More then anything, the sakura has always held great symbolic importance in Japan. In fact, they celebrate the blooming sakura every year. In America, we too celebrate the blooming sakura to honor the Japanese culture and spirit. Cities all over America have cherry blossom festivals, and Philadelphia is no exception. Hence, the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia presents the Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia.

The Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival is a month long celebration of all things Japanese in the Philadelphia area. Over twenty events and gatherings were held, focusing on many aspects of Japanese culture including music, clothing, anime (of course there’s anime) and food. The one event that towers over them all is Sakura Sunday, held in Fairmount Park. It’s a one day festival where they try to cram in as many performances, demonstrations, vendors, and booths that a park can hold.

The first major performance on the main stage was the Tamagawa University Taiko Drum and Dance Troupe. They’re considered one of the highlights of the festival but I was skeptical at first. Turns out, I was wrong; their show really does live up to the hype. Sadly, explaining why is like describing the opening scene from Episode VII in Samurai Jack. Although the basic premise is fairly basic, it’s done with such style and mastery that you can’t help but be amazed. Words and writing are simply the wrong medium to convey how great it is. It’s best to go see them live but chances are you’ll have to settle for an online video. That won’t stop me from trying to describe it with words though.

What really sticks out to me is how disciplined the troupe really is. Getting five to twenty people on one stage in perfect sync doing complex routines is never an easy task. I get the impression that one of them getting shot wouldn’t stop the show for longer then a minute. Losing a drumstick or two isn’t even worth a pause. I didn’t notice that someone lost a drumstick until I saw it on the stage floor a minute later. I can only assume that the drummer tossed it, quickly drew his backup drumstick, and kept on playing without missing a beat. My favorite segment was with all the women using the hand shaker type drums. It was especially cool when they were throwing the shakers behind themselves in a synchronized pass line. What really gets me is that they did it all in kimonos. Kimonos are meant to restrict movement, not for a drum and dance routine. The show is so good, it’s worth seeing twice; which you could have done on Sakura Sunday since the troupe gave two performances that day.

A map of the day's events.

The event proceeding the Drum and Dance Troupe was the Harajuku Fashion Show brought to you by the Art Institute of Philadelphia. All of the designed clothes were inspired by the Harajuku area, world famous for being a mecca of clothing, fashion, and unique styles. The clothes were also produced and designed solely by the institute’s students. Everything showcased generally had a strong sense of style, being elaborate and featuring strong, showy colors. Listen, I have no fashion sense and no idea how to describe how pretty clothes are. Just check out the big photo gallery proceeding this article to see the clothes (and much more) for yourself.

After the fashion show was 10tecomai’s Yosakoi Festival Dance. If you don’t know what a Yosakoi Festival Dance is, don’t worry about it because I don’t know either. Good thing they provided ample exposition so that the audience wouldn’t be clueless. Yosakoi is a “newer” dance, originating during the 1950′s for celebrations between July and September. It’s an energetic dance that incorporates elements from other cultures. Yosakoi dance troupes are very open and welcoming, allowing people young and old into their ranks. This results in dance groups averaging between one hundred to a hundred-fifty members each. 10Tecomai has the distinction of being the only Yosakoi dance group in the US. That would explain why they only have seven members but they are recruiting so go try out if you live near New York City and got some moves.

For their show, 10tecomai did three dances. The first dance was called “Rebirth” which was about the seasons and how spring is a rebirth of life after winter. This dance was used for fund raising in response to the 2011 Japanese Earthquakes. Then they performed “Kaigo” which was a ninja themed dance. Ninja themed anything is something I fully endorse. Lastly, they did “Sorin Bushi;” a dance honoring the Japanese fisherman. This must be a crowd favorite back in Japan. It actually has audience participation in it, but the audience here more or less bombed that part because most of the people there (including me) couldn’t pronounce the Japanese phrases. It was still a good show though.

If that wasn’t enough for you, there was also a Shamisen and Buyo Traditional Dance and a performance by Sho Asano himself! FYI, Sho Asano has the honors of being a four time world champion Shamisen player as well as being the youngest person ever to earn said championship. He’s basically the Yugi Moto of shamisen playing. Talking about anime characters, there was also a Cosplay Fashion Show presented by Zenkaikon, eastern Pennsylvania’s premiere anime convention. Honestly, I didn’t really take many pictures of that because I’ll go to Zenkaikon anyway, where taking cosplay pictures will be a snap. Tying it all together was Rio Koike, Japanese comedian and MC of the day’s affairs. He did an admirable job of being funny and stalling for time in between events. Of course, everything I told you about so far was just the stuff going on in the Main Stage. There’s still a lot of festival fun left to cover.

Well, if you want some real pictures, scroll down!

The Demonstration Stage featured an assortment of marital arts demos including Kendo, Iaido, Aikido, and even some Ninjutsu/Ju-jitsu. The participates ranged in age from children showcasing basic maneuvers to adults undergoing formal sparring practice. At the end of the day there was the “Subaru Prettiest Pet in Pink Parade.” I draw the line at taking pictures of dressed up pets. I object to few things and dressing up pets one of them. However, they did take the opportunity to promote animal adaptions so some good did come of it.

If you wanted to actually do something instead of watch other people do stuff, you have several options. For one thing, if you filled out a survey about Sakura Sunday, you could get a nice tote bag from the the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia. For actual activities, you could make origami, try calligraphy, make a windsock or learn to play Go. It seemed that at least a few of those activities were designed with children in mind though. It’s to know that they had kids in mind when planning events for the day. There was also a good deal of shopping to be done if you have that mindset. Vendors were selling/promoting many different things, including a nice array of Japanese flavored goods. There were even Yukata on sale (I think, but it may be some other traditional Japanese clothing)! Of course, there was food there, but being a festival it was naturally over priced.

Even simply people watching can be a treat. The cosplayers did make their presence known on Sakura Sunday. I didn’t really focus on them though. Instead, I decided to take pictures of people in other Japanese fashions. It’s not everyday you have a reason to put on your kimono/yukata/etc. There were a few people who elected to wear traditional Japanese clothing and I was able to get their pictures. I also got a few sweet pics of women in Lolita fashions, which are gorgeously overdone. Lastly, It’s always a plus to get complements on your Gurren Lagaan T-shirt.

I’m know I’m glossing over a lot of stuff but I’M ONLY ONE MAN!! There’s only so much I can cover in one sakura festival! Mind you, everything that I described was somehow crammed into a single five and a half hour time period! The Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia poured everything they had into Sakura Sunday. There was a high concentration of Japanese culture; yet it was too short to fully enjoy. Perhaps that is completely intentional? Does not sakura itself bloom for a brief but beautiful time? It’s a temporary state; one that we must savor with all our heart, because it will be gone before we know it. However, the sakura will bloom again next year, as will Sakura Sunday. I hope to see you there.

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Day 1
Day one was a little uneventful for me, due to me driving for 12 hours, I was not able to get to the convention till 6pm. After checking into my hotel and donning on my Jiraiya cosplay, a character from Naruto, I was ready to hit the con. At the badge pick up area, even though it was already 6:00pm there was a 2 hour line wait. When I got my badge I asked the convention staff if they knew how many attendees they had. They were not able to give me an exact number, but they said it was in the 10,000 range and growing, almost 3 times the amount of people that attended last year. So after getting the badges we walked around and took pictures of cosplayers and other fun sites before crashing at the hotel.

Day 2
The second day we started out with a breakfast buffet at Max and Erma’s, before hitting the Saturday convention scene and enjoyed breakfast with some early morning Legend of Zelda cosplayers. After a fun 3 hours of picture taking, we hit The Dealers’ Room, measuring about 1 and a half high-school gymnasiums, both wide and long, it even had a second floor. They had a wide verity of anime, manga, cds, toys, figures, video games, T-shirts and plushies. I even found a table selling Super Sentai and Kamen Rider merchandise. I was in heaven. There was also a table selling nothig but portal plushies made by Valve, themselves. I would’ve gotten one, but I was low on funds. After a great 2 more hours in the dealers’ room, I joined in on a fan run Naruto cosplayer photoshoot, having crazy ninja antics and a fun time. Then, without me knowing, I was made leader of the Naruto Photoshoots in the future. I hope for it to be a fun experience.

After several more cosplay shoots and a few rounds of Ninja (a great game to play by the way) we entered a panel know as “Con Guest Improv” where the guests of the convention partake in games styled after the show “Whose line is it Anyway?” A show based on actors doing improv comedy. The guests participating were J. Michael Tatum, Todd Haberkorn, Amanda Winn-Lee, Brad Swaile, Carrie Savage, Chris Ayres (The Host) and Emily DeJesus (Co-creater of Ohayocon and Writer). For most games, they took ideas from the audience and turned it into a night full of laughs. After the panel I enjoyed some ideal conversation with J. Michael Tatum and Todd Haberkorn. We talked about 91.8 The Fan and voice acting in general. Even J. Michael Tatum, who knew me from before and had helped me in voice acting in the past, gave me a big bear hug when I told him I was a DJ on 91.8 The Fan. It was a fun night indeed.

Day 3
Day three, like any last day of a convention, died down a lot. There weren’t many cosplayers or other people trying to rush out of their hotel rooms. So after taking a few more pictures of cosplayers, collecting autographs from voice actors and playing a few more rounds of ninja, it was time for Bobby Henshin to hit the road and seek more adventures. What else lies in wait for our over-the-air hero? Tune in and find out on Henshin A-Go-Go at 91.8 The Fan : Everything you want, nothing you don’t.

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You know, I thought I could come with something more unique then a regular convention report. However, my Katsucon adventures didn’t produce a single event deep enough to warrant its own article. That doesn’t mean there was nothing worth writing about! Being an anime convention, I do have lots of amusing anecdotes to tell you!

Katsucon is an anime convention that takes place in National Harbor, Maryland (that’s basically right next to Washington D.C.) every February or so. It has all the cool convention stuff like guest from your favorite anime, panels about interesting topics, and more merchandise then you can stuff down Hannah’s throat! Sadly, I was only able to take a day trip there because of work. That severely hampered my ability to cover the convention in general. Driving to Katsucon and back in one day was quite draining for me, considering I live a fair distance from Washington D.C. and I never drove myself there before. Apparently, I could have just taken I-95 the whole way there but my directions advised me to take a more complex route, which made getting there a great deal more stressful.

Upon arriving, I meet up with our very own Tempest Wind, who gave me my primary objective, attend the Funimation Industry panel in search of the hot scoops! Overall, I found the panel a bit bland. Blah, Blah, Blah; we got a website and social media. Blah, Blah, Blah, let’s tell you about the new series we got coming. Blah, Blah, Blah, new announcements (this is the important part!)! After the new announcements, I left the panel to meet up with Tempest in order to report the information online before anyone else. I would have liked to stay for the Q&A (which would have been the best part of the panel) but duty calls. I’m sure you read about this by now, but I bet you’ll find the announcement of a Funimation mobile app to be very enticing. I’m not much of a smart phone guy but the prospect of watching anime on your mobile device is still pretty freakin’ cool. If you want to know about the new licenses Funimation got, please go watch iStalk 763 to learn more. And yes, me not telling you what the licenses are now is a blatant attempt to drive more views to iStalk!

If I forget to replace this picture with something cooler, you'll have to settle for looking at Funimation's logo!

After doing some actual journalism, I was left to my own devices so I decided to check out the dealer’s hall. Seeing how this is my third or so convention in the local area, I’ve seen most of these dealers before. After doing the obligatory browsing of stuff, I went over to the Funimation booth to actually buy something. I made a promise to myself that I would purchase an item from Funimation the next time they had a booth at a convention. I decided against buying the Negima!? animes because I would always compare it to the manga and not be happy that things were changed.

The series I purchased was Princess Jellyfish. It’s about a Jellyfish otaku (yes, there are jellyfish otaku), her otaku lifestyle, and the crossdressing guy who changes it all! Expect a full review of it sometime in the future. It was being sold at Katsucon thirteen days before it became available to the general public. I got a very cute totebag as a bonus for buying it. The downside was that it did cost sixty dollars to purchase, which is a lot for a thirteen episode series. I’m a believer of not buying entertainment items at their release since you can get them cheaper later. However, that was more about supporting a company that does cool stuff than getting the best deal on my part. I did watch a few series Funimation put up online and I wanted to endorse that type of behavior. Now it can’t be said I never did anything nice for those people!

This is seriously happening!

After the dealer’s hall was the artist alley. As always, there was plenty of anime-related art (and more) to buy from local artists, including Rikki Simons. In case you didn’t know, he’s done the voice of a certain character from Invader Zim called “Gir”. I was genuinely surprised at finding him. Invader Zim is a beloved cult classic and to see him at a table, in the artist alley, at an anime conventions is like getting a lucky egg from your first Chansey! At first, I thought the guy was flat out lying to me. After talking with him for a bit, it turns out he really was who he said he was. The reason Rikki Simons was in the artist alley was because he really is an artist! He was originally hired on to work on backgrounds and later fell into the role of voicing Gir. After my suspicions were disproved, I brought an autographed print from him. It’s one of those things you have to get because you don’t want to say you didn’t get it when you could have. I also got a card detailing an event called “Invader CON,” the Invader Zim Fan Convention. Yes, there is an Invader Zim fan convention! I had no idea you could have an entire convention based on a single television show (but I guess you can)! If any show could pull it off, it would be Invader Zim. In fact, this is the second (and final) Invader CON. It’s happening July 28-29 in Los Angeles, California if you’re interested in going.

You may be also be interested in looking at our Katsucon Cosplay Gallery! I hope you like it because I’m the one who took all of those pictures! During my single day there, I did manage to take about one hundred and forty cosplay pictures. I would wager that up to ten of those won’t be put up due to blurriness and such. That’s still an admirable amount by any standard. Believe me, it does get old asking people, “Can I take a picture of your cosplay for 91.8 The Fan?” Of all the people I asked, only two said no, which was usual but not unexpected. If you’re observant in your browsing, you’ll notice cosplay idol Yaya Han (I seriously could not recognize her because her cosplay was that amazing!), a girl not cosplaying at all (I assume she had to be cosplaying as SOMEONE if she was wearing a corset!) and a trap or two (good luck spotting him/her!). I only wish I could have taken more pictures. If I was really on my game, I could have gotten over two hundred. Exhaustion really does slow a person down, and I am no exception to the rule.

Please see our Katsucon Cosplay Gallery for unblocked pics!

I did manage to get myself into one entertaining panel at the very least. The panel was called “Webcomics are Really Business with Danielle Corsetto & Randy Millholland.” The panel focused on how to properly run a webcomic so that it could be successful enough to support its creator(s). Randy Millholland, who created the famous webcomic Something Positive, is a treasure trove of great insights, useful information and hilarious one liners. I strongly recommend you go hear him speak if you like webcomics, business, art, or people in general! Danielle Corsetto did Girls with Slingshots and played a support role, jumping in when needed (or wanted).

There was so much good advice that was given during the panel that I’m not sure where to start. For starters, it’s ridiculously important to maintain a regular schedule of updates (sadly, it’s an important rule I have failed to adhere to. I’M SORRY! I HAVE A FULL TIME JOB!). You’ll also need to find a good lawyer and accountant who have experience withing with artists. If you’re working with other people, be sure to draw up a formal contract to fairly define the relationship and responsibilities. There was even extensive analysis on the hugely successful Order of the Stick Kickstarter project that raised over one million dollars! The concept Millholland stressed the most was the importance of staying true to your own voice. After all, wasn’t expressing it the main reason most people started webcomics in the first place?

Of course, it wouldn’t be a con for me unless I got to hang out with my cool friends from 91.8 The Fan! I got to hang out with Tempest Wind, which is always a breath of fresh air! She was cosplaying someone from the Homestuck webcomic, making her fairly easy to find. I wish I took a picture of her! Due to scheduling conflicts, all we really did was walk around and chat but it was still cool hanging out with her. Sadly, I was unable to hang out with Neoridgeback, fellow follower of KROZE!!! He told me he was cosplaying as Colonel Mustang there but I must have missed him. We could have talked about how awesome KROZE is but I guess we’ll have to settle for doing that just in the IRC for now.

They do know how to make a good cover

Sadly, I would have to say that Katsucon was not my best convention experience. It’s hard to enjoy a con when you’re short on sleep, long on travel time, and have a practically endless supply of cosplayers to take pictures of. I was half dead by the time I left! I would have had a lot more fun if I could have gone on Friday and stayed over for a night. Since I couldn’t get that Friday off of work, I had to take settle for just going on Saturday. I could have planned to go on Saturday and Sunday, but Sunday is the relative short day and I wasn’t gonna spring for a hotel room just to hang around on the short day.

I do have one major complaint about the whole event. The Katsucon schedule was the most counter intuitive convention schedule I have ever faced. For the love of Miyazaki, please use a time block format next time!!! I am willing to cut them some slack since they got a larger than expected turn out. Katsucon had a lot more people due to hosting a major cosplay contest this year. Instead of getting between eight and nine thousand people, they got over ten thousand people! The total could be as high as thirteen thousand! That’s a fairly huge jump from what they were expecting. There were so many people, they ran out of badges and had to go print more! Despite being pushed to the limit, they managed to get the trains (mostly) running on time. I suspect things went smoothly for a lot of people. I also suspect that Katsucon will be hungry for volunteers to help run the next one. Did you know that volunteering for Katsucon fulfills community service requirements for most schools? They are a non-profit organization so they count for that purpose! That’s all the more reason to volunteer! Don’t you want to help out the community?

We’re back at Kami-con for 2012! For those of you unlucky enough to not be here, watch as Kibs and Siege man the booth and interview your favorite guests, we may even have a special guest appearance by the Birthday Boy, himself.

Please be aware that we are unable to control con-goers actions. While someone at the booth will be watching for any misbehavior, be warned that people may do things above the PG-13 level. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

Today, Sakamichi no Apollon Manga to get anime spinoff series, Craigslist calls all Pokemon Cosplayers, and Funimation reveals some of the best tag-teams in history.

Sources:
• Story 1
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Today, Fukuyama Masaharu will be singing the theme song for the upcoming Doraemon movie, Square Enix to open up a new office in Montreal, and Gainax to distribute new wearable anime merchandise for your cosplaying pleasure.

Sources:
• Story 1
• Story 2
• Story 3