Anime Days

Not long ago, I attended Anime Days, which was held at STC Gardenwalk in Anaheim. If STC Gardenwalk sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because it was the location for the Japanese Festival that I decided to skip out on. It was a free event featuring various vendors, cosplayers, a maid cafe, itasha cars and more.

I was a bit worried about the parking situation here but my worries were unfounded as I actually managed to get a nice parking spot relatively quickly. Depending on where you end up parking, you might have to take the elevator to get to the main area for Anime Days. The main area was at P2, I believe. You’ll run into a variety of anime related vendors in the main area. If you enjoy shopping, you’ll have a blast browsing the many vendors. If you’re not into shopping, you can easily just “window shop” as you walk past each vendor until you run into something that truly catches your attention. As I had already spent some money prior to the event, I opted not to waste any additional money here.

The bulk of the event is outdoors and as crowded as it can get here, it didn’t feel crowded at all. I actually liked the ambiance here.

Remove the anime related vendors and I still would find the STC Gardenwalk to be a very nice place to just hang out at. There was a good amount of security on site and I’m not too sure what to make of that. Was it because there was an event (Anime Days) going on or was it because the location is so close to Disneyland? I don’t know. I suppose I might know the answer if I were to return on a non-event day?

There were a decent amount of cosplayers and I probably could have asked many for a photo or two, but ended up not bothering to do so since I was pressed for time AND I sometimes feel weird about it all despite cosplayers “always” saying yes to photos. However, I DID ask for a photo from a Link (Zelda) cosplayer. I just had to because I’ve always liked Link from Zelda. The cosplayer seemed like a really nice and down to earth guy. I even got to capture some moves from him in my video in front of a backdrop that was fitting for Link. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until after I reviewed my video of him that I noticed how great his props (shield and sword) were. The props looked like they were directly from the video game itself!

There was a stage where I caught sight of dancing. I’m sure this area is where they held a cosplay contest as well as other performances. Almost everything was held outdoors. If you wanted to play with gachas, you’d have to go inside a Taiwanese shop (?) that was on the top floor. I didn’t bother since I didn’t want to spend any money AND couldn’t figure out which entrance was the actual entrance, if that makes any sense.

The bottom level or “sea level” was where the itasha cars were at. It was basically inside a “special” parking lot area which I assume is a lot reserved for event vendors and businesses of the STC Gardenwalk. I’ve blogged about the itasha cars recently so if you missed out on that post, please check it out. In summation, they had several itasha cars available for viewing. One itasha car, “Husbando Hunter” stood out to me most and is my most favorite itasha car thus far.

Parking at the STC Gardenwalk is free for an hour. It can be difficult to enjoy both the STC Gardenwalk and an event like Anime Days within an hour. To get around this, you can try to get an additional hour (or two) of free parking via validation from a restaurant. If Anime Days happens to be going on when you’re visiting Disneyland, you can easily walk from Disneyland to the STC Gardenwalk to enjoy the event without having to worry about parking.