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Hundreds gather for Anime Corpus Christi convention

The crowd response has been tremendous and so has the exposure for local businesses.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Hundreds of people showed up to the second day of Anime Corpus Christi

The three-day convention is the first of its kind for the city and is the sister-show to Corpus Christi's annual Comic Con.

3NEWS spoke with convention participant, Joseph Tafur. "A majority of the time you have to go to either San Antonio or Dallas, to go to an anime-themed exclusive convention. So, to have one out here in our hometown is perfect."

Daniel Benavides is the co-owner of Corpus Christi Comic Con. He spoke with 3NEWS and said, "We also do the Corpus Christi Comic Con and we're coming into our fifth year. We wanted to branch out. Anime has expanded and blown up in the past five years. And we were super happy to do this as soon as we could."

The crowd response has been tremendous and so has the exposure for local businesses.

3NEWS spoke with the owner of Strawberry Moon, Carley Cunningham. She said, "We have people coming from the valley, we have people coming from all over Texas to come and enjoy the whole the convention, all the programming happening and check out all the cool merchandise, it's really cool."

Cunningham opened her business late last year. "We're such a new business, so anytime we can get exposure to like the anime-core fans, it's really good for us," she explained.

Regardless of their age, convention-goers like 79-year-old Mike Jeffords won't let anything stop them from taking part. He asked, "Why should kids have all the fun?"

Despite Jeffords' health concerns, his spirit is what's helping him live life to the fullest. He told 3NEWS, "Right now, I'm going through radiation. I had cancer, I'm not going to quit!" He said, "If you keep going, you keep going. If you sit down and quit, you die. And I'm not ready to die."

Jeffords is proof, that you're never too old to have fun. 

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