Cosplay, Cars, and a Concert
Last weekend in Houston, Texas, the annual Anime Matsuri convention took place. The convention was held at the George R. Brown center where attendance was a little over 36,000, up from 30,000 last year. I was there to take a look at the festivities and made a video for y’all to watch.
I started off by grabbing a burger from a food truck, since I have to start con right and also because I am growing boy that needs energy for anime (for those wondering, I had the “Amboy” burger from the Flippin’ Patties food truck). Anime Matsuri is one of those conventions that got food trucks to give great food options to hungry con-goers, which needs to be the norm for any convention (other cons at the same place have none). I’ve been going to Anime Matsuri almost every year since 2008, how did I ever survive without these food trucks before?
Matsuri as a lot of things going on in their main room, a giant room containing most of the main events. Merchandise from just about every show is strewn about its tables, perfect for those people who like buying stuff in person or do not know the existence of online shopping. The artist alley is also full of some great fanmade art, based on licensed properties as well as some original ones.
Take a look at some “Itashas” at the Import Reactor car show, which features some cars decked out with some Anime-themed wraps. The name “itasha” is derived from the Japanese word “itai” meaning painful and “sha” meaning vehicle, as in painfully embarrassing or painfully expensive, denoting the embarrassment and cost of tricking out these cars.
One of the headliner main event featured in the video is a special performance from the official musical production of Sailor Moon Live. Yes, there is a Sailor Moon musical in Japan and the cast and crew came over to perform a few of their songs. This isn’t some tie-in promotional thing for Sailor Moon, this is an actual professional musical production and the performers were great, as they performed original and well known anime songs.
There are two panels in the video the first one is a panel featuring YouTubers Akidearest, The An1me Man, and Misty Chronexia had a record breaking panel room attendance. Another panel featured is a live drawing panel with a Q&A with Mago the lead character designer of the anime Space Patrol Luluco from Studio Trigger (Kill La Kill, Little Witch Academia).
Check out the videos to see what I’m talking about, more videos of the convention will be added in the next few days so stay tuned!
