Today, I visited the FAN EXPO Vancouver event that occurred this Sunday to experience what all the hype about this event would be like.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Co22WMVuDg_/

I, unfortunately, was only able to get tickets for the Sunday event after 2 pm, so I feel I missed out on a decent bit and didn’t get the full experience. However, I will say for the amount of time I was at the event, it did not disappoint.

I encounter many people dressed up as characters I recognized from the video games I play and animations that I watch. I encountered 2 cosplayers (people who dress up as characters) and was very intrigued by their costumes, so I asked if I could take a photo of their costumes and they agreed for me to do so.

I thought it would be awkward if I just take a photo of their costumes and leave, so I thought it would be a good idea for me to kind of interview them and see why they like dressing up as characters. The photo I took of them is posted below:

Jason (the one on the left with the bucket hat) and Liam (the one on the right with the yellow mask).

Jason is dressed up as the popular K-Pop idol Jungkook. I sort of guessed that was his costume but I wanted to make sure. When I asked him why he decided to dress up as him he said while chuckling, “I’m a pretty big fan of BTS, to be honest. I also didn’t have a super unique costume like most of the people here, but I also didn’t want to just show up in normal street clothes, so I tried to at least make it seem like I wore something different.”

Liam was dressed up as Mikoto Yuki, or some fans just call him the Persona 3 protagonist since the protagonist can be named anything, but Mikoto Yuki is the default name. I recognized his costume right away and had to ask what inspired him to make wear this costume and if he made the costume on his own, in which he said, “I’m a big fan of Persona 3. I love all the Persona games, but Persona 3 was always my favourite, so I thought it would be fun to dress up as Mikoto. I’m glad you recognized my costume because I’ve been here for like 4 hours and no one has seemed to recognize it or ask for a photo, so thanks for that.”

To end the day, I went looking around looking for some cool merchandise to bring home to make my trip worthwhile, and I found some posters that looked cool. I took a photo to send to my friends to see if they wanted any, but they were good. I decided not to buy any since I’ll be coming back tomorrow (Monday), but it was nice to see what this event had to offer.

It was overall a really fun experience and am really glad I went! I would recommend anyone to go if they enjoy animations and video games. It’s a fun community, but it’s hard to find people who are a part of it. So this is your opportunity to find people who have the same interests as you and make new friendships, and hey, maybe you’ll see me there too!