By Sai Hashimoto

Fanime 2009 took place on May 22nd till the 25th in the San Jose Convention Center.
The staffs at Fanime are very professional, well organized, and polite to their customers. It is refreshing to have excellent service at a convention. Even their Security and Prop Inspectors had little complaints from attendees for being overtly pushy as some tend to be.

Fanime had an impressive guest list this year. Their list included the guests: Momoi Halko, an idol from Akihabara, Hiroyuki Yamaga, the Executive Director from GAINAX, Inc., Reuben Langdon, the actor for Chris Redfield and Co-Producer from Resident Evil 5, Ken Lally from Heroes, Patricia Ja Lee who did the voice over work for Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Carl Gustav Horn, Gilles Poitras, Jonathan Osborne, Keith Burgess, Ric Meyers, and Ryan Gavigan.
There were many panels out there this year that were exciting, fun, and even educational. Some highlighted panels were Prop Casting and Making, Body Casting 101, Comedy Club at Fanime, Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors, Intro to Lolita and Fashion Show, History of Zelda Documentary, Consoles and the Industry, Dark Horse Manga, There Will Be Brawl Q&A,. As usual there are also the video games room which was very large and rather full, the AMV contest which played over the screen in the hallway, and the Dealer’s Room which had a really nice turn out in merchandise and companies.
The Masquerade was a great success as usual. Once again the staffs here are really well organized, prepared, and extremely considerate to their attendees and competitors. The skits were many and varying from hilarious such as the Pokemon skit who won Best Comedic Skit, and dramatic such as the Tsubasa Chronicles skit with revolving backgrounds and an intricate set who came away with Best Performance.
Finally, the con practically ended with the Black and White Ball on Sunday night. The con went on till Monday but closed shop early, so this was the last big event for the weekend. All day they offered dancing lessons. Over all, the entire Ball went along smoothly. It was formal attire, ball style music and dance floor, with drinks and snacks offered outside.
There are very few things that went negative for Fanime 2009. One of the main things that stand out is the price of food. Understandably, this is out of Fanime’s control. However, if they were able to set up an agreement with the Convention to keep the prices lower, the con would be Golden.

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