By Dakharai Murray

WOW…talk about an amazing day! The Sakura Matsuri was one of the most entertaining events I’ve ever attended in my life. There was Anime, Anime, Karuta, FOOD, and more Anime! However, before I get to that stuff, let’s take a step back and see what was going on at our tent for Japanese Plus (clearly the best tent at the festival, I mean that’s obvious).

At our tent for the festival, we had all sorts of events for pedestrians to observe or partake in. Despite our primary focus of entertaining the masses of younger children that attended the festival, we primarily attracted citizens of the high school age, which was surprising, considering the fact that we had coloring sheets, puzzles, and a picture song. Many people came by our tent, wanting to learn more about our program, so we informed them. They left our tent with not only knowledge about our program, but with a Puni Puni sticker and the desire to join our program. However, most of the people who wanted to join Japanese Plus were past their senior year in high school, which sucked.

After my shift at the booth ended, I went to explore the festival area. A group of friends and myself attended a concert by Japanese bands, and people…went…CRAZY!!!! I wish I was that popular. Anyway, after the concert I saw this sword and I had to have the sword, but it was fake. Unfortunately, I looked in my wallet and saw that I wasn’t financially prepared for the festival. Not wanting to leave the festival without an amazing sword, I sprinted to an ATM and got money. Now I have an amazing sword that sits in a corner of my room. Later on we got some food and checked out all the Anime booths. I blew all my money on souvenirs in about 30 minutes and I got a free Naruto mask. All in all, that was an amazing day and I can’t wait for the next festival.