Rhode Island Anime Con 2026 Part 1

I was only able to make it to Rhode Island Anime Con for Saturday again this year. This time, my weekend ride had a sudden health flareup and I managed to score a replacement last minute ride, but just for Saturday. Thankfully, the showrunner was more than understanding about it and still gave us a great spot in “pre-function,” the hallway outside the main show floor, a high traffic spot.

Because of both the last-minute ride confusion and the fact I didn’t know what kind of space we had, I didn’t bring my backdrop setup. Again, the showrunner, working with team member animesucks who was there bright and early, helped out and had a blue pipe and drape set up as a backdrop for us. Because she was there so early, animesuckx grabbed all of our passes, and was able to bring them out to us once we arrived, about 11:30 — more than an hour after the show opened. Seeing as how my replacement ride came through with literally less than 12 hours’ notice, I was fine with being a tad late.

Getting those passes before we went through security made this year a way better experience than last year. With our Vendor passes, we were basically waved through security, as opposed to last year when the convention security staff kept telling us we couldn’t wait against the wall while our passes were brought to us.

I also tried out my new Godox TT600 flash unit, a birthday gift from my son and daughter-in-law that replaced the one that popped its flash tube during setup at Anime Boston. More on that in the next article, but it’s a beast.

Now in its third year, RI Anime Con has reached a sweet spot for conventions. Like its sister convention Rhode Island Comic Con, it takes up all of the Rhode Island Convention Center (although not the attached arena aside from ticket sales) but has a fraction of the attendance. The crowds are big enough to always be interesting, but in a facility able to handle likely four times the number, so the type of crowding you find at RICC isn’t an issue.

All told, despite being set up for just seven hours, on Saturday at RIAC I shot slightly more photos of cosplayers then I did on Friday of the much more well-known Anime Boston — and with a couple of dozen more I would have taken the same number of photos as I did on Saturday at AB.

Among those cosplayers in this first of three galleries are ixneedxaxlife, animesucks, badinglebop, magicalgirlmaxx, iadontknow, hail_rosequartz, partyhardycosplay, lucidaero, cosplamber, toribastos, alice_dutradepaula, jackie.lemaa, cbedard98, redvelvet_cosplay, graveyard_baby_cosplay, newkama_cosplay, pikachuinapikachu, yueryder,  ae_cosplay, darcnaotocosplay13, crimson.nautilus, arbiter_cosplay, pandanopants, suprememuffins, nianyanyancosplay, jessicaleighcosplay, and many more.

We use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries. To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.

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Also, High-res images for sale is back!

If you are pictured in any of our galleries and want the high-resolution (3200 pixels at its widest by 300dpi) download for yourself, we can make it available via a private Smugmug link, for $10 per image. Just send an email to editor AT nerdcaliber.com. Currently limited to only photos taken by FirstPerson Shooter (aka Rodney Brown).