PopCult Anime Con 2023 Saturday Gallery Part 1

For the second year, the folks at PopCult Anime Con gave us a space in the Eden Vale lobby of the Westin Waltham hotel to set up the portable studio and take photos of the wonderful cosplayers that attended the show. Last year was the first year for the convention since the pandemic, and the first year in the Westin Waltham, and attendance numbers were clearly affected by those factors. This year, the convention was hopping.

Last year I got enough photos in the studio space for two galleries of about 95 images each. This year I will have three galleries with around 107 images in each one. One thing that sets PopCult apart from many cons is the very high ratio of cosplayers to non-cosplaying attendees. Based on non-scientific observations of the crowds, that ratio was about 80-20 in favor of cosplayers. That made it possible this year for me to get nearly as many photos of cosplayers as I get at a much larger convention such as PAX East or Fan Expo Boston.

Being in the same spot as last year meant that once again, I was kitty cornered across from the main ballroom which housed all the big events. Saturday morning that was the Cosplay Deathmatch and Saturday afternoon it was the Masquerade. In both cases it meant the Eden Vale lobby got filled with people waiting to get in to be seated before the event, and that made it easy for me to call people over for photos and stay very busy.

Among the cosplayers in this first of three Saturday galleries are marcot1009, hats_cg, fnfcosplay, cavoritelizard, sunrisedragon, silverfalconcosplay, apocalypse.unicorn, busyasabeecosplay, skrinesis, starryeyedcicadaa, primrosepandacosplay, animesuckx, hail_rosequartz, mistykristicosplay, tetrasdomain, ashlee_bliss, darthlounatic, hunk_the_big_gassy_genius, beaniethe13th, lostsanitycosplays, mellowvvi, arcaneskeptic, glamrockelyse, jammthejedi, mini.nezumi, kenzkindacosplays, and many more.

We now use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.

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.

If you like our work and want to show your appreciation, feel free to tip us at Ko-fi or become a patron on Patreon.

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).

This was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, many of the characters being cosplayed here wouldn’t exist. Please consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund here.