CNN iReport

Forget baseball, not even the transit strike could stop these young fans from braving the morning cold right across from Valley Forge National Park with nothing but anime on their minds. Folks from the Philadelphia area revel in being underdog upstarts, and this event is no exception. Despite the establishment of the much larger New York Anime Festival to the northeast, a pair of smaller anime and science fiction events joined forces to become Zenkaikon, a united front for fans in the City of Brotherly Love.

Being a newer event, the organizers of Zenkaikon expected a modest attendance of about 1500 comic, anime, and sci-fi fans each day; but those projections went right out the window with reports of as many as 9,000 people trying to get in.

Video:

1: While some fans who arrived from as many as six hours away are taken aback by the crush of people trying to get in, convention chairperson Matilda Madden comments that the event is going to need a larger venue to accommodate the explosive growth.

Photos:

2-4: Some exterior photos of the "ocean of people" crowding outside the convention doors on the morning of Saturday, November 7th. Many of the people who did not pre-register ahead of time discovered that Saturday admissions had been shut down due to attendance caps for safety regulations; they were waiting in line for one of the last 700 slots left remaining for Sunday.

5-8: The themes of the costumed attendees were so all over the place, that this event looked a belated Halloween bash.