I recently attended the first day of Sakura-Con 2008, a festival celebrating anime and manga held March 28th through the 30th at Seattle's Washington State Convention & Trade Center.


If there's a special heaven for anime geeks, it's bound to look a lot like Sakura-Con. In addition to anime showings, the event featured artists, exhibitors, gaming, industry panels, music videos, role playing, and lots and lots of cosplay, only about half of which appeared to be referencing a specific anime or manga.

In a brilliant marketing move, Sakura-Con is always held approximately six months from October, and one suspects that several of the attendees were there strictly because they just couldn't wait to show off their totally awesome Halloween costume ideas. In addition to dozens of Gothic Lolita, Bleach, and Pokémon-inspired ensembles, I also saw several Mario Bros., a few Nightmare Before Christmas outfits, and about fifteen Jack Sparrows. My favorite outfit belonged to a guy dressed up as Kyoya from Ouran High School Host Club, but the entire event was a celebration of creative fashion:


Note: Trust me, the costumes featured above are on the "tasteful and restrained" side. Despite the fact that it was SNOWING, the woman ahead of me in the coffee line was wearing nothing but a metal bikini and fishnet stockings, and she blended into the crowd in a way that I—who was dressed in a brown sweater and jeans—definitely did not.


Festival attendees were also given the opportunity to watch several live-action films, including Honey and Clover, Hula Girls and Love*Com, all from VIZ Pictures. I was pleased to see that the Love*Com movie poster attempted to emulate the intensely flushed cheeks that the author gives all her characters:


Tickets for Sakura-Con aren't cheap (and the costs go up even higher if you factor in travel expenses) but if you're a hardcore anime fan—or just somebody with a really great costume languishing in your closet—they're worth it. Because this event costs serious money, but the opportunity to dress up like this guy without having anyone ask you what it's like to star in Phantom of the Opera is priceless:


Sakura-Con 2009 will be held at the Convention Center April 10th-12th, 2009, so start thinking about those costume ideas now!

Labels: anime, Events, manga