A recurring theme for us here at Amped Asia is finding some of the most gorgeous women that are deep in the Cosplay scene. What’s not to like about a pretty Asian girl dressed up as cute the Anime Characters that you call “waifu”.
Early this year we had the pleasure of attending Anime Impulse, the newest convention to hit the west coast, alongside Asian American Expo in Pomona. It is herald to be the “January Anime Expo” and has attracted major names such as: Alodia & Ashley Goseingfiao, and one of our first few features Vampy Bit me, and Linda Le.
Walking in we saw some import cars emblazoned with popular Anime characters with their owners standing next to their pieces of moving art. Some cars had cosplay models posing and hanging around with the cars. A little further down, were a huge assembly line of diverse food trucks that had long lines from the beginning to the end of the day. Not because the service was slow nor it was the only place to get food, but the food they served was top notch LA street food.
This article was featured in vol. 19 of Amped Asia and republished here for your perusal. To get our coverage in magazine form, make sure to subscribe!
Inside was a nerd’s paradise. Booths filled to the brim with Nerdgasms. From cool shirts with their favorite animated characters, to one off art pieces, to old school video games, to manga and comic books, even toy tentacles – which I had to buy a set of 8 to go harass my Amped Asia co-workers with. The artist booths, from big name artists to smaller independent artists all offered something interesting, such as anime/cartoon series crossovers of The Legend of Korra and Adventure Time buttons and T-shirts, or short flipbook animations of One Punch Man fighting Goku.
With ironically belligerent trap music blaring all throughout the main auditorium of the convention with people in full blown cosplays twerked it out, there featured a maid café and workshops for amateur animators and voice actors. We proceeded into the VIP lounge, which was more of a sandbox filled with prestigious social media personalities, where there were unlimited fountains of matcha green tea pocky and a giant life size moving kawaii teddy bear ready to be snuggled and posed with on pictures. We got to meet and chat with personalities such as D Piddy, emilythemermaid, Rian Synnth and the Goseningfiao sisters. Also there was a wallflower of a sweaty dude that walked around and asked for everyone’s autograph, whether they were huge or sort of a local hometown social media hero, even one of our photographers, Leo Trajano got to sign it.
From the VIP lounge we saw D Piddy on the microphone hosting the cosplay fashion show, where cosplayers strutted down the aisle of the stage, showing off their craftsmanship and accuracy of their character portrayal, or their out of the box creativity on their portrayal of the character. The judges would be the Gosieingfiao sisters, and the Yoshi brothers.
After the convention was coming to a close, we were generously invited to the maid café after we visited an oasis in the bustling convention: the bar. After knocking back about 4-5 Jameson Ginger Ales, we ended the night with drunkenly playing Cards Against Humanity with the maids and dressing the manager of the maid café as one of the maids.
Overall, this convention earns the reputation of being the Anime Expo of the spring season, as it had delicious food with a variety of selection, a multitude of events for both seasoned cosplayers and first time goers, creativity exploding from the artist booths, and a GOD DAN BAR. The smaller size of the event should not fool or deter anyone away to pass it up as just another passing Anime Convention.
Written by Editorial Staff