JAFAX
by Christina Barr

Don't think badly of us, but this was our first anime con.  I know.  For shame, but it was a good one.  We had a table so we were busy working, but we did get to see a lot of great costumes (some were bad, but I won't bother dwelling on it) and some cool people.  One very cool person that we got the chance to meet was Kyle Hebert, a big anime voice actor with many credits, including Dragonball Z.  Everyone who knows us, knows that's our favorite anime, so it was a pretty big deal.  He gave good advice on the business of voice acting as well, so check out that interview here. 

Jafax is a con in Michigan at Grand Valley University.  The greatest thing about the con is that it's free.  People were lined up hours early while vendors were still setting up.  I even heard someone say they were there at 5am!  That's some dedication. 

They had a lot of cool vendors selling popular items as well as a lot of great original stuff and as a vendor, I do have to say that the format they had for vendors was actually very great.  You could pay for some of the table in your product, so there were plenty of prizes and giveaways for the attendees.  From my experience, it was pretty well organized.  As soon as the attendees came through the doors, the volunteers handed them bags with maps and programs already inside.

There were costume contests, fashion shows, AMV contests, panels, and people even having fun out on the lawn.  I was very tempted to join a game of Red Rover Red Rover, but no one probably would have picked me.  They sadly never do.

It's true that there are a lot of odd people at anime cons, even more so than comic book cons, but they are also very friendly.  I find that geeks usually are.  Some just don't know how to socialize and it might lead to an altercation, but we're usually pretty great people.  A couple of kind people dropped some money in my friend's case for playing the ukulele for pretty much eight hours.  Her fingers were sore, but we had fun making up songs.  We certainly had fun.

I would recommend going to Jafax if you live around the area.  It is a smaller con, but it's a nice atmosphere. They should probably find a bigger space for next year, just because it was so packed on the main floor.  If you love to cosplay, I really recommend going, because so many people showed up decked out in cosplay greatness.  I accidentally cosplayed as Finn from Adventure Time, since I was wearing my hat and had a blue dress on.  It was pretty funny and I went along with it, especially when I met another Finn and he acted out a scene with his Jake friend. And if the Deadpool ever finds his way to this page, the one with the #1 fan of Golden Girls button, I just want to make it known that you sir, are awesome!

We'll probably be there next year.  We had a good time.