Our First Convention of the Year: Anime Impulse 2022! - Experience Anime in Pop Culture at OTAKIFY.COM

Anime Impulse 2022 is a two day convention held out at the Pomona Fairplex out in Pomona, CA over the past weekend, January 15th-16th. This event is held at the same time as Asian American Expo, Sneaker Expo and K-Play! Fest all in the same area, so if you wanted to check out something else, you can go into all of the areas. The ticket you got for 1 applies for all 4 events.

In order to give you a better idea of our experience, let’s go over each event one at a time to get a better understanding of our weekend.

Before that, check out the badges we got at the event! 😀

ASIAN AMERICAN EXPO

If you didn’t already know, Asian American Expo is an event where they host the largest Lunar New Year Celebration in America. It is a cultural event which tons of food, all sorts of entertainment, activities, and tons of products from vendors to try out! Every year, it’s always nice to check out what new products are being featured or if we are in the mood to get some new snacks, food or drinks for our homes. The FOOD especially is something to look forward too. Every year, there is this huge fried chicken cutlet that we would look forward too, but unfortunately, that food stall was not here this year. I know…very sad. BUT, I got to try 2 new foods that I wouldn’t have expected: egg sandwich and pizza baos. I know, strange right? BUT NOT! IT was so goood! Just look at these pictures.

Pepperoni Pizza Baos (Fried & Steamed) from Pizza Baos

Besides the delicious food, there are plenty of stuff to check out. You can walk through the numerous halls and get lost in all of the products and food, that you legit might get lost… or at least I did. Here is a small preview of what we saw.

If you are feeling for a change of pace, you could head over to Sneaker Expo.

SNEAKER EXPO

Sneaker Expo is a little event being held by NTWRK with The Merch Heaven and VX. This event covers all sorts of fashionable things in the streetwear community, such as streetwear, vintage clothing, and of course, sneakers. Good ol’ sneakers. In a section of the hall, there are some arcade games, a basketball hoop and even some cars on display. They even had some random resellers just hanging out and selling their kicks in the hall. LOL

Check out some of the photos from within the hall:

Once you are done blowing some dough on some fresh gear, you can head over and vibe to some K-Pop at K-Play! Fest!

K-PLAY! FEST

K-PLAY! FEST is a fan hosted even where the community gets to have fun together, vibe to some great K-pop music, check out some merch and awesome artists, and more!

Here is some of the things you can see!

And finally, what you’ve been the most curious about… Anime Impulse!!

ANIME IMPULSE

Anime Impulse is one of the first anime conventions that Otakify has attended and we were actually there at the very first event. It definitely has come a long way since then, and I’m very proud of the Anime Impulse team for their accomplishments. Anyways, Anime Impulse is an anime convention where you can hang out with your fellow weeb, check out all the anime merch, artists and vendors who’ve you haven’t seen all year, see all the amazing cosplays that people have been getting ready all year round for these type of events, all the itashas out on the floor, and especially the guests and panels. To change it up a bit, here are some of our highlights of the event.

Genshin Impact VA Panel

A bunch of the voice actors from Genshin Impact graced the stage from some QA with the homie Hermsaur and one of cosplayers in the community, Annjielife. It was great because they asked some spicy questions, they said some of their character’s favorite lines and more! They even gave out some signed merch to the crowd!

Artist Alley

With every convention, artist alley has become one of our favorite areas to check out. It always features a bunch of great artists covering all types of styles and anime series. This year, both the artist alley and K-PLAY! Fest were combined into one hall.

Here is a little taste of what could be found in Artist Alley.

ITASHAS

The itashas are always plentiful here at Anime Impulse. Multiple car squads pull up and display their rides outside of the convention halls and they come fully decked out. SLAMMED even.

Friendship

As corny as this may sound, I felt like my personal highlight of the event is that we got to hang out with the homies all of the convention. It has been quite some time since we all got to walk the halls as a squad and just check out all the amazing things that conventions have to offer. Thanks to the homies for the hangs!

I know there are tons of highlights for our Anime Impulse experience, such as cosplayers, food, the free gaming arcade, the maid cafe, and whatnot, but these are just our personal highlights to the event. Once I get the rest of our squad’s highlights, I’ll make sure to add them into this blog post as well.

Here is a gallery of some other things for you to expect at the overall event.