Japan, San Antonio Style

Editor’s note: Jamie Hassell, a sophomore at Carnegie Vanguard High School, put together this video and guest blog post about the July 31-Aug. 2 San Japan anime convention in San Antonio. 

Recently, San Antonio hosted the anime con San Japan. This is the eighth year of San Japan, and its effect on San Antonio is dramatic and eye-catching.

Many of the guests came in cosplay. Cosplay comes from the words costume and play, and basically means that people came in costumes of their favorite characters from TV shows, movies and video games, and they acted as that character would act. This involves lots of creativity and a lot of hard work for everyone to put their costumes together. Some were so elaborate they took months of painstaking hand-crafting to make.

When they weren’t walking around and posing for photos for each other and amused/confused tourists, they attended panels on everything from costuming to Japanese culture and anime, shopped the vendors, played board games, play “fought” in an arena, played video games in a casino-style ballroom and danced to EDM at raves.

People come from all over to attend this con, and many come from right here in Houston. Hopefully by San Japan's 10th year Houston can really represent and have lots of people attend.