretty well as well as the amount of hype during the action was incredible. Aside from the fighting games set up in the main room, a mix of all sorts of games -even a Simpsons arcade cabinet- was in there thanks to Armageddon Potato Games. To accommodate all audiences, plenty of room was given for people to walk around and observes all other gamers test their hand at everything from first person shooters to arcade games to dance games. What I found most interesting was when they put the Wii outside during the day where people warmed themselves up by playing various dance games, the most popular of which being Just Dance 2. All in all, the game room did a very good job this year; no hiccups.

_                                                                                               Vendors’ Hall

What can I say? I’ve been going to this convention and the Vendor’s Hall, while staying the same in terms of design, has always been good. Occasionally, it’ll be overcrowded with so many people (Saturday’s the WORST) that it’s hard to get to something you want when you have to go through an army of people either walking or at one of the booths checking out stuff. But what convention doesn’t have that problem? Okay, so maybe the huge ones never ran into that problem but for small conventions like SacAnime it’s hard to get around given the limited space. The Vendor’s Hall wasn't bad at all but there are things that could have made it better. For those of us who remember back in the day when it was at the Scottish Rite Center, space has always been a bit of an issue, but hopefully Sac Anime can somehow plan a move to the Sacramento Convention Center, we’re hoping that things will turn out even better than before.

_                                                                                                        Panels

The panels were held as well as they could be, given the location of the event. The more important ones were handled fairly well but what I gathered, most other panels (including a few voice actor panels) were not handled to what we had expected from previous SacAnimes. From the ones I went to, they were handled really well; everyone acted in the right manner, and we had a lot of fun covering it. The voice actor panels in particular were a lot of fun to attend; I really enjoyed them. I can't say how the other panels were per say but, taken with a grain a salt, word is that they didn’t handle their business and had problems running the panels. Word from the other attendees at the con said that they were for the most part alright, so for any content I may have very well missed out on, I take their word for.

_                                                                                   Artist Alley and Art Contest

The Artist Alley was nothing new to me but what was something I didn’t check out last time was the art contest they were holding in the room next to it. It served its purpose and showed off who won the art contest and other art pieces. Nothing really exciting, but it did offer something to do and give congoers a chance to get away from the craziness that was happening outside in the courtyard. Again, the only gripe I have with the artist alley is that they put them in their own room but I feel they should have more or a bigger room for people to walk around freely, arguably in a space like the vendors’ hall like what is demonstrated over in San Jose’s Fanime. At times, it felt very cramped and hard to move around in; much like in the vendors’ hall. From what I saw, the artists were all very nice, their artwork is pretty awesome to look at and hell, I even walked off with a few pieces of art, in particular couple prints from the talented artist Catarina Bragg. (Be sure to check out her stuff under our affiliates tab!)

_                                                                                                       Rave

To fans’ delight, the rave had made some vast improvements last year in their rave from music selection, DJ quality, space available and available water and much to our delight, these changes remained. The rave was opened up into two rooms combined to make one big room, roughly the size of Fanime's raves, giving plenty of space for people to dance and as mentioned earlier water was dispensed everywhere to adequately stave off dehydration. My only complaint (and a small one at that), is that the collection of songs were only between “okay” to “good.” The same DJs come by and do the same gig at the same location every time, so after a while, one might find the venue to become somewhat stale after a period of time; no offense to DJ Hellsing and the Random DJs. Discrepancies aside, I will say that there were no hiccups during the rave like previous years; smooth sailing from start till end.

_                                                                                 The Main Convention Floor

Like always, staff and security roamed the main floor making sure the flow of traffic was going both ways and not clogging up the hallways and while there may not have been any issues with this in the past, I actually think they improved on it. There was enough room to walk around up and down the main hallways, especially during Friday’s swap meet. The swap meet in itself was nothing special, but it did offer the opportunity for people to be able to buy or look at what various attendees wished to sell off on the sides of the main hallway. I like how they also opened up the one area next to the bar and piano for people to hang out and chill and I thought it was nice to just have a relaxing social area to rest one’s weary legs. As for lines, they were kept neat and orderly, autographs were set up very nicely and handled in a timely fashion and all lines were well guided by staff so as to not cause any bubbling.

_                                                                                                 Overall

So overall the convention wasn’t bad at all but wasn't great either. While I mostly talked about the good of the con, there were some less than favorable instances that had occurred, and I really think it’s time for SacAnime to move to a bigger and better place. What I really want to see for this con is to have more stuff that the bigger conventions have that they don't such as the return of the anime viewing room, more gatherings, more events and most of all, more fan involvement to help make SacAnime an even better convention. As you may have read there is no mention of Cafe Hoshi (invite only), karaoke (overheard some less talented “singers”), or the masquerade in this report, mainly because we were not able to cover it this time around, but stay tuned this year as we cover more anime conventions this upcoming year.

-Anthony Beanes

My expectations were low for Kintoki, held this past weekend, since this was their first convention in Sacramento. I have heard of this convention before; with all the advertisement they pushed forward at other conventions, as well as getting help from Good Day Sacramento. To my surprise, there was a great turn out for this convention and had a very comfortable atmosphere. Kintoki-Con had all the things a convention should have: panels, anime viewing room, workshops, guests appearances, a concert, artist alley, maid cafe, dealers hall, and of course the most important part of it all, cosplayers! Let me start off the setting of this convention. Placing the convention at the Hyatt Regency was a great idea on Kintoki's part. The hotel was situated in the middle of downtown, and very close to local restaurants and shopping locations . Especially with the heat beating down on the capital and many thick costumes, the cool air condition inside the hotel was nice and kept everyone at a comfortable temperature. There were three floors dedicated to the anime convention for its use. The 1st floor, or the main floor was very spacious and easy to walk from one end to the other without getting crowded. This floor consisted of themain performance room, artist alley, dealers hall, and the maid cafe. Dealers hall was well...the dealers hall. Nothing too special about it, but it's one of the essential things an anime convention should have. Compared to other conventions the dealers hall at Kintoki is probably a good size for its 1'st convention. Sure it's not as huge as other convention dealer halls, but from the conventions I been too, Kintoki's seemed pretty right for what it was going for.

Artist alley was a bit narrower then the dealers hall, but about the same length, which hosted 44 artists. The tables were set up right next to each other, some where even back to back, so artists could comfortably talk to neighboring artists. Hopefully, future Kintoki-Cons will expand the artist alley up more, so that everyone won't have to worry about possible traffic.  I managed to check out one of the panels Sunday morning held in the events ballroom. I sat in for the Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and Richard Epcar panel Q&A. There was only a handful of people there, but they were seated on the floor close to the McGkynn and Epcar. This was a nice way to run the panel and was also more intimate. Lastly, I checked out the Maid Cafe at and while its heart was in the right place, it did fall under some of the same faults as the last anime convention that had it did too. When I think of maid cafe I am thinking of entertainment, maids serving you food and drinks, a relax atmosphere. I was met halfway. The maid cafe was under staffed which would make things a bit harder to manage, I can understand that. To be honest I would rather have that idea of a maid cafe rather then buying your own food to bring with you to eat in the maid cafe. The maids were great and they did a great job, but if the setting was similar to Fanime's maid cafe then that be great. One last gripe about the maid cafe, as cheap as it sounds, but it's something that I don't want to pay for: is to simply go to the maid cafe. Putting out 5$, on top having to paying for my own food, to be in the maid cafe sounds a bit of a rip. I would like to see that fee drop and have the money flow for the food the maid serves to us even if it is hotel food.

On the 2nd floor of the convention held the video game room, workshops, anime viewing, and panel rooms. The video game room was divided into two rooms on the 2nd floor, one was the main gaming room, while the other was down the hall past the workshop room. Both were small, but had all the games you needed to run your tournaments. Some of the tournaments seemed poorly coordinated, one was even cancelled due to lack of participants. There were many new titles were available for play  and the set up was just fine for its first convention. There was a vendor selling video games old and new. The workshops and anime viewing room were on the smaller side, so it seemed a bit cramped, particularly at more popular slots. But of course sitting down and relaxing with friends, watching anime is always a good time. The last floor dedicated to the convention was not the 3rd floor, but on the 15th floor of the hotel. I didn't know about it until I went up there, in fact a majority of the attendees did not know. A staff member was sent around the convention announcing the "Gamer's Lounge". When I got there, it was very laid back. There were some TV screens set up for classic video and new video games to be played on, but also tables were set up for people to play board games. Music was blaring, put on by a DJ jammin' it for people on that floor, some even danced. It was a chill atmosphere and I totally dug it. Not to mention they had the patio open with an amazing view of the city. I guess the only thing I question is maybe put the video room in the 2nd floor in a bit of a bigger place maybe move a few elements from that room to the bigger room on the 15th floor? Yea, there is probably some way, but still a great experience and I still had fun anyways.

I got a lot of promise for this convention. You have to start out small to become big one day. Kintoki made its first step this year with everyone and did all the right things. I found more positive than negative. The staff were nice to us, people there were excited to be present, there were a lot of activities to get involve with and much more. Of course, I am leaving out the masquerade, the formal black and white ball that did happen Sunday night. I did not go to those events due to the fact I had places to go, but hopefully I can go next year and experience everything Kintoki has to offer. From what I experienced this past weekend I am hoping to see a lot more next year. Tell the kids in Sacramento, there is a new anime convention in town and his name is Kintoki Con.

-Anthony Beanes