Throngs of people, many of them decked out in elaborate handmade costumes, filled the Arkansas Statehouse Convention Center on Sunday afternoon, the second and final day of the 2026 Little Rock Anime Festival.
By 2 p.m., the convention floor was a who’s who of characters beloved by self-proclaimed nerds. Proton pack-wearing Ghostbusters milled past booths selling prop weapons and headgear; Fionna and Marceline from the cartoon Adventure Time stopped and posed for a photo; brightly colored demons from animated series Hazbin Hotel chatted near tables selling art prints and posters; Darth Vader stalked the hall, lightsaber swinging on his belt.
One of the main draws of the cons, other than scoping out the many creative cosplay costumes, is shopping at the rows of booths. Some feature facades that towered so high that vendors had to use long poles to free purchased posters from displays, while others were humble affairs featuring handmade crafts. T-shirts, hats, keychains, art, dice, DVDs and video games abounded.
Other attendees lined up to meet and get autographs from voice actors who performed in cartoons or video games, or attended panel discussions where those same actors answered questions about how they got into the profession, or their favorite character to portray.
Kairi Hatfield, wearing a red wig with a red halo and yellow-and-red contacts, described how she used craft foam, paint, liquid latex and fake blood to mimic the effect of a chainsaw blade sprouting from Steven Everson’s forehead. The two dressed as Makima and Denji, characters from manga and anime series Chainsaw Man.
Sunday was Everson’s first time at an anime convention, he said, but Hatfield has attended several several in various costumes, she said, including previous Little Rock Anime Festivals. The pair couldn’t attend on Saturday because Everson was working his job as a Stuttgart firefighter and Hatfield was attending Arkansas Army National Guard drill.
Conventions like these offer a space for like-minded people to meet and talk about their shared interest in animation, video games and comics, Hatfield said. She taught herself how to apply special effects makeup by watching tutorials on YouTube and is inspired by the other cosplayers she meets at conventions.
Everson is hooked, he said, and plans to attend more cons in the future. He excitedly shared his plan to build a set of space marine armor from the Warhammer 40,000 series as his next costume.
“I’m having a grand old time,” Everson said with a smile that seemed to clash with the fake blood dripping from his faux wound.
Hefting a staff-like wand topped with a gold-painted star and outfitted in camo fatigue pants and an OD-green tank top, John Chavez said Jorgen Van Strangle, the stern Arnold Schwarzenegger-inspired fairy character from Nickelodeon’s series The Fairly OddParents, is one of his easier costumes to wear.
Chavez, a Jacksonville resident who attended the convention Sunday with his wife and two kids, has been attending conventions and building his own cosplay costumes for 14 years now, he said. He hopes to get his children into the hobby, he said.
On Saturday, Chavez attended dressed like Baxter from the Hazbin Hotel series, an anglerfish-like mad scientist character. In the past, he’s donned bulky homemade armor that resembles an antique diving suit to portray the Big Daddy character from the Bioshock video games.
“You can come here and either be yourself or be someone completely different, and still feel comfortable,” Chavez said.