So I'm back from Hentai Matsuri 2026 in San Diego and have had some time to process things.

This is my second year there and it confirms my opinion that it's one of my favorite conventions. Were there problems? Yeah, a few, but all in all, I like the staff, I like the attendees, and I like the overall vibe of the con.

I flew out solo this time, as my wife had volunteered for a local event that same weekend. Left at "Oh, My God, It's Early" on Friday morning. I will say that the renovations to the San Diego International Airport are very nice. I was taken aback because we'd flow into the same old terminal twice last year, so seeing something much larger and much more modern terminal was a pleasant surprise.

I decided to take the cheap route getting there for two reasons. 1) Money, obviously. and 2) to time things out to see how long it might take me to get back. The result might determine if I take public transport back or get a Lyft (I ended up taking the Lyft). There's a free shuttle, the San Diego Flyer, that goes from the airport to a major rail station called Old Town, which has light rail, Amtrack, and city bus. From there I took the Green Line to Fashion Valley mall station, which is then a block and a half walk to the Handlery Hotel. The train ride took 12 minutes, it was just waiting for the Flyer & the train that ate up my time.

Got to the hotel, found I wouldn't be able to check in until 1:30pm, so I checked into the con and got to the Artist Room (BTW: It's not Artist Alley. We are all Featured Artists and it's called the Artist Room) to set up. Didn't take me long to get set up. I didn't have that much with me to begin with and years of setting up full 10x10 vendor booths meant I had a lot of experience in figuring out how to optimize set-up and tear down. After set-up, I walked up to the Fashion Valley mall to get some food, as it was the only place, outside of the nearby hotels, that had restaurants. Lots of different Asian fast food up there and I wandered back with some yummy Beef Noodle from a place we'd eaten at last year.

Managed to finally get checked into my hotel room and dropped my personal stuff off there. But it was getting close to start-up time, so I wasn't able to do my planned supplies run and that had to wait until that evening after the room closed at 9pm. Sold more items than I expected on a Friday. Unfortunately, Friday ended up being my strongest day saleswise. After closing, I walked back to Fashion Valley and took the train to the next stop west, where there were I knew there was a convenience store. Bought some chips and a liter of pop. More expensive than a grocery store, but cheaper than the hotel vending machines. Went back only to find out that the hotel's bar & grill closed early and everything else in the area was either already closed or about to close. Had some chips and went to bed as I was tired from the travel, the set-up, and the vending. At least the beef noodle had been filling.

Saturday morning, I got up early enough to get some breakfast. The hotel restaurant was pretty decent and I got 4 french toasts & bacon for $20, which is a steal for a hotel in California. Got set-up & had my day at the booth from 10am to 6pm.

The con has some interesting things going on. One is that it has a full VTuber staff and has joined up with Fansly to do promotions. Several of the VTubers wandered into the Artist Room with their remote controlled telepresence machines, accompanied by a handler. The room did have some problems with connectivity, so sometimes the handlers had to push the machines around a bit until the VTuber could take control again. A pair of VTubers bought shirts from me on Friday and I never got their names. A few of the VTubers even had their nude models on the entire time they wandered around.

Also, this is the only con I know of that has a "top-tional" policy. In that, in the main areas of the convention, women can be topless. Since the con isn't doing a complete takeover of the hotel, there are still "mundanes" staying there, so it wasn't the whole hotel, which was a shame, especially since the pool area wasn't 'top-tional' which would have been a prime cosplay photo area. I only personally saw three cis-gendered women take advantage of this. On Saturday was a woman dressed as Marin from My Dress-up Darling, who had a string bikini on and had pushed her cups to the side. I only saw her for a split second as she walked by my table. The second was a couple dressed as Mario & Peach, where Peach was wearing a pink BDSM outfit. She was covered, but when her Mario was taking photos out in the Terrace Garden, she removed her top. They did a quick lap around the Artist Room before leaving. On Sunday, a woman who had been topless except for pasties in all of her costumes that weekend decided to take them off for her last trip through the Artist Room, though she took her time as she and her partner were talking to a couple of the artists. Otherwise, women chose to wear pasties if they were wearing something that might have exposed their nipples. There are a few topless men, a few topless transmen, and one topless transwoman I saw late at night.

Last year, I had a clear view of the Terrace Garden. My view was mostly blocked this year because of where I was sitting, but I still saw some of the things going on out there, including the wedding that happened on Saturday afternoon, where a con guest was getting married. Lasted half an hour. (That's how you know it wasn't Catholic :P) and they left the chair set-up for a fashion show and the costume contest.

Saturday evening, after enjoying some carne asada fries from the Bar & Grill, I wandered around and planned to go to a Retro-Hentai panel, which would talk about hentai from the 90's and 2Ks. Well, the room was full of people, but the panelists didn't show up. When someone asked if anyone here had watched hentai in the 90's, I raised my hand. I ended up doing an impromptu panel on the fly. Another person came up to attach their laptop to the monitor in the room (the mics worked, too, which meant I could be heard clearly) and, unfortunately, we ended up watching a lot of Urotsukidoji because the guy controlling the laptop was more interested in that than finding and showing any other hentai series I rattled off. Still, I got a lot of 'thank-you's' from the attendees and I think Overfiend will be getting some attention from the younger generation now. There was one guy who saw the opening of Overfiend and yelled out "That's where that's from!". He had seen the box art when he was a kid, which had a screenshot of a demon having sex with a woman and that ended up on the screen as we were looking through the episode. Seems I unlocked a core memory from his childhood. Glad to be of service!

The rave ended up being at capacity, the karaoke was interesting for a few minutes, then someone decided to do the Pokemon theme and I noped out.

Oh, another piece of advice. Don't drink the tap water at the hotel. I filled an empty Dew bottle with tap water on Saturday to have at my table and I think that's when caused my insides to rebel. Otherwise I don't think the french toast & bacon would have caused that reaction. I wisely filled my bottle from the complimentary water jug in the lobby on Sunday and had no problems otherwise. Unless it was the altitude change, but I don't think it would have waited until Saturday and happen twice.

After that TMI, Sunday was pretty quiet. Artist Room didn't open until 11am to account for hangovers. Packed up, checked out, got to talk to the Artist Room head and also one of the con heads, letting them know I had a flight out and had to leave early. Day was quiet, as I said, but I'm watching my flight schedule bounce around. Decided better safe than sorry, so packed up when I originally planned, said good-bye to my booth neighbors and wandered out.

Oh, shout out to my neighbors., Obbi-Mation & Octopodi

Flight ended up being delayed by almost an hour. I could have stayed until the 6pm shutdown, but, again, better safe than sorry. Got a good look at the new terminal while I waited. Otherwise the flight was OK. A little bumpy as we got over the Rockies, but I got out and home at an OK time.

Looking forward to next year!