Tsubasacon 2018 took place at the Big Sandy Convention Center in Huntington, Oct. 5 through Oct. 7.

The convention is a yearly event centered around video games, anime, manga and other pop culture entities. Among the video game and anime-based attractions of this year’s Tsubasacon included a maid cafe that featured actors cosplaying as maids and butlers to create a consumer experience based off “Alice in Wonderland.”

Alongside the maid cafe was another opportunity to dine with a change of environment, as Tsubasacon introduced the J-Fashion Tea Party, a tea party in which attendees dressed up in popular Japanese clothing such as kimonos or yukatas for a breakfast featuring coffee and pastries.

Gabriel Grant, Huntington resident, attended the event and said the convention has now become a yearly tradition that he looks forward because of the attractions.

“It’s just great to have an event based around so many of my interests, and it’s just right here in town,” Grant said. “I love spending my weekend around other people who love video games and nerdy stuff; it’s always such an awesome time.”

Another attraction of Tsubasacon is its guest panels, with the 2018 lineup featuring a handful of voice actors from popular video games and animes. This year’s guest panels included David Vincent, who has worked on animes such as “One Piece” and “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” and Paul St. Peter, who has had roles in video games like “Kingdom Hearts” and Nintendo’s “Fire Emblem” series.

One of the booth’s at Tsubasacon was sponsored by Key Virtual Events, which featured an array of advanced virtual reality video games for attendees to play.  The booth was ran by Timm Johnson, a junior computer information and technology major at Marshall University, and manager of Key Virtual Events. This was Johnson’s third year running his virtual reality booth at Tsubasacon.

Johnson offered six different video games at his booth this year, with the most popular being “Job Simulator,” a game where the player is inserted into a world where they have different jobs with complete freedom as to what they do, he said.

“It’s a really goofy game where you can be in an office, be a chef, an auto mechanic or a store clerk,” Johnson said.

While the game has set objectives, Johnson said people most enjoy doing almost the complete opposite of them.

“You can do the jobs they give you or you can just mess around,” Johnson said. “Most people end up throwing things everywhere and just making a mess.”

Tsubasacon 2019 is already set to take place from Oct. 11 to Oct. 13 at the Charleston Coliseum and Conference Center in Charleston, West Virginia. More information about Tsubasacon can be found on the convention’s official website.

Derek Gilbert can be contacted at [email protected].

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