Anime fandom gathered to the heart of the Alamo City on the weekend of March 2nd, 2024 as the 3rd annual Kawacon took place at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Kawacon is San Antonio’s latest premier anime and gaming convention that humbly began near the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, which its focus on their fans and community would have them sell out their first year and then eventually catapult their growth unrestricted and exponentially in their 3rd year. HakubiVerse had the honor to be reinvited to host the official Kawacon dance party known as Kawadansu at the HBG main-stage proper after its very successful inargural event last year at the Bonham Exchange. Considering HakubiVerse is in the business of making history across fandoms whether it’s anime or raves, we at HakubiVerse were completely elated with how Kawacon entirely took place. Ever since I’ve started my journey into anime conventions as early as April of 2006 when I attended Kawaii Kon, I was influenced by the pure fan experience of celebrating anime with the many friends I made, the productive panels and workshops, the kind celebrity guests, the illustrious cosplay community, unique goods and art works, and the real rave sounds of Japanese and Electronic Dance Music. As years go by, I could not help but notice anime conventions have been lacking the community aspect, putting their focus on celebrity guests while sacrificing all other content, creating a model of pop-culture appropriation for loose and fast cash which some friends of mine has dubbed “Autograph Expo” or “Petting-Zoo Con”. Despite the difference in generations between my first convention and today, the anime fans have been craving all this time a well-organized event that respects their community and their dreams; in addition, a safe platform for fans to forget their troubles outside their fandom while feeling confident with themselves through the love of anime. These wishes were granted by Kawacon, proven to have answered the call resulting in their meteoric rise in their third year. An anime conventiion by fans for fans was indeed something I desired for a long time and I write this journal entry not just a performer but a massive fan that wishes Kawacon their continued success.
Coming off a pre-game rave with DJ Deshiimo’s Anime Soirée Takeover – San Antonio, my family and I arrived early morning to get a jump on the convention’s opening festivities, particularly shopping at the Artists Alley and Dealers Hall. Kawacon actually combined many elements of the convention into an expo as the vendors shared space with tabletop gaming, video gaming, arcade, celebrity autographs, and the itasha car display. I was very pleased to see the Artist Alley be the first area to be seen when attendees enter the expo hall as one of the mistakes I’d see at other convention is neglecting the Artist Alley and placing them away in hidden corners far from the convention. The Artists Alley is a market mainly consisting of local and regional independent artsts that often compete for tables at anime conventions; furthermore, these artists make up most of the pulse in the local anime community and their impression about the weekend depends on the traffic and sales that come through the alley. Establishing Artists Alley near the entrance of the convention’s expo hall allows for greater impressions; thus, happier artists who will talk to their community about their awesome anime convention weekend. Although my family and I arrived early, my time to explore the expo hall was short as I had to fulfill another important role during Kawacon weekend. Although by no means do I speak for Kawacon, my understanding about Kawacon’s mission based on their actions from the last two conventions seems similar to HakubiVerse’s mission for supporting anime fandom culture and their fans. As Kawacon has graciously invited us to host this year’s Kawadansu rave, I figure I’d go the extra mile and serve as an official volunteer for their convention; so for those that may have been confused that I wore two different outfits on each day, I was a volunteer supporting the River Level panel rooms in the afternoons between working as your DJ guest headliner for Kawadansu. I also want to commend the professionalism of my fellow volunteers and the staff that I served with as everyone on the team exhibited incredible professionalism for each other and to other attendees, panelists, and guests. I knew I could reliably approach anyone for assistance and I had a feeling others were proactive in helping each other out that at no point at the convention have I felt any anxiety at all. A large part of what makes a convention amazing is having a dedicated and motivated force of staff and volunteers who may not necessarily need to serve as leaders, but have the amazing leadership qualities to keep the gears of the anime convention machine running smoothly. This was exemplyfied when volunteers had backup peripherals for or technical knowledge on how to pair devices to Bluetooth-enabled speakers in order to save multiple panels from failure. As far as I am aware, every panel I oversaw was successful and the afternoons went by without incident. I made it out just in time to check in with Amethyst and catch what remains of Kawacon’s cosplay showcase.
As that Saturday night’s main event quickly approaches, my family and I would later host our AnimEDM panel, sharing my history with both the anime and rave scenes while giving out prizes. I had a lot of great questions and curiosities about my take on AnimEDM such as how to find Japanese dance music and how one can become an AnimEDM DJ. As much as I was able to answer, it gave us the idea to write an article, or perhaps a series of articles, about the AnimEDM scene and becoming an AnimEDM DJ–indeed stay tuned to HakubiVerse for when I publish that content very soon. Interestingly, we had to dash to main events in order to setup before Kohei Hattori’s concert, which as my team proceeded to deploy my Pioneer CDJs, I would formally meet Kohei and quickly exchange pleasantries as I was also setting up visuals at the same time; luckily, our set up did not take long at all to deploy. Kohei would begin his concert around 10PM and without missing a beat he gave it everything he got singing to many popular anime, rock, and pop songs. Kohei was that incredible and engaging as a performer that I forgot to feel any nervousness for my own set. My AnimEDM set later in the show was so specifically curated with more anime music; however, extended mixes for some of these anime songs are hard to find and require a greater mixing skill for smooth transitions and beatmatching. As Kawadansu officially began, Kohei was such a humble soul that he stayed with me through most of my set in order to continue hyping the crowd and put my set over for the night; I cannot thank him enough for being so cool to all of us there. That night was also incredible for the fact that I would play my biggest anime rave show in San Antonio at the historic Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, a feat that I did not think would happen so soon as I did not know that part of the convention center could stay open late (I had previously played at the Grand Hyatt for another convention’s main stage in 2012 and at the Bonham Exchange for Kawacon last year). The crowd partied plenty into the late hours of the night despite a full day enjoying the convention as my mix consisted of many genres tied to anime fandom to include J-pop, K-pop, House, Progressive, Big Room, Electro, Trance, HandsUp, Jersey Club, Hardcore, Drum & Bass, and Eurobeat. After I’ve taken the Nightkids across a spectrum of many musical styles, Tynam0 would close out the night making his first-ever anime convention debut playing an hour and a half of solid Hardcore sounds. Tynam0 has become such an amazing caliber of DJ ever since being discovered on Twitch in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, eventually making a name for himself on Twitch and then in Texas’ local and regional dance music scene, enough to be featured at high-profile events including HakubiVerse’s Homecoming HardDance and San AnTokyo. Tynam0 is an absolute stud of Hard Dance who has the look, energy, and dedication to the craft and scene, no doubt he is the future of Texas Hard Dance and his performance at his well-deserved spot at Kawacon proved it.
As it would seem after a long day’s work, I would wake up feeling line a million pieces the next morning, but it was absolutely worth it. My family and I would wake up after the very few hours of sleep to catch what remained of Kawacon on Sunday. Of course I offered to volunteer for A/V support as well as augment entry control but more music has crossed my ears in the form of many Kawacon fans talking about the previous night’s Kawadansu rave. All that remained was the I was able to catch in Main Events were the closing ceremonies and the K/J-Pop Dance Competition which served as the nice cherry to top off this delicious anime dessert and close out this incredible weekend.
As of this writing, it’s already been a week and I have still not come down from the high I got living this amazing convention, and already I am looking forward to the next one. Everything just seemed to have gone on so perfect and I am already excited for next year’s Kawacon, which at closing ceremonies the staff has officially announced that the show will be a 3-day convention, taking place on the weekend of January 24th – 26th, 2025. I am still planning to unconditionally support Kawacon and hopefully I will be able to capture more events during and leading up to the next convention. In the meantime, join the community on Kawacon’s Discord and check out their website at kawaconsa.com. Until next rave~~Bless!
