Anime Expo 2009 Review

So another Anime Expo has come and gone during the July 4th weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Anime fans from across the world flock by the thousands to catch a glimpse of the anime industry personalities gracing the convention, buy loads of goods from sellers, attend panels & workshops dedicated to various aspects of anime, ogle the magnificent costumes parading around the convention, get up to date on anime releases, and possibly meet new or old friends who share the same hobby. After plowing through the four-day convention, I return to civilization with an assigned task of reviewing this year's convention.

I began attending Anime Expo-the largest anime convention in the West Coast and arguably the United States-in 2002. I was a little fish in a large aquarium full of anime, manga (Japanese comics), and costumed attendees (cosplayers) swimming around with me. The first experience was overwhelming, yet I yearned to repeat it so I attended each one. As I made new friends and developed my convention street smarts, I evolved into some convention veteran who notices the changing qualities of an anime convention while comparing it to the simpler conventions of years past.

Location

This is the second year that AX takes place in the Los Angeles Convention Center. Previous venues I experienced AX in included the smaller but cooler Long Beach Convention Center and the smaller but conveniently located near Disneyland Anaheim Convention Center. The Anaheim Convention Center is considered the benchmark of AX venues due to its close proximity to hotels, restaurants, and having the happiest place on Earth as a side attraction to visit while in town for AX. It was a small hike navigating between the Long Beach Convention Center and its hotels and restaurants, but the pretty scenery made for excellent photoshoots while the oceanic breezes kept attendees cool during those hikes.

The Los Angeles Covention Center shows how commercial Anime Expo is now. While the convention center is huge to accommodate this year's over 44,000 attendees, staff, and industry, the building lacks a personality. Finding a location for a photoshoot among the white walls and sharp angles is a chore. Food choices are limited to the overpriced food court, the high priced high-end restaurants near the convention center, or a hike towards downtown. Walking to the hotel where dances took place-the Westin-was a hike and a half or a long wait for shuttle service. Perhaps the closer Holiday Inn may have been a better dance location if the hotel had a ballroom or two to spare. Last year, many non-locals of Los Angeles avoided AX due to unfounded fears of homeless people and gangs roaming that particular area of downtown Los Angeles. This year the fears were even more unfounded thanks to increased police presence in preparation for Michael Jackson's memorial that was scheduled for Friday at the neighboring Staples Center but was rescheduled for Tuesday after the chaos of Anime Expo attendees left. Given that AX is set to take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center for a few more years, attendees better get used to the location. Perhaps they will eventually add enough personality to it to make it feel less like a commercial conglomerate.

Guests of Honor

Guests of Honor are the newsworthy elements that attract plenty of attendees towards its convention and AX is no exception. Anime Expo spotlighted a variety of anime and game industry guests this year including:
-Kari Wahlgren: American voice actress from FLCL,Wolf's Rain, and other anime I never watched dubbed.
-Morning Musume: Sugary sweet J-pop group.
-Moi dix Mois: J-Rock group consisting of Mana and other deep-voiced dudes who look like women.
-Toshimichi Mori & Daisuke Ishiwatari: Guilty Gear and BlazBlue game designers
-A list of Japanese artists, character designers, and voice actors that is too long to mention.

Guests of Honor at a convention are hit or miss. If an attendee is already a fan of the guests, he/she is more likely to attend the convention. If not, the convention's marketing department has to promote the guests and their finished works for those attendees. While I did not recognize this year's AX line up, I was more impressed with the Power Rangers reunion and Robot Chicken guests since I was more familiar with those shows. It is a bit odd that an anime convention turns to Hollywood guests to attract attendees. Then again, Power Rangers is based off a Japanese show and Robot Chicken does parody anime so both fit the convention. This was one of the first times that I paid attention to the Guests of Honor of AX since I usually miss the Opening Ceremonies introducing them.

Panels & Workshops

Panels and workshops allow convention attendees to learn about new aspects of anime or join fellow fans in a common interest. It is also the best chance to encounter the Guests of Honor. Unable to beat out the crowds of attendees wanting to meet most of the Guests of Honor, I fell back to the workshops and hoped to pick up a few skills. Given my 10 years of ballroom dance experience, I volunteered to help the ballroom dance workshop as a proctor hoping to encourage the hobby. I also attended the origami and the Para Para dance workshop. Para Para is a Japanese dance style using Eurobeat music that involves waving your arms like a traffic coordinator. I watched my friend practice at the belly-dancing workshop since she could do it better than I could. Watching thewww.youtube.com/watch panel Kari Wahlgren panel, and Robot Chicken panel allowed me to see how much fans really appreciate their works while the guests promoted their talents and future projects.

Cosplay & Masquerade

Cosplay continues to improve with each passing year. The talented costume designers find new ways to translate a drawing into a three-dimensional outfit for attendees to admire and photograph. Skills and presentation varied between individual cosplayers but they each represented their love for a particular series by attending gatherings, roleplaying as a character, or simply posing for photos. This year, Hetalia seemed to be the popular costume choice given its numerous fans and character selection. A lot of the currently popular anime costumes took center stage while the older characters from anime that got me interested in anime retreated to the back burner. My personal obligation was taking care of the impressive Transformers cosplayers.

The Masquerade is the highlight of the convention where cosplayers strut their stuff in front of a captive audience. In a rare AX moment, this event actually started on time. I only stayed to watch a dozen acts before getting called away. While the costumes were eye-catching and constructed, the acts to showcase the costumes occasionally felt tacked on. At least the Internet memes were kept to a minimum. But there were exceptions.

Staff

Convention Staff works hard to make sure the attendees are safe and have a good time. The staff manning the panels, preparing the shows, tending to the Guests of Honor, and taking care of the behind the scenes or often overlooked portions of Anime Expo did their job well to the point attendees did not notice them. Shows started relatively on time. Rooms were clean. Emergency services took care of situations. While the unsung Staff Officers ran things smoothly, the lower tier Staff who constantly barked orders, broke up gatherings due to crowds, or refused to yield to special exemptions to the rules will always remain the weakest links in the Staff chain. They are the most visible and their impressions are the ones attendees remember when thinking about their convention experiences with Staff. AX will need to weed out the power abusive or basically unfriendly staff workers to keep its attendees happy.

General Atmosphere

Anime Expo now feels more like a media spectacle. Most of my fellow attendees made it a point to engage in the Guests, panels, or main events and were too busy to hang out at the convention sharing the same hobby-which is the original appeal of the convention. I attempted to contact my friends at AX to have lunch together or a main event we both planned to attend. When most plans ended up fruitless, I wound up making new friends at the convention who were eager to share in good times. I am glad for such opportunities to expand my friendship networks so I will have more people to talk to during future conventions.

While Guests, panels, cosplay, and shopping opportunities flavor a convention, fellow attendees are the bread and butter of anime conventions. Without them, Anime Expo and other conventions eventually crumble and die. So treat them well and they will keep coming. I enjoyed Anime Expo 2009 and look forward to next year's convention. Hopefully next year Anime Expo will have guests I actually want to meet and more dance workshops.