News

You can apply here: 2025 Sakura-Con Cosplay Chess Application

If you’ve never been in Cosplay Chess before and just want to sample the carnage, consider applying for our Improv Cosplay Chess where the audience gets to be a part of the action! If you’d rather watch from the sidelines, we are also looking for Stage Ninjas to help with special moves and to keep the fights moving along. No headbands required, but there will be running involved! If you have any questions about Cosplay Chess, please feel free to send an email to cosplay.chess@sakuracon.org.

Hope to see you at Sakura-Con 2025!

Sakura-con is pleased to welcome Simba Tsuchiya (voice of Shuji Itō from Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-)!

Actor and voice actor, born in 1996, Tokyo. He trained his physical ability through Japanese dance and classical ballet, and worked as an action actor. He was fascinated by “voice acting” on stage, and is now active as a genre-less expressive actor. He has voiced various roles including Shuji Itō in “Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX-Beginning-“, Balgo in “BURN THE WITCH“, Tsutomu Goshiki in “Haikyuu!!”, Tatara Fujita in “Welcome to the Ballroom”, Shotaro Futaba in “Backflip‼”, Raphael in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”. He also participated in stage productions of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” and “Love’s Labor’s Lost”. In 2020, he won the “Best New Actors” of the 15th Seiyu Awards.

Sakura-Con loves cosplay, and we wanna see your lineup! So share what you’ll be wearing with our official cosplay lineup frames!

To use a frame, just download the image as a PNG and place your cosplay plans using your preferred image editor. Don’t forget use #sakuraconcosplaylineup and #sakuracon2025 in your posts so our community can see!

Under the pen name TurtleMe, Brandon Lee blends Western and Eastern influences in his award-winning series, The Beginning After the End (TBATE). TBATE is the first English webnovel to webcomic series to receive an anime adaptation with its premiere in April 2025 on Crunchyroll. This long-running popular action-fantasy web novel and webcomic are available on Tapas Entertainment. It is also available as a graphic novel from Yen Press.

TBATE has garnered over 700K followers across its webnovel and webcomic on Tapas and has been honored with the prestigious Japanese Piccoma Award in both 2021 and 2022. The series has also been released internationally in countries including the United States, Japan, South Korea, China, Thailand, Indonesia, France, Germany, Mexico, and India.

Applications for 2025 Cosplay Chess went live on Sunday, February 16th at 12:00PM Pacific,
Application Link: 2025 Sakura-Con Cosplay Chess Application

Applications will be open until March 17th, 11:59PM PST. The theme for the all-ages Main Game is Red Vs Black, the same colors as our chessboard! The theme for the 18+ Late Night Game is Brains Vs Brawn.

We also have the Sunday Improv Game, where anything can happen!  

Sakura-Con is pleased to announce Reol will perform at this year’s convention!

Reol began creating and releasing music in 2012, and quickly hit 1 million subscribers. She was later chosen for the first global YouTube campaign, “Artist on the Rise”.

An internet-born songwriter, record producer, and rapper with clear electronic and rock influences, her music is a distinctive fusion of western and Asian pop. Her music is defined by her expressive voice combined with appealing, upbeat melodies. Currently, she has over 1.71 million Youtube subscribers with a total of 1.08 billion views, and her hit song, “THE SIXTH SENSE” exceeded 100 million streams. Reol is gaining international popularity with her one-and-only joyful, bitter dark, twisted, and kawaii vibes.

Anime Day with the Seattle Mariners is back! 

Join Sakura-Con on April 13th at T-Mobile Park for our second year of Anime Day. Come cheer on the Mariners, get your limited-edition Anime Day shirt featuring Ikuta and the Mariner Moose, and help support Sakura-Con! 

Deadline to purchase: Friday, Apr 11 at 5pm

https://www.mlb.com/mariners/tickets/specials/anime

We are proud to announce the 2025 Cosplay Contest and 18+ Skit Contest will be opening applications on January 19th at 12PM PST. They will be open until January 25th at 11:59PM PST. Links will be posted both on the Sakura-con website and via social media posts.

Please review the updated rules for both events at the link below:

Cosplay Contest

Skit Contest 18+

AmaLee is a voice-actor, singer, and vtuber streamer, well known for her English anime covers that have gained over 2 million subscribers and over a billion views, and is more recently known for her vtuber persona “Monarch” on Twitch, where she has amassed a dedicated following.

AmaLee has also provided her voice to anime and games such as, Marin Kitagawa in “My Dress up Darling”, Uta in “One Piece Film: Red”, Jingliu in “Honkai: Star Rail”, Hayasaka in “Kaguya-Sama: Love is War”, Lillie in “Pokémon Evolutions” and Ruppe & Viper in “NIKKE”. She can be heard on official soundtracks for League of Legends, Dragon Ball Super, and Tokyo Ghoul:Re, and has also been featured on records for Eminem (Kamikaze – “Good Guy”) and Porter Robinson (Worlds – “Fellow Feeling”).

Website: https://leeandlie.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/leeandlie
YouTube: https://youtube.com/leeandlie
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/leeandlie

Sakura-Con is thrilled to welcome back the Dreamland Maid Cafe! 

Dreamland Maid Café is the USA’s largest travelling Maid Café! 
Guests can expect to experience the most authentic Maid Café experience outside of Japan with immersive table-side entertainment, dazzling dance performances, one-of-a-kind photo opportunities, and super-cute food and drink!

Stay tuned to our social media to see when bookings will open.