Anime Fusion Celebrates Its 10th Convention
Anime Fusion, an anime convention that has been held at the Crowne Plaza Minneapolis West in Plymouth, Minnesota, for the last few years, held its 10th event this past October 21 through 23. If you’ve been to other local conventions in the recent-ish past, you may recognize Anime Fusion as the anime convention behind the anime room party that will also serve you a delicious grilled cheese sandwich.
While Anime Fusion has a name similar to Anime Detour, another local anime convention, each one has a distinct vibe. Anime Fusion has historically been held in the fall, and it is a smaller convention, with attendance hovering around 1,300 for the past few years (as of the time of writing, I did not have an official body count for 2022, but the con staffer I spoke with on Saturday believed that this year would be around the same attendance as in years past). Both conventions offer ways to celebrate your fandoms, but, as a smaller convention, Anime Fusion is a much more chill and less over-stimulating experience. If you’re someone who struggles with large crowds, but also likes anime, you may find this convention more manageable.
The Saturday night Smash Brothers tournament hits a thrilling moment as the score evens up mid-game. Rae Black
Anime Fusion had many of the standard convention offerings (con suite, dealer’s room, artist alley, panels, masquerade, gaming rooms, and screening rooms), along with a manga library, a family activity room, a low-sensory quiet room, a boffing room, and the Kitaku Maid Cafe. Guests of honor included Marcy Edwards, John Gremillion, Kaiji Tang, and Samurai Dan and Jillian. Cosplay guests included Goff Cosplay and Laughing Rat Cosplay, and guest performers included Midnight Minxes, PrinceWelcomeMatt, Ursa Major, and Liquid86.
Anime Fusion 2022. Rae Black
The convention also offered live-streamed content from select programming rooms, which allowed people to experience the convention from overflow locations or the comfort of their own choosing.
COVID did cause a little bit of last-minute disruption for the convention by taking two scheduled guests out of commission—voice actor Chris Patton (who was replaced at the last minute by Kaiji Tang) and DJ Drazz (replaced by Ursa Major).
Because she has been getting increasingly interested in anime and manga, I brought my 11-year-old with me to also experience the con, which made me really appreciate the smaller nature of Anime Fusion. While it was also partially because we live fairly close to the location of the con hotel, we found it very easy to come and go from the con as needed. I never felt I was missing out by not staying on site.
Three Maids from the Kitaku cafe perform for the cafe customers. Rae Black
The convention had a good mix of offerings for both of us. My kid was most excited about a Genshin Impact panel and the Maid Cafe, where we had snacks while playing a variety of games with the other members of our table and a Maid. She also had no problems in spending her entire allowance savings on finds from the dealer’s room and artist alley. I loved the variety of panels available and the various generations of consoles present in the video gaming room, which let me show my kiddo the wonders of the cooperative nature of Mario Kart Double Dash (even if she was less than impressed by the graphic capabilities of the Nintendo Game Cube).
Characters from Genshin Impact take questions from the audience. Rae Black
We both also had a lot of fun in the boffing room (boffing involves pretend melee combat with padded weapons), which was run by Twin Cities Amtgard. It was a great place to get some extra energy out, so unsurprisingly it was a popular room for families.
I also really appreciated their COVID-19 policy, which required masking in all parts of the convention (unless eating in designated areas). The attendees also seemed to have little issue with compliance, with the only exception being a few older attendees. The ability to attend a convention without coming home with con crud has been a revelation, so I hope that conventions requiring masking is a thing that stays around for awhile.
An overflow viewing area for masquerade allowed for casual viewing. Rae Black
The hotel itself is a bit of both a positive and a negative. This particular Crowne Plaza has a convention space layout that is sprawling and occasionally confusing, which can make navigation tricky. However, it has a lot of random lounge space, which is nice if you need to grab a chair for a little bit of downtime or to find some solace away from people. Another consideration is that, while it does have a restaurant on-site, it is not currently open for lunch. The hotel did offer a concession kiosk with hot food on Friday and Saturday only. This meant that it was a little hard to find food for Sunday lunch, since the next closest option was a McDonald’s a little under a mile away.
A variety of rice toppings sit in the con suite waiting to help feed the hungry con-goers. Rae Black
I only have two thoughts about where Anime Fusion has the potential to be even better. First, it would be nice to see accessibility information. Second, I wish information in the program book was organized slightly differently and included hours of operations on the program grid or at least in a centralized space. Having to constantly flip through the book to find the hours of operation of various places was a little time consuming.
This is a convention that both my kid and I will likely be back to. With the smaller size, varied offerings, and relatively inexpensive registration prices (I paid $75 at the door for the two of us; it could have been as low as $50 if I had pre-registered), it’s very doable. Even though we didn’t spend every waking moment there, it still felt as if I’d gotten my money’s worth.
Anime Fusion is currently scheduled for October 20–22 in 2023 at the same hotel (Crowne Plaza Minneapolis West).
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About the Author
Rae Black
As an impressionable middle schooler, Rae was led to the geek side through family traditions and Science Olympiad team members. It spiraled from there. In addition to Twin Cities Geek, she writes about life, passions, geekdom, parenting, and more at Starship Suburbia.
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Is it coinkydink that theirs coverage for convergence and fusion but not Detour? Don’t tcg staff work at those cons or be friends with leadership?
Is their a bias against Detour? This article at the beginning seems unnecessarily negative about Detour and exaggerating the hype for fusion, like a commercial. Why compare, why not just talk about fusion. Should Detour dump on fusion when getting reviewed?
1300 people? Sorry, I go to fusion erry year, but now. You’re off by about 400.
I ain’t talking turnstile, let’s talk actual registrations. Con is the same every year, that’s why it ain’t growin, period.
Hi! If Anime Detour would like coverage on Twin Cities Geek, please have them contact us about a press pass! Nobody who writes for Twin Cities Geek gets paid, so if nobody on staff is already planning to attend, it helps a lot if we are invited to cover a convention. info@twincitiesgeek.com
Anime Fusion is now $75 at the door?! I think that’s the same price as Anime Detour, a con 5 times bigger. For a con that small, that’s highway robbery.
And what is the deal with charging more for a day pass after 9pm? MORE after 9pm?
That’s some obvious price gouging for a con that’s struggling to grow. My friends and I will go to the far better choices for value and waaaay better conventions, Twin Cities Con and Anime Nebraskon, both exploding. Do better Fusion.
And Fusion staff be rude af, no cap.
Hello “Jeanine”. I see you have IP address as “Frankie”. It’s rude AF to spam the comment section pretending to be different people. 🙂
Well gosh…. ain’t that fascinating? Curious to know who actually posted this, but either way, how revealing.
Hello! As was said in the article, the $75 was for both the writer and their child – the family discount allows for one adult at current price ($50 at-door) and up to two children at $25 each.
If you have feedback regarding the behavior of Fusion’s staff, I would like to hear it so we can improve. Customer service is very important to us. Please submit the feedback form on Fusion’s website, if you haven’t already.
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Also, Anime Fusion does not sell day passes after-hours, so the “higher price” at night is because it’s a weekend pass.
I thought maybe Chris canceled because we didn’t remember to set rooms aside for Guests of Honor.
Or that we pay terribly.
As was mentioned in all the announcements and internal messaging about this, Chris Patton tested positive for COVID-19 a few days before the convention. That was the only reason for his cancellation. All guest compensation is agreed to and finalized in a written contract before any guests are announced to the public. And everyone who had been promised a room had one, through internal arrangements that were completely transparent to them.