By Louis Bryant III | OBSERVER Photographer
SAFE Credit Union Convention Center last weekend transported thousands of cosplay fans into a series of fantasy worlds for SacAnime’s Winterfest.
The metamorphosis started in downtown Sacramento on Jan. 5 as dozens of fans roamed the streets in cosplay fan shirts, props and more. By dawn Jan. 7, the rising sun made everyone’s costumes pop even brighter.
As soon as I entered the lobby, I was swept up in the movement of players in colorful wigs and costumes, swords, shields, jewels, and body art fanning out in every direction. Many fans bought three-day passes because the journey through a dozen worlds and the tsunami of stimulation would exhaust anyone trying to absorb it all in a single day.
If you can think of an anime story, character, cartoon or show that you’ve seen, then you probably could’ve seen a drawing by an individual artist selling prints, keychains, buttons, and anything else you can attach a design to and sell. We swept through the aisles, stopping at every Black vendor we met. There were so many Black fans – as many as 1 in 4 – OBSERVER cosplay aficionado Mark Freeman calls them his “tribe.” I walked in with a camera and walked out with two bags of merch.
Once you got past the individual artists and entrepreneurs, you could wait in line for a selfie after paying or purchasing a print from one of your favorite voiceover actors. We were able to sit down exclusively on camera with Vivian Nixon Williams, daughter of Debbie Allen, who has accomplished plenty in her own journey as a dancer, actress and voiceover artist. She shared her dive into this fantasy world where color hardly matters.
That reality was expressed by many others, including fans, vendors and celebrities. The convention center became a safe space for anybody to be whomever they want to be. It’s not crossdressing, it’s cosplay; it’s not an outfit, it’s a character; it’s not makeup, it’s a persona. Many of the African American patrons enthusiastically shared their costumes as well as their ambitions and reasons for being at SacAnime.
The event, one of California’s largest with more than 29,000 visitors last summer, is celebrating 20 years. About an equal number of patrons descended on the convention center last weekend to observe the many layers of anime. Some of my favorite characters from “Attack on Titan” anime manga’s Scout Regiment were in the house.
