Fans of anime, video games and manga, which are the Japanese equivalent of comics, showed up dressed as their favorite characters to the Anime St. Louis convention March 28-30 at the Holiday Inn in the Southwest Viking Conference Center.
Naruto, Death Note, Trigun, Inuyasha, Blood Plus, Yu-Gi-Oh, Full Metal Alchemist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cardcaptor Sakura, Wolf's Rain, Witch Hunter Robin, One Piece, BLEACH, Nero from Devil May Cry 4, Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, Sora and Leon from the Kingdom Hearts games, and even the mascots for Nintendo, Mario, Sonic, and Shadow the Hedgehog, were among the costumed characters cosplaying, short for costume playing, which is part of a Japanese subculture.
The history of Anime St. Louis itself comes from the fall of Kunicon, a traveling anime convention. In 2006, Anime St. Louis, then known as MiniCon, was held for one day on the campus of Maryville University.
Mini-Con became Anime St. Louis at the suggestion of guest Michael "Piano Squall" Gluck. The convention was hosted by the Maryville Anime Club and its founder, Alisha Bingham, as well as other Maryville student organizations.
Then last year, Anime St. Louis requested to join with ShowMeCon, who agreed to make Anime StL become the official name for the three-day convention. Maryville's Anime Club joined up with Webster University's Anime Society. Anime St. Louis 2007 was held at the Maryville Marriott Hotel.
This year, the theme for Anime St. Louis was "Shinsegumi and waffles, only at Anime St. Louis." According to the Anime St. Louis Web site under the FAQ section, the theme was "a long story about an inside joke."
AStL '08 also featured two different game shows that pertain to anime: Anime Family Feud and Whose Line Is It Anime. According to Nick Frank, Anime St. Louis treasurer and Maryville Anime Club President, "the game shows were great. Family Feud started later but was a lot of fun when it started."
Frank also hosted Who's Line Is It Anime. "I think it was better than last year. We started on time and had such a blast," Frank said.
Steve Bennett, artist guest of honor, also took part in the Anime Whose Line Is It game. Bennett also hosted a "How to Talk to Girls" panel, which he does at every convention.
"We had a good mix of panels," Frank said. "Everything from BLEACH and Naruto to American Comic Books."
The convention featured the Artists' Alley, where amateur artists, costumers and fan writers and groups could sell or advertise. There was an 'Anime Room' set up for the entire three days, sponsored by Right Stuf, a licenser and distributor of multiple anime and manga titles.
Twenty-four different titles were scheduled to be shown. Attendees could also play video, board, live-action, tabletop or card games. Attendees also played Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, or Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
There were two video game tournaments at the convention, too, one for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and one for what was called "The Worst Video Games Ever!" tournament.
"The Worst Video Game tournament was a blast," Frank said. "There are videos on YouTube of it."
Two dances took place on the first two nights of the convention. One dance was called the "Rockin' the Shogunate," where music from the 1970s and '80s were played, whereas in the second dance, the "Dance Dance Waffle-lution", the music was more rave/techno.
"Our staff member Jeremy Johnson actually DJ'd the dance on Saturday and was told of a good job he did," Frank said.
A Japanese Street Fashion show took place, but the response was not strong. "There was only one person who entered it and staff members who had their outfits with them," Frank said.
The Spoony Bards, who were this year's Musical Guests of Honor, performed. The group performed songs from popular anime shows, such as Pokémon.
There were also shops that sold videos, key chains, posters, toys, Japanese snacks such as Pocky and Hi-chew, and even nonfunctional and battle ready weapons, both Japanese and medieval which ranged from swords, nunchaku, daggers and even axes.
One attendee, Michael Courtney, managed to find functional Batarangs from the 2005 film, "Batman Begins."
"I felt out of place because I wasn't cosplaying," Courtney said. "The most fun thing were the shops and looking at the swords."
Courtney also met the voice actor guest of honor, Johnny Yong Bosch, who autographed his registration badge.
"It was pretty cool to meet Johnny Yong Bosch," Courtney said. "My favorite voice he does is Ichigo Kurosaki."
Bosch is best known as the English voices of Ichigo Kurosaki in BLEACH, Renton Thurston in Eureka Seven, Vash the Stampede in Trigun, Kiba in Wolf's Rain, Haruto Sakaki in Witch Hunter Robin, Kaneda in the 2001 Animaze dub of the film Akira, as well as many other different anime.
His most recent role is the voice of the video game Devil May Cry 4's main protagonist, Nero. Bosch has done supporting roles in many different anime, played in seven movies including an upcoming movie called "Broken Path."
However, Bosch is best known for his role as Adam Park, the second Black Ranger in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and the Green Ranger in Power Rangers ZEO and the first half of Power Rangers Turbo.
Bosch said regarding playing these roles, "I get to reach to reach out to my fans and I'm glad my work touches them."
Frank said another highlight of the convention was the Kenjutsu or "Art of the Sword" demonstration. "When I passed it, there was a big crowd- so it drew in a lot of people," he said.
The money raised from the Bishounen Date Auction, according to the Web site, "will go toward providing bigger, better guests for Anime St. Louis 2009."
"The one thing I have to say is how smoothly things ran compared to last year," Frank said. "There weren't many problems, except for the Masquerade seating filling up so soon, but it was out of our control because of fire codes. The hotel staff was phenomenal. They were so great to work with and so nice."
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