Fanime 2013 Convention Report

Fanime started off interesting for me, since last year I remember raging and storming out of Fanime 2012 vowing never to return as a fan attendee given my bad experience at eGaming which indirectly ruined my experience entirely. This didn’t actually mean that I wouldn’t come back, as the convention is close to home and fairly easy to get to. I just happened to notice that the convention’s value shouldn’t be judged on guests and events alone, otherwise unless it was exactly the content you seek, you would almost always be disappointed with that kind of mentality.

Instead of being angry and refusing to attend another convention, I decided to change my perspective to better understand it. I’ve noticed that lately I have been less big on consumption, and was far more interested in the business and marketing side of events rather than the content itself. So I worked hard to improve my skills and obtain Press credentials. Thanks to the wonderful head of marketing at Fanime, I got my opportunity granted, and Fanime 2013 turned out to be perhaps my best convention experience compared to years past.

Well, enough of my own aspect. This review will be generalized, and specifics will likely be opinion straight from me. This is not an accurate assessment of the convention overall, since everyone had a different kind of experience.

Day 0

One thing that was interesting to note about Day 0 from Fanime last year was that there was a power outage. This caused massive delays and annoyances, to the point that staff decided to make Swap Meet free of entry, instead of with a badge like they usually do. It was to my delight that Swap Meet would be free on Thursday Day 0, allowing me the opportunity to invite non-attendee friends to the swap meet to show them an experience they wouldn’t see otherwise.

To no surprise, the line was horrendously long, to the point where people waited up to six hours (up to thirteen hours for those who decided to come at 11 AM and line up early). What happened was that registration was supposed to start at 5 PM and end at 8 PM as was traditionally set, but for some odd reason, the facility that they use for registration was already occupied by another party that booked the place, therefore delaying the true registration time to 7 PM. As a joke, that’s like having a power outage, but this time, this looks like bad preparation by Fanime as last year’s event was honestly beyond anyone’s control. With normal delays, true registration resumed at about 7:30 PM. Due to long lines, some attendees finally got their badges as late as 2 AM. These kind of results are unacceptable, and unlike last year, there wasn’t an unforeseen circumstance to forgive this.

My opinion is a little mixed on this matter. For one thing, most people realized that the registration process itself was actually improved, with a new system that flows smoother and faster than previously. The problem was that the number of attendees was exponentially larger than the number of registration booths. Naturally the outcry would be that Fanime should have put more staff and/or place more registration booths. The large amount of pre-registered attendees vs the small number of registration kiosks was expected though, and it wasn’t as bad as some other things.

Poor transferring of information was worse than the registration situation. For those unaware, since Fanime has certain ties with the Clockwork Academy at the Doubletree Hotel, it was actually possible to retrieve your badge at that location, even if it requires a shuttle to get there as it is a fair distance away. Many of the Clockwork events actually required some form of a badge, meaning that the Fanime pass did grant access to their gallery and their performances, though many were perhaps unaware of this due to distance.

Another issue that poor information created was certain staff being adamant on certain instructions. Since people cutting in lines and other problems easily could occur, they had to be on guard at all times. However, registration also looked like one massive line. Here’s the problem: the location that pre-registered people, at-con purchasing people, and artists had to go were different locations, such as different floors or rooms. Normally those who just got there would ask which location is correct to go to, and some staff gave the same answer, leaving some artists to line up on the pre-registration line despite the fact that they were meant to go to the facility upstairs. This I give a big thumbs down to, as having to correct staff and flat out say that they’re wrong isn’t the best course of action. If a staff member was tough and wouldn’t budge even if they were wrong, this was bad if the staff made people go to the wrong lines. If a staff member was more meek, he or she had less information and was less certain of the correct answer, which lead to more confusion.

Personally I asked where the press registration line was, since I like to line up properly instead of barging through, and the member did not know. His higher up knew the location and everything very well, but the knowledge differential was significant. The nice thing is that the information for where things are was at least clearly noted, whether it was on the website or provided directly. However, this also proves that amid the chaos, it’s also easy to forget where things are when there’s so much information to remember.

Seeing the large line itself was amusing, as I was shocked to find the overall length was the same when I arrived at the convention center, after I ate dinner, AND after I left the swap meet. A long line is one thing, but a stagnant line after several hours pass is where serious problems lie. I’m certain many people had to leave as they had work or could not stay the entire duration. This was extremely unfortunate, and is likely the worst way to start off a convention. Not only that, but people having to stand in line for registration that night also had to forgo the free swap meet entirely.

Sure I like the idea of making Swap Meet on Day 0 free for entry, as well as a secondary option for those not waiting in line for registration, but when the core audience you want at Swap Meet is stuck at the registration line for three to six hours, Swap Meet Day 0 doesn’t look full at all. I find this counterintuitive, despite the free Swap Meet being a nice feature.

The Swap Meet itself looked a bit barren, mainly because the majority of people were stuck at registration. For the wares itself, it was nice seeing a lot of older collections, and in my own case, I was actually looking for the Atelier games of the Arland Series, since I recently finished Atelier Ayesha two months ago and blogging about it for the most part. I got to buy Atelier Totori at a price I was fine with and decided to forgo ever purchasing a PS Vita.

Since I went to Fanime Day 0 with a group of non-attendee friends, we concluded the day by 10PM and opted to just forget the badge for that night and pick it up on Friday instead.

Day 1

Since I was going as Press, I already knew that the location and line would be significantly different. Instead of waiting three to six hours, I did not even wait for more than a minute. I had my planned schedule plotted out meticulously, but reality kicked in and soon I realized that a lot of things are not going to go according to plan. Not only that, but since I didn’t want to go in the morning, I ended up playing Atelier Totori and jumping around; not progressing much at all.

I started off the day late since I knew Artist Alley and the Dealer’s Hall wouldn’t be open until 2 PM on Friday. This made me wonder what was worth going to Fanime for in the morning, so I opted to simply go after lunch as I planned to stay late anyways.

I began my trotting with the Artist Alley, as my objective was to get acquainted with various artists that I took notice of on Twitter. I wanted to do a social media test, where I checked for general Fanime tweets to see what other interesting events there may be. Too often do we go to a convention and completely miss either an awesome event or a sighting of someone we wanted to meet. Also, because the Artist Alley had around 348 different artists, it was nearly impossible to focus on them all, so I started off with the ones who used Twitter or Tumblr to promote their booth. This idea worked splendidly as all the artists I got to talk to were pleasant, and just about every attribute you would like when meeting someone for the first time.

More importantly, I wanted to gather opinions of people’s thoughts about the Artist Alley being moved to the South Hall. It was clear it presented both its advantages and disadvantages. The upside was that more artists could be housed, and the facility was large, which allowed lots of open room to travel without feeling congested at all. On the otherhand, since it is in the South Hall, which had never been recently used for Artist Alley whatsoever, it was entirely possible to go through the con without visiting it at all. Certainly there existed small signs that pointed remotely to the Artist Alley, but otherwise the main convention maps did not include the Artist Alley at all because Artist Alley was not part of the main convention center this year.

Some people took this as an “AX-esque” effect. The “AX-esque” effect was when another con, Anime Expo, decided it was a brilliant idea to move the artists from the side of the exhibition hall all the way to the back. The upside was that the amount of room was more sizeable with lengthy rows, but the disadvantage was clear: the exposure was significantly less and it was fairly easy to miss, or not have enough interest to go all the way to the back to check out the area. A similar effect happened here, except since the Artist Alley is in an entirely different building, attendees had to prioritize either going here, or not going here, as opposed to old years where you can cross paths with all the different exhibit halls with ease, being in the same building and right next to each other.

Artist Alley being in the South Hall also came with its own share of problems. First off, there’s a policy where artists are only allowed one trip to carry their wares, and because of union rules at the convention center, they also cannot use a dolly, which would make said trips much easier to do. Also, there’s an effect I like to call “dilution”. If you have the same attendees go into a larger Artist Alley, they only have a certain budget to buy so much. The bigger selection is great, but not all artists benefit from having a bigger facility since that also means there are many other competitors. This issue is normally mitigated by Fanime’s also growing attendee population, so this doesn’t appear to be a big issue.

After a good segment of introducing myself and getting to see artists and their tables live, I went ahead and traversed to the Dealer’s Hall. There I saw some interesting wares and had good conversations with some dealers. In the end, the only item that caught my eye enough to be willing to part with my funds was the Idolmaster Cheerleader tapestry that I saw on display at the Toys Logic (I can’t remember the exact name) booth. I thought it was the booth cover picture, so I thought it was not even for sale. It turns out on the first day there were only about six copies, including the display, and four were already sold by the time I reached there around 4 PM. That means that within three hours every copy Toys Logic had on hand that day were sold out. The price was steep at $50 but the dealer I dealt with was creative, convincing me on the rarity, as the display would be sold if necessary, but at a higher price at $60 since that it was the last one. I bought it knowing that other attendees do like Idolmaster enough to want this; wanting to make sure that they didn’t miss the opportunity of getting one. And if I didn’t manage to liquidate it, I have a tapestry with an image that I have no issues with, hence I bought it in the first place.

Although I did order commissions, it is really hard to gauge value. However, it is really easy to determine which character and visual I prefer. I just happen to like to be extremely descriptive in a certain direction to both challenge the artist as well as delve a visual I had in mind. This time around I had to make it more lax, and the color drawing I had more control on the specifics of the pose and allocation, the more satisfied I was.

I was actually somewhat done by 6 PM, as Friday appeared to be a rather slow day. The line was still as long as ever, and while it did potentially go faster at a 3 hour rate rather than a 6 hour rate, it was still awful in general. I can’t imagine what the experience was for some, as taking that long to get a weekend pass, and subsequently losing most of Friday, is already a sour taste. As a joke I felt like the line didn’t change at all! I don’t foresee this issue going away- staff were allocated accordingly, the line was organized and safe, and registration systems were working. Perhaps when construction is complete, there will be less bottleneck issues.

I ate dinner at a pizza place called Pizz’a Chicago and the food took forever, but the pizza was delicious and deep dish fried, which was why it took so long. The timing of the food panned out greatly since I had interest in going to the Swap Meet for a second round. I did possibly consider some Atelier Meruru package I saw going for $100 the other night, but I did not see it or the booth the second day.

Anime card sleeves and card boxes were really exciting. I was surprised that people were buying them though, as a good sum of them were available at online retailers for cheaper when they were released, and a good sum weren’t sold out immediately. I was also a bit sad the person selling the sleeves didn’t know the difference between 65 card sleeve Movic packs and the more common 60 card sleeve Bushiroad HG packs. Quality is a huge concern, especially with those sleeves that were imprinted such that they literally can tear off.

Selection wasn’t really that strong, and it was also saddening to witness some people getting ripped off by certain significant markups by sneaky people smiling making it seem like a sweet deal. Granted, there is a little bit of rarity, but there’s also a certain threshold on where a reasonable price stands. It’s depressing in ways to see something sold at $70 which seems like a good deal to an unaware buyer, when actually it was only about $20. Though looking at it the other way, it was a smart ploy to make an item available which no other seller appears to have, and use the rarity logic to sell something at a premium price.

Overall, I found the Swap Meet good. It’s on a small enough scale to be reasonable, and big enough to showcase a variety of different wares. It was nice to find some old things, but items I wanted to buy seemed both too old and too new to be found at the Swap Meet. It’s not even a rarity issue, it’s just that no one would possess it. It was indeed amusing to go through 18+ wares, as such items aren’t permitted to be freely displayed. Not sure why I bothered since that’s not the content I was looking for anyhow.

I concluded the day at around 9:15 PM and took the bus back home, since it relieves the stress and cost of traffic and parking. I did mess up my goodbyes, as I was stressing on the bus schedule and my phone running out of battery. It wasn’t until Saturday night that I recovered my missing phone charger, which I had misplaced prior to the con. If there was anything I messed up on, having no phone charger was probably it.

Day 2

While Friday turned out pretty slow, Saturday went by really quickly. I started off the day by heading over to the EigoMANGA panel at 9 AM. Unlike the Saturday evening panels which I had to unfortunately forgo since half of them were at midnight, I instead went to Fanime far earlier than I normally would have gone. The panel explained some interesting parts about their company, as well as mainly featuring Vanguard Princess. In a nutshell, Vanguard Princess was a game developed using the Fighter Maker engine, primarily from one person. The sprites are gorgeous and it utilizes an interesting system. Since I personally like these sort of projects much more than say, a more mainstream game, naturally I attended this panel. Though honestly, since it was on Panel 4, it was actually in the Fairmont Hotel instead of the Marriott Hotel. Not only that but staff actually failed to give both me and the panelist accurate directions, such as being instructed to head downstairs, when the panel was in fact on the second floor.

Technical issues were terrible at the panel. While the panelist came very well prepared, we noticed the extension cord to the projector was a female to female cord. In other words, it didn’t extend anything at all. The panel didn’t get underway until almost a good 20 minutes in, but the panel turned out very well. The sad thing was that I never actually got around to playing any games at the Gaming Room, so despite going to Fanime with the intent of playing Vanguard Princess, I did not actually end up playing it at all.

Transitioning off the panel I went ahead and ate at La Victoria, because they have a tasty burrito and an even more tasty special sauce. I used to take trips to San Jose just to eat it, but back then there was construction. I should have just recommended everyone to go eat at that place because the price is okay while the food is filling.

The afternoon did not go as smoothly, as the larger crowding of Saturday rendered some panels maxed out. There was a panel I did want to go to called Visually Stunning Anime, but I managed to be the very person where the cutoff of the line was. Because of the ease of entering lesser known panels, I didn’t think lining up 15 minutes early was all that necessary. I did hear some angry frustrated remarks of those behind me though, as some had to trade Artist Alley time just to arrive to find out they were waiting on nothing.

Unfortunately I was running out of battery yet again, and instead of attending panels and hangouts towards the evening, I opted to head home which ended Saturday rather prematurely. Had I stayed on longer, I would have been able to hang out more and attend the evening panels I originally intended. Saturday had excellent potential, but it also had the disadvantage of perhaps having the largest concentration of people. This lead to panels filling up more easily, which due to the crowding effect, actually can make the Saturday experience worse. Despite leaving at 4PM, I found Saturday extremely long despite it going by really quickly because I had other matters to take care of in the evening. This would be a perfect case of “dilution” kicking in. There was so much potential fun that could be had, but I couldn’t allocate time efficiently nor accordingly.

Day 3

Unlike Saturday, I didn’t have a 9 AM panel to jump on, so once again I opted to arrive approximately around 2 PM. This time around, since I had my charger handy after recovering it, I could actually stay longer than I usually did. Power outlets are amazing after all, and incredibly useful for electronics. There wasn’t much of a point going early, because I learned the night before that not only did many people not sleep until the wee hours of the morning, but just as many people didn’t get up until late into the day anyways.

Eventually I got to the Gaming Room since that was an easy way to meet with people, despite the fact that it’s probably also hardest to find people unless a specific area was mentioned. I largely ignored that area for the entire convention up to that point, vowing to never eat a good segment of time in that location.

Since I missed out on seeing several people I intended to meet on Saturday, I prioritized Sunday to meet people, and it worked out splendidly. One happened to be a panelist who ran a panel about Crossplay at 7 PM. I found this the most interesting to attend, simply because I too had cosplay of the opposite gender, and learning about correct fundamentals would certainly be interesting, as I just throw on a stock outfit right over my clothes when I go about it, ignoring makeup and just about everything. In the end, I would summarize it as proper execution, as well as the fact that crossplay isn’t actually a gender preference situation, but rather just dressing up as a favorite character. Really, that’s all there is to it. The rest of the fundamentals, other than the gender difference, are likely very similar to people dressing up in cosplay.

Among the meetings I even spent a good two hours in a hotel room resting and playing mahjong. I got to see the device called the Wii U, and nearly convinced myself to put on my cosplay which I had carried on me all weekend. In the end I did not dress up since I thought going to the con then putting it on was a better idea than manually going down 15 flights of stairs wearing it since the elevator took so long I stopped waiting.

I stayed around to 11 PM, making sure I had enough power in my phone before leaving.

Day 4

I essentially had one reason to head over to Fanime on Day 4: The Idolmaster Panel. I even blew tons of funds to buy things correlated to Idolmaster. Since it was indeed Monday, many people had left or were preparing to leave the con by this day, so we weren’t expecting a big turnout. While the turnout itself wasn’t big, it was a sizeable enough audience to make the panel workable. The panel itself was fun, but since 1 hour wasn’t sufficient to cover many things, the introduction was limited, as well as being unable to show gameplay. Once again technology strikes again, where Fanime had HDMI, but apparently it wasn’t the type that can display a console connected to it. This was unfortunate since I was looking forward to live Idolmaster gameplay, as I have never seen the game played live, nor do I own the game.

Now I suddenly remember why I didn’t actually buy Idolmaster 2: Iori isn’t a playable idol on Story Mode. The team I planned on using had her as the lead singer. Regardless of adjustments on the team, I never changed Iori and just stuck with her as my favorite idol character.

After the panel I learned that several panelists would have much preferred a two hour timeslot for a panel, but were only granted one. It seems weird because there seems to be some odd judgment where if Fanime perceives a topic that seems more popular, such as Miku and Vocaloid, the granting of two hours would be more immediate and responsive. This is unfortunate, as it cuts of potentially interesting and relevant topics, while favoring what could be perceived as more popular or more mainstream. Well, I won’t comment much on those specifics since I did not run a panel. I did enjoy the ones I did go to, and would hope to see such panels like that in the future with a two hour slot, so they don’t have to cut well over half of their content and having to rush everything.

The day concluded very quickly by 3 PM. I mainly used the afternoon to finalize some purchases and say goodbye to the great people I encountered at Fanime. I look forward to seeing many of you in the future, and hope to be able to attend as Press in the future as I enjoyed playing this role. Surprisingly, the aftermath of closing time was quite useful for cosplay photos since many people were concentrated near the main entrance.

Highlights

A small list of things I personally enjoyed on my Fanime adventures include but are not limited to:

• Supplying an artist that loves sugary coffee some Starbucks bottles.
• Eating pizza with forks, or not with forks.
• Eating pizza and/or burritos for three consecutive days.
• Reducing cash flow issues, or a few on-the-fence purchases of others by pitching in a portion.
• Tempting an attendee to buy a tapestry he greatly desired.
• Playing mahjong, with me discarding and making such inefficient plays leading to someone getting an 18000 point hand off of someone else who just riichi’d because I cannot figure out how to effectively calculate hand values.
• Meeting artists in person and interacting with them. Same applies to the attendees I met.
• Matching the wrong artist with the wrong table, either due to they themselves switching seats with friends, Fanime’s map being inaccurate, or me recording the source of info incorrectly.
• Literally utilizing Twitter to make arrangements and plans and executing as intended.
• Communication being key. If things went well it’s due to communication and if things go poorly it’s due to communication.
• Fanime’s Head of Marketing being extremely helpful throughout the entirety of the convention.
• Fanime having roaming info desks, who were far more proficient than unaware staff of the past.
• A certain person’s real name being used as an exclamation for anything going wrong…or right, as well as three words that follow after.
• Learning that artists that draw League of Legends art have absolutely no information or interest on professional teams, making topics about the all-star weekend in China or Cloud 9 members’ visits awkward.

Conclusion

Overall this experience was good, mainly because I intentionally changed my objective to what I sought specifically, rather than letting the events dictate what would I do. I have observed cases where the attendee’s enjoyment ranged from very disappointed to having lots of fun. In some ways, the con is sort of “meh”, where you simply do whatever you want. In the past, I’ve heard names for this con such as “chill out con”, which in some ways, remains to be true.

Regarding the line issue, I’m certain Fanime has gotten plenty of feedback on it. Sometimes I wondered why the lines continue to get longer other than the obvious reason of more pre-registered attendees while there’s hardly an increase on registration booths. Another could be that if Fanime indeed is more “chill out”, less complaints may be raised. I’ve encountered many people with a fair and patient attitude, and so if I don’t sense a high level of complaints, I wouldn’t see a high reason to prioritize fixing the long wait. Not only that, but if there was indeed more attendees than Fanime could handle, ironically if some people got fed up and left never wishing to come back, then that works out too. In other words, if this issue isn’t really causing much of a dent in say, Fanime or the city’s finances, there’s almost no reason to make any changes to the registration process when it’s worked. It might be slow, it might be way too long, but in the end it’s still functional.

I also spectated an unexpected event: at a section of the feedback that occurs at the end of the convention on Monday, many people jumped on the opportunity to be staff. Perhaps they’re young, perhaps they’re eager, but ultimately if the line issue and inconvenience were largely the only major problems, naturally becoming staff would indeed eliminate both those problems at the same time. Ironically, if this is the resulting effect of the long lines, then truly I do not expect the line issue to improve at all next year if it is indirectly encouraging people to join an otherwise understaffed team.

Dealer’s Hall was so-so. I wouldn’t say it’s a letdown, but it certainly appeared smaller than previously, and with a surprising lack of industry presence. There must be a reality behind it that makes Fanime a poor place to set up, or maybe there’s a practice of dealings that some dealers didn’t like, and so if in the past some said they wouldn’t come back, they really didn’t come back. I’m not fully versed in the industry aspect, so I don’t have much awareness in this area. Not only that, but for products representative of more recently aired anime, I honestly found a surprising lack of goods for even a popular series of say, Girls und Panzer. There was nothing at Fanime remotely close that resounded this series.

Fanime had its ups and downs. While the downs were evident, there were certainly ups. For one, I personally had very loud feedback at eGaming last year full of rage. Although I pretty much ignored the area this year as I didn’t have time to play there, there were clear improvements. For one, the gaming hall was adjusted to allow easier passage for those going from the con to the Hilton. This not only killed traffic congestion, but it really helped on the past issue of having a different entry and exit for the gaming hall. Also for what its worth, Fanime did nicely in figuring out solutions to an ongoing construction situation. Considering what they had access to using, they did utilize it, such as the Fairmont, without losing much of their core systems.

For eGaming itself, I don’t know the details as the interview schedule with staff was cancelled, but it was reminiscent of 2010 when I saw a wider variety of games, and more flexibility of usage. There were more computers, more console stations, and more ease of use. Instead of prohibited use, there was more open promotion of smaller, older games, and there was even some live streaming going on. This was a large improvement over last year, where I won’t mention specifics since that’s in the past. I was worried this aspect wouldn’t improve, but I did like the step up.

There was a local oddity however: the eGaming issue I had seen was also due to protection of the arcade and the businesses that set up their games at Fanime. One specific example was the banning of playing say, Stepmania. The reasoning behind that was basically that the music utilized there being played for free was unfair to the music companies and those other fancy details. However, OSU! was played at Fanime, despite also using music in a much similar fashion to Stepmania. This was bad inconsistency, or maybe Fanime wanted to feature OSU!’s different game mechanics. Who knows. I’m not going to go further on this area as I didn’t actively participate in it. For all I know there could have been people who snuck in game setups that weren’t allowed, but the policy could have been changed to be more lax.

I did not have the time to participate in Fanime specific events, such as the Masquerade, the BW Ball, or other events. I heard that some of those had their own fair share of issues, whether it was quality or execution, but I cannot comment further on that. However, for the musical auditorium that featured performers on Saturday night, I heard fantastic things about those, quite reminiscent of my own concert experiences back in Fanime 2011 with great music and attitude. Sadly, I also opted to skip out on dance raves, which I heard were very fun, mainly because I had to call it a day before midnight. I also recalled that some of the music performers joined attendees at the rave, making it extra super special awesome.

Because of the lack of anything regarding currently aired anime, it was clearly noticeable that instead of anime focus, there was a pretty even spread across different fanbases. You could find My Little Pony, kevedd, Homestuck, and other various series represented here, which makes me jokingly think that Fanime should rename itself to something more fitting of a mix of fandom.

Looking forward, I would not mind coming again. I am particularly looking forward to the future potential the convention can provide when the construction is complete, but in some ways I do fear it will continue to have the same attitude and lacking the oomph it sorely needs to be a standout convention. Since I focused so directly at networking with people, it was easy to overlook the disorganization that attendees perceived Fanime to have.

In all honesty, with Fanime actually growing in number of attendees, and a good chunk of returning attendees, I find that Management will find very little reason to make any major changes. The only aspects of concern are likely getting Industry companies interested in locking in space for Dealers Hall, as well as certain guests of honor. However, on a pure attendee standpoint, regardless of turnover or frustration with disorganization of staff, with this much of a turnout it won’t really matter what a general attendee will think on the larger scale of things. In some ways it’s nice that Fanime turned into a general convention instead of a niche one, but it’s also disappointing as well.

References:

Some Artist Alley booths I ended up visiting. Although I enjoyed all the various wares, I put a higher priority on those whose self promoted Twitter or Tumblr messages were located and seen.

Raemz
Arukard
automaticgiraffe
Larein
PolyMeiClay
SMachajewski
Genue Revuelta
Yu Ji (Prospective artist looking forward to tabling in the future!)
shunao
gisu
uguubear
pansoup
setsuna22
acidbeaker
charmwitch
carneaglariel
Yumizuseki
Sakuradragon
asianpanties
100-Centimeters
e1n
myrollingstar
chukairi
Zambicandy
Megamoth Studios
LMC
mostlyhazel
2.5d Sprites
sammidere

Although most links I saw were accurate, there were certainly typos and other mixed information discovered, leading to more difficulty finding everyone. Due to certain tabling, I did get names but not cards and vice versa. I definitely liked what I saw there, and with the more lax nature of Fanime, it was really nice to interact person to person on a daily basis.