Welcome to another year’s Tora Con recap! This year’s convention was held on March 23/24. Unfortunately right between two warm weeks. So, as usual it was snowy going for us attendees, nothing new there. The weekend started out with a blizzard as we were driving to the con, luckily it didn’t follow us the whole way there, and we finally arrived around 11am.
This year the con schedule was on Guidebook which was nice because I did not have to carry around any paper, and we could easily see the panels, maps, descriptions, and announcements right from the same place on our phones. So, I had a loose plan of things I was interested in for the weekend. When we arrived we got our badges and immediately went into the dealers room.
Admittedly, I wasn’t very excited for Tora Con this year for a few reasons. First, several long standing artists and vendors were rejected this year which I think sucks, it also made me nervous for what those kind of shocking changes meant for the con overall. The other reason I was less than amped about the con is because I am not watching any current anime, and in fact the ONLY thing I am interested in these days is Final Fantasy XIV Online, which I did not expect to be represented in any way at the convention since it hasn’t been in the past. However, it turned out that four different sellers in the artist alley were selling FFXIV stuff! This delighted me beyond reason lol.
The vendors this year actually were not good. They scaled the vendors way down from previous years so there were only about 6 tables and all they had were overpriced anime figures, which I am personally not very interested in. However, AA was HUGE this year, spanning 3/4 of the building the dealers room was held in. There was a decent variety of cute, edgy, and unique artists selling. I ended up having a really nice conversation with a seller about FFXIV as the release date and pre-order for the upcoming expansion, Dawntrail was announced that morning at PAX East. So the energy buzzing about for the game was high. I never buy anything on my first round through the dealers room. I like to think about what I saw and what I want so that I don’t make impulse purchases.
I did not cosplay or dress special for Saturday. I simply wore leggings and a pink t-shirt with the FFXIV copy pasta meme on it, which garnered me an unexpected amount of attention and photos. I did not mind, it led me to some positive interactions.
After looking through the dealers room, we got lunch and met up with some friends and then headed to the HimeKiss fashion show. My friend was walking in the show so I wanted to support her, but I also wanted to support this fashion show because it was the ONLY Jfashion content of the weekend. Tora Con has never done a Jfashion show before to my knowledge, I have attended most years since 2011. The show was a little messy as the models were asked to walk for way too long, and there was at least one wardrobe malfunction. But, overall I enjoyed it. It was nice to see Jfashion represented, the models were diverse, the music was good. After all the models walked, there was a Q&A with the designer. I would like to see more content like this going forward. Jfashion has always been so deeply linked to anime cons, it’s often the first place people are exposed to it, so I really want to support and foster this kind of content.
Afterwards we went back to the dealers room to go shopping. I will share my final haul at the end of the post, but I did spend at least $80 on FFXIV stuff alone. My fiancé who was attending with me managed to secure himself the LAST of a really cool Elden Ring print from artist Cypritree, they were nice enough to sell him the display print as long as they could leave it up until we left the next day. Very nice seller, gorgeous art.
Then we went to finally check into our hotel. This year we were staying somewhere new since our previous hotel gave everyone a very bad experience last year and has been in the news for some less than savory behavior. Thankfully the new hotel was very nice, clean, and professional. While deciding on dinner I got a stomach ache. We ended up getting Pho which did help my stomach a bit but I would end up calling it a night and missing the 18+ panels to instead lay down with an antacid.
On Sunday, I wore lolita. I specifically wore a redo of the same coord I wore to Tora Con ten years ago in 2014. I would be meeting up with some other lolitas later that day so I was excited to put on a coord.
JSK: Angelic Pretty
Socks: Dandy Puppeteer
Hair clip: Little Ghost
Everything else: Offbrand
It was very windy this weekend so thankfully I also had a black fury lolita coat with me, and I had my matching Sugary Carnival tote bag to carry all my stuff. I got a lot of compliments on my dress from other con-goers. Some who knew to call it a coord, some who knew about Angelic Pretty but didn’t wear lolita themselves. It was nice, I love interacting with people at the con. You can read more about my coordinate redo here.
The first thing we did on Sunday was attend the AMV contest. I always like doing this because I have an appreciation for editing and especially editing to fit music. After the AMV contest, I hosted a mini, unofficial lolita meet in the meeting space the con reserves. There were not many people in lolita this year, especially compared to last year. But, there ended up being four of us. It was fun, we took pics, but also took some film pics with a disposable camera, and some selfies with the Nintendo 3DS. I always bring my 3DS for street passes, I managed to get a good amount of them this year which was nice because street pass is being shut down in just a couple weeks, thanks Nintendo.
After the lolita meet, we went back to the dealers room and got the last few things we wanted and picked up that print. The only thing I bought in the vendors this year was Japanese snacks. Everything else I got was from artist alley which feels good because I would rather support artists/small business.
Our final stop before heading home was lunch, we had gyros and hummus from Mediterranean Kebab House. This food was so good I almost cried. What a good note to end the weekend on. The weather was dry on Sunday so the drive home was fine.
My final haul, I seriously thought my wallet was safe this year HA!
I got so many prints this year, I was really excited not only by the representation for FFXIV, but also Yu-Gi-Oh! Which had a lot going on at the con, and even Bleach! I haven’t seen Bleach stuff at a con in AGES despite it coming off hiatus in the last couple years.
Dark Magician Girl print (614S2)
Rin and Len print (april jubilees)
Bleach print (gerrydraws)
FFXIV Keychains (kiiyame) (mads England)
Bear and cat post cards/Hi-Chew stickers (my tea addiction)
Aymeric print (mads England)
FFXIV chibi print (onemegawatt)
Kirby and sanrio stickers/Tuxedo Sam Post Its (dressydeer)
I am so happy with everything I got, I am pressed for wall space for all this art as I still have art to hang from other cons lol. I guess it’s time to go frame shopping. I had a really good time at the con overall, better than expected by a long shot. I wonder what 2025 will bring us.
Enjoy one final photo dump:
Mahou Queen 