The Cherry Blossom Festival of Southern California was held in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo on April 10-11. Last month, I wrote about taking photos at Lake Balboa in Encino, where there were many trees with blooming cherry blossoms. Little Tokyo also has a few trees capable of producing cherry blossoms, but the blossoms have long since died off. Still, there’s no reason why they can’t hold a festival. This is a festival that gets larger every year. I first came here two years ago. The festival had moved to Little Tokyo from it’s former home in Pasadena. It ran along two streets in Little Tokyo and consisted of a few food and merchandise booths, two small stages, and a martial arts demo tent. It now sprawls over a large area. There are three stages with entertainment, including the massive main stage, the Hawaiian Stage, and new for this year, the J-Pop Stage. The martial arts pavilion is still there. There are also a lot more booths filled with merchandise, food, information, and services.
One of the weekend’s events was a cosplay contest sponsored by Pacific Media Expo. I was out there to support a few of my friends who entered. This was the first event held on the new J-Pop stage and the first cosplay contest for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Usually, the only official cosplay contest held in Little Tokyo is held during Nisei Week in August. It’s nice to have another contest at this rapidly growing festival.
The eventual winner of the cosplay contest turned out to be a personal friend of mine–cosplayer “Sushi Monster” who was dressed as Vanille from the newest installment of the Final Fantasy video game series. She was one of the cosplayers featured in Cosplay Underground v. 003. Which reminds me, I need to get to work and start putting another one of those together. It’s nice to see her still having fun with cosplay.
As far as cultural festivals go, this is one of my favorites. For me, it’s just the right size. There’s plenty to see and plenty to keep you entertained enough that you can spend a day here. The crowd is big enough so that the atmosphere is fun, but not so overwhelming that it becomes too cramped. Nisei Week is fun, but it can be overwhelming at times. It’s great that it’s still growing and including new forms of entertainment. It’s definitely a festival that I’d keep coming back to year after year.