Kumoricon launches friendly invasion

Every year on Labor Day weekend, Vancouver USA becomes Vancouver of the cosmos.

Creatures from across the universe have already started descending on our city and mingling with our unsuspecting citizenry. Have you noticed? Some will welcome the strange invasion, but many Vancouverites will no doubt be going about their downtown business when they suddenly realize they’re surrounded by bizarre beings (who have nothing to do with county elections).

Don’t be alarmed, those beings also are going about their business, which consists mostly of parading around in fantastical outfits and sharing their passion for the multiverse of Japanese animation collectively called anime.

Organizers say they expect this weekend’s anime convention, Kumoricon 2015, to draw as many as 7,000 such visitors, plus hundreds of volunteers, to our binary downtown hotel system: the Hilton Vancouver Washington and the Red Lion Hotel Vancouver at the Quay, both of which are hosting official Kumoricon events and putting up lots of out-of-galaxy guests. The event has jumped from Springfield, Ore., to Portland and then here since its launch in 2003, but it remains all-volunteer run, which is impressive given the truly astronomical numbers of participants, offerings and activities this weekend.

Video and tabletop gaming, amateur artwork and music video contests, spontaneous costume play and prepared live-action sketches, fan panels and expert presentations, anime-related karaoke — even costumed, life-sized chess and a punched-up form of dodgeball known as “probending” (because the players “bend” elements such as water, air and earth) — are a small slice of all that goes on at Kumoricon.

The real fun, organizers like to say, is the unscheduled, unplanned encounters that inevitably occur as thousands of otherworldly beings meet and greet in a couple of neighboring hotels facing a comfortable, popular park.

Esther Short Park “has been absolutely huge for us. It’s by far our attendees’ favorite attraction — the park itself — because it’s beautiful and safe and great for photo shoots,” said event chairman Phillip Koop.

Ironically enough — for a gathering where interspecies, interstellar combat is considered good, clean fun — safety and inclusion are important themes at Kumoricon, Koop said.

“Coming together as a group in a way where we can be safe and be ourselves is very important,” he said.

Picture the dedication and passion it takes a teenager to spend days perfecting a costume of their favorite otherworldly character; now picture the reaction if that sincere teenager wore that totally awesome creation to school.

“But they can wear it to Kumorion, and nobody thinks it’s weird at all,” Koop said. “That’s remarkable.”

Koop said he’s especially excited this year to welcome guests including professional anime voice actors and Japanese musicians who work in that world. Also playing at Kumoricon will be punk-pop pixie Kieran Strange of Vancouver B.C., whose songs proudly feature video games and zombie hordes, and Portland synth-rock band The Slants, billed as “the first and only Asian-American dance rock band in the world.”

Capping it all off this year will be a couple of contrasting dance parties. The Kumoriprom will be informal and low-key, but the Kumoriball aims to be a truly formal masquerade ball with a strictly enforced dress code. That means formal attire and masks must be worn at all times. Goggles and monocles aren’t sufficient on their own and handheld masks are discouraged because they get tedious. Surely you’ll want to put that hand down.

Unless, that is, you’re an interstellar octopus who never runs out of arms. Don’t be surprised to see such a being heading out with friends for coffee or a brew in downtown Vancouver this weekend.

Just keep calm, carry on — and hug a zombie!

Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525; scott.hewitt@columbian.com; twitter.com/_scotthewitt