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Anime Expo

SailSail
edited April 2007 in Conventions
Anime Expo will be held this year at the Long Beach Convention Center from June 29 to July 2.

It's only a hop, skip, and a jump away from where I live, but what about the rest of you!? Most people in here live on the East Coast, but you guys owe it to yourselves to make the trek out here at least once in your lives. You secretly know you wanna see the infamous Man Feye in person.

Seriously, it's a great con aside from typical parking issues directly related to the sheer size of it. Huge dealer's room, seven showing rooms, tons of great panels, and a chance to confront Bandai Visual or any other company of your choosing in person to complain about whatever you want with a room full of people backing you.

What's your excuse?

Comments

  • mkg12mkg12
    I won't be going to Anime Expo. I will be attending the Fanime Convention in San Jose, California.
  • SailSail
    Ok, you people have a few more incentives as of late to check out AX this year... So, who's thinking about it?
  • SailSail
    edited July 2008
    Back from my first day at AX. Here are my thoughts.

    Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. This year, the con made it's triumphant return to the Long Beach Convention Center. For the past few years it had been held at the Anaheim Convention Center, right across the street from DisneyLand. I suppose because AX was returning "home", they decided that they needed not put signs anywhere to indicate how to get from here to there because everyone had been there before. This was not the case, any signage at all would have been very much appreciated. There was a map in the program, but it was minimal and not always helpful. Another thing about the program was that there was a table of contents indicating on what number page each item can be found, but no numbers on the corners of the pages. One more complaint, though not related to the con itself but the dealers, all the manga and anime were sold at the MSRP. I don't think I've ever paid MSRP for a manga. Even bookstores usually slash the price down a buck or two.

    Alright, now to the good stuff. There were some awesome people in the Artist Ally. I got some cool stickers for the laptop and some free stuff too.

    In the dealer's room, there were these college guys who have started a mech-building business. No kidding. They're a bunch of engineering students and their company is Mechanized Propulsion Systems Inc.. They were super awesome.

    We only sat in on a few showings because we had spent so much time in the dealer's room. We watched the first part of 5 cm Per Second, and I introduced my friends to the awesome that is Project Blue Earth SOS. We also watched Tokyo Majin, which I had never heard of before. The plot was incomprehensible but somehow it didn't matter; It contained zombies, detectives, and people doing martial arts. I've pretty much been sold.

    After all this I was pretty tired, so I went home and they stayed for Tokyo Godfathers. I hope to return tomorrow with even more caffeine in tote and more prepared for a long day. Patrick Macias is running a panel tomorrow on Otaku USA that I will try to attend, but it overlaps uncut Crayon Shin-chan. I'm going to at least try to go to part of it.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • mkg12mkg12
    edited July 2007
    One more complaint, though not related to the con itself but the dealers, all the manga and anime were sold at the MSRP. I don't think I've ever paid MSRP for a manga. Even bookstores usually slash the price down a buck or two.


    All the dealers sold manga and anime at MSRP? That is crazy. The years I went to AX always had varying prices depending on the dealer. Are you refering to just the bigger Viz, Tokyopop type booths in the front?
    Post edited by mkg12 on
  • AprecheApreche
    What percentage of AX is the dealer's room?
  • SailSail
    edited July 2008
    All the dealers sold manga and anime at MSRP? That is crazy. The years I went to AX always had varying prices depending on the dealer. Are you refering to just the bigger Viz, Tokyopop type booths in the front?
    No, I am referring to the sellers with manga sitting on the table in cardboard cartons.
    What percentage of AX is the dealer's room?
    Well, the main building has three floors. The main level acts as the main entrance, food access, some of the larger panel rooms, and the artist allies. I say "allies" because there is more than one area for artist tables. From there, you can either go up to the loft-ish upstairs with all the other panel rooms, or you can go downstairs. The entire sublevel is for the dealer's room. The rest of the con is in other buildings connected to the main one, like the concert. The screening rooms are located at the Hyatt Hotel which is also connected to the convention center. But some of the panel rooms in the main building are actually screening rooms, and there is yet another artist area located at the Hyatt. I didn't even bother to go to the Westen Hotel, which apparently has more con stuff. Do you understand how much of a help more signs and a better map would have been? Everything is speckled all over the place, without much rhyme or reason.

    To answer your question, one could say that the dealer's room is a very large part of the con. But, considering how much industry involvement there is at AX, is it surprising? Go to the website and look at the schedules. The vast majority of the panels are industry-run, and the ones that aren't sound very uninteresting. AX is run almost entirely by the industry, and that is probably one of it's biggest weaknesses.

    I still had fun, and I am still returning today, but remember that AX isn't anything at all like your Katsucons or Otakons. It is insanely large and insanely presenced by companies who all want your money. It's basically E3 for anime. The cool part though is, like E3, the little guys are well represented too. I went to one panel where the director of one of the anime was they showed was sitting right there in the room with a translator and answered questions. That was really cool.

    So, in conclusion, AX ~ E3 and AX !~ Otakon.
    Post edited by Sail on
  • SailSail
    Gonna resurrect this thread with a more general title.

    Anyone else going?
  • DkongDkong
    I live in Ohio...and I definitely don't have the money for a plane ticket, so no. If I lived in Cali I probably would. Otherwise, as a heavily industry driven con, I doubt I'd care enough to go.
  • mkg12mkg12
    So what's the pricing on manga this year? MSRP?
  • SailSail
    What wit!
  • rhinocerorhinocero
    I have two excuses for not going. The first is that I spent the money on going to England and France instead. The second is that I am in England right now.

    But it sounds like fun, and I really wish I could go.
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