Celebration of anime and sci-fi returns to UCC

THIS year, a team of Cork students brought back Kaizokucon to UCC’s campus.

Kaizokucon is the university’s official anime and sci-fi event held annually on the grounds of UCC.

It didn’t take place for three years during the pandemic, with the organisers forced to adapt and run the entire convention online using the online platform Discord.

Now in its ninth year, it is back in person and is one of Ireland’s highest attended anime conventions. Anime is a type of hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan

Despite the nerves in the lead up, not knowing if they would come back full force having seen numbers dwindle online in the past few years, Kaizokucon 2023 turned out to be a huge success.

There are a range of diverse activities and events held across the weekend, with everything from Super Smash Bros Tournaments and a wide variety of panel discussions to Pub Quizzes and the Cosplay Walk the Plank event - cosplay is the practice of dressing up as a character from a film, book, or video game.

This year’s convention took place from March 31 to April 2 and included panel discussions, a vibrant trade hall and a charity auction.

And Kaizokucon 2023 achieved record-breaking attendance and fund-raising this year, with 2,300 guests across the weekend and raising €17,000 for Lauralynn - Ireland’s Children’s Charity.

This year’s director, Cian Pierce, talked about some of the highlights of the 2023 line-up.

“Kaizokucon is a non-profit, charitable event. Any funds raised from ticket sales become the budget for next year’s convention,” says Cian.

“All of the funds raised from the Pub Quiz, Charity Auction and Charity Cafe go directly to LauraLynn’s Children’s Hospice, raising €8,000 for the charity last year.

“We had an incredible line-up this year. We have three headliners every year.

“There’s a really vibrant community of cosplayers in Ireland. We like to celebrate that, so one of our special guests is always a cosplayer. Then we usually have two voice actors. Some years it’s one voice actor and one internet personality. This year we are lucky to have had two voice actors.”

“This year we had Leah Clark and Jonah Scott. They are known for their voice acting in My Hero Academia and B-Stars. These are both really big guests and we were really lucky to have them come down for the convention.

“Our cosplayer this year was Akakioga Cosplay from the U.S. It was her bolstering of the community around her that really stood out to us,” Cian added.

Across the weekend, there was a wide variety of events taking place, with something for all ages.

Kaizokucon has been the only event I have come across that hosts not only a ‘puppy party’ but also a burlesque 18+ performance on the same weekend.

“Obviously those are our headliners but we had a large selection of special guests, a lot of which are returning guests,” said Cian. “We partnered up with Munster Lost and Found to do a little puppy party where you can come along and play with puppies for a couple of hours.

“We also had special guest performances from Peacock Parlour on the Saturday evening.

“While the convention is for all ages, some panels and events were age restricted, Peacock Parlour being one of them,” said Cian.

Peacock Parlour, hosted and produced by Foxy P. Cox, put on an amazing collection of cabaret and burlesque performances with a diverse and fun cast including Dez Scrace, Viktor Complex, Aurora Divine, Kia Koke and Holly Wood.

This took place in the Boole lecture theaters, which is a nice change from your everyday academic lectures!

“The Trade Hall at Kaizokucon took place in Devere Hall this year. This has a wide variety of vendors and artists that tailor to nerd culture, with anything you would need for Table Top Role Playing Games, gaming dice, anime clothing merchandise, figurines, props, etc.

“We also bring down ten Irish artists to show off their art and sell their work at the convention,” Cian said.

In addition, the convention also had a wide range of music and bands to catch across the weekend.

Incredible performances from Factotem and the Irish Video Game Orchestra were just the tip of the iceberg.

Radio Kaizo took over the airwaves of UCC 98.3FM for the weekend.

Starting out on Discord, Jim and Eric interviewed all the special guests attending over the weekend and provided the backing track for the event, which played across the campus.

This is an impressive achievement from this year’s student committee, to have pulled off such a successful weekend amidst academic demands and deadlines.

This year was a huge success,= setting standards high for next year’s student committee for Kaizokucon’s 10th anniversary, an event that’s not to be missed.