Greetings and Salutations my friends and fellow travelers!
Today's blog post details my first ever trip to an anime convention. I've been to plenty of fan conventions, but this was my first ever trip to one devoted exclusively to Japanese anime.
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| Outstanding cosplayers gathering at the stairwell inside the Embassy Suites Hotel in Concord, the home site for Ichibancon 9. |
The event, Ichibancon 9, was being held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Concord, North Carolina, about 65 miles from where I live. I had enough money to attend for one day on Friday, January 12th. Ichibancon is an annual event and is billed as the second largest anime con in North Carolina.
In the interest of full disclosure, the choice to go there was a last minute spur-of-the-moment decision on my part. I hadn't planned on going until that morning, and I just needed to get out and do something on my one day off from work. I also needed something to distract me from my recent loss -- my grandmother Carolyn died the week before and we'd buried her two days before. Even though I am a major introvert, I really felt the need to be out with people at this time.
The trip took just over an hour and a half from where I live, largely due to the traffic on I85 near Charlotte. I left my home just after ten o'clock and arrived just a few minutes after noon.
On an interesting note, I decided to wear my Ulster Red Irish Tartan kilt to the event. The weather, while not really warm, wasn't really cold. It was raining off and on, but that wasn't so bad. Turns out I wasn't the only guy wearing a "skirt" at the event -- some were young guys doing the gender-bender thing -- though I am pretty sure that (with a couple of exceptions) I looked mine better in mine than they did theirs. I did end up getting plenty of complements on my kilt, especially from several lovely ladies -- including one particular person that I plan to go into better detail about in a future blog post.
The cosplayers were outstanding all around. Not all of the cosplayers themes were necessarily anime related, but as is the case in all of these fan gatherings, people from all walks of life and various fan groups appeared. Everyone from Furries to popular Disney characters and science fiction characters, all of them simply wonderful and diverse folks.
Also included were Itasha cars -- the fashion of decorating a car with graphics of characters from anime, manga, and video games.
There were several guests there, one in particular I was thrilled to see live in person: Mr. Dante Basco, a famous and outstanding voice actor best known for his portrayals of Prince Zuko in the Nickelodeon anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the title character in American Dragon: Jake Long.
The following are the photos I took from the event.
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| Concord Convention Center at the Embassy Suites. |
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| "Let's see, anime shirt: check. Kilt: check. Day pass: check. Good to go. Let's do this!" |
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| "Ruuuuun! It's Godzilla!" |
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| Pro Cosplayer Chris Nguyen looking frighteningly awesome! |
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| Rex loves Godzilla....uh, maybe a bit too much! |
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| The only thing more awesome than furries? Furries with lightsabers! |
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| Gravity Falls cosplayers. One of my favorite cartoon series. |
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| Tia Dalma cosplayer from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. One of my top four favorites from the visit. |
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| Sailor Mars and Super Sailor Moon cosplayers. These two were awesome. |
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| Asuna and Kirito cosplayers from the excellent anime series Sword Art Online. |
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| The actual Asuna and Kirito from Sword Art Online. |
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| Sesshomaru cosplayer from the outstanding anime series Inuyasha. |
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| The lovely singer and songwriter Miss Kazuha Oda of the Japanese 3 piece rock band Kazha was in attendance. Really beautiful wings and gracious personality. I really loved meeting her. |
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| "Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats! Hoooooo!" |
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| My absolute favorite cosplayer of the event, the beautiful Space Pirate Ryoko Hakubi from Tenchi Universe with Ryo-ohki. |
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| Toph Beifong from the outstanding anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender. |
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| Katara and Zuko cosplayers from Avatar: The Last Airbender doing a bending demonstration. |
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| You can never have too many Narutos. |
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| No-Face spirit from Miyazaki's Spirited Away, one of this blogger's favorite anine films. |
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| "Seems like we have ourselves a standoff here!" |
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| Saitama cosplayer from One-Punch Man. |
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| Rick Sanchez cosplayer from Cartoon Network's Rick and Morty. |
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| Grandma Sophie cosplayer with Calcifer from the beautiful anime film Howl's Moving Castle. |
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| Lovely Coraline and Elsa cosplayers. Coraline is like, "Seriously Elsa, let it go." LOL! |
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| Rey and Kylo Ren cosplayers with BB-8 from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. |
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| Voice actor Dante Basco entertains with some marvelous poetry reading and stories. Mr. Basco has done the voice acting for a number of animated characters, most famously as the voice of Jake Long in American Dragon Jake Long and Prince Zuko in Avatar:The Last Airbender. |
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| The absolutely adorable Japanese POP singer and recording artist Miss Chii Sakurabi. She actually complemented me on my kilt. (blush) |
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| Cosplayers posing for my final photo of the event. All of these marvelous young men and women were outstanding folks, and I was glad to meet and hang around with them. |
I stayed for the better part of four hours and enjoyed myself very much. It was a much needed distraction and a pleasure to once again be around people who share my love for fandom and great animation. In keeping with the theme of the con, I'd just like to say: Arigato Gozaimasu, Y'all!
Well folks, I hope y'all enjoyed this post and my photos. Please let me know in the comments section below what y'all thought.
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