By Andrew Tei
Ah, Anime Expo, the mother load of all cons. No US con has as much industry
presence, which I know a lot of people don’t like, a large number of Japanese
guests, and lots of film showings. For me, AX is all about the guests and
industry panels. I didn’t step into a video room once while I was there. I go
to other cons for that. Each con that way can serve a different purpose.
I left for AX on July 4. We had a 2-car caravan filled with costumes as we
made the track from the San Francisco Bay Area to Long Beach. We arrived and
immediately went to registration. After resting, we were delighted to see the
spectacular Fourth of July fireworks next to the Queen Mary. What a beautiful
night! Then there was food and beer, and then back to the hotel for DDR, an
event from which all pictures taken should be destroyed immediately.
I woke up early the next morning to get my press materials, and hopped on down
to opening ceremonies. AX’s new location included a large theater with 2
balconies. Finally, a venue that can handle the amount of growth that AX has
shown. Then we were presented with what had to be the most annoying thing at
the con, AX’s mascot Max. Max is now computer generated in real time and lip
sync real time to some voice actress to act as host to events in the theater.
For some reason, they decided to make her a valley girl. You can read my
opening ceremonies for other details.
After opening ceremonies, I attended the press panel for Inoue-san followed by
her Guest of Honor Focus Panel. Then it was my time for my first industry
panel by Pioneer. By then it was 5:00 so I hit the dealer room for an hour
until it closed. The dealer’s room was huge this year, and I never had a
problem getting it. ADV, Bandai, and Pioneer had huge booths at the front of
the Hall. Media Blasters was hawking DVDs at $20 a piece. Digital Manga was
hyping up DigiCharat merchandise. Animaxis was stealing, err, I mean taking,
more of my money.
At 7:00 PM I arrived at Wasabi, a Japanese restaurant for the AnimeonDVD
gathering. Since, the main organizer was late, I took over and tried to get
seating for 21 people! Trying to get that many people seated was hard, and
after 90 minutes, the manager of the restaurant graciously opened up a table
downstairs that isn't normally used for us to sit at. I wish they had thought
of that earlier though. Half of us enjoyed teppan, and the other half sushi. I
got to meet some great people there, as I did throughout the convention. One
of the great things I love about anime conventions is the people. You can
easily strike up conversations and start talking about this hobby we all
enjoy. Dinner ended roughly at 10:30, and the survivors dragged themselves
back to their hotels.
Next morning called for a 7:00 wakeup call to get in line for tickets for the
AMV contest at night. The line was already decently long at that point, but
I’m glad I have some friends who are even crazier than I am. I love that AX
does assigned seating that you can get before the events start for the day, so
you don’t miss anything. I also picked up a ticket for the Meet the Guests
reception.
Thus began my industry panel day. 10-12 was Bandai and AD Vision. After that I
took an hour break to write up my report making me miss the Tomoko Kawakami
panel, since I knew you guys would want ADV’s massive license list as soon as
possible. Plus my boss would whip me at Otakon if I didn’t J At 1:00 I
attended Viz’s panel. I had some free time from 2-3 waiting for Digital
Manga/Synch Point panel. By arriving early, I was able to enjoy a few moments
with Tomoko Kawakami. She was very nice and allowed me to take a picture with
her. Then we had the panel at 3, and afterwards I got Kawakami’s autograph.
Then I ran off to the Media Blasters panel, where luckily forum moderator
wolve filled me in on what I missed.
After another quick 1-hour pass through the dealer’s room, I went to the Meet
the Guests Reception. I proceeded through the table for Yu Watase(Creator of
Fushigi Yuugi), Tsukasa Kotobuki(SMJ character designer), Masayuri
Kojima(director of the CCS movie 2 Kero-chan omake), Noburo Ishiguro(Director
of Macross), and finally Kikoku Inoue(do I really need to tell you who this
is?). Again, its events like this that really set AX apart from other cons for
me. A chance to get really close with the Guests of Honor and ask them
questions. We get it much better than fans in Japan.
The night ended with the music video contest. Two regular readers and
participants of the AnimeOnDvd chat room had entries, PatrickD and Aokakesu. I
enjoyed both of their videos a lot. The AMV contest ran smoothly, and the
final big winner, of course was the overall comedy winner. The piece mixed
Bebop and Trigun together with a lot of editing to have Spike chase after
Vash. I went back to my hotel room to write a few reports and hit the sack at
1.
My alarm got me up at 4 so I could get in line for the masquerade! Ah, if you
wanna be sleep deprived for 4 days, the best solution for anyone is to go to
AX. Of course, I arrived at the ticket booth to find signs saying you weren’t
allowed to form a line until 5. I proceeded to find coffee first since I had
time, then camped out with a bunch of friends for the long wait. Even watched
the first episode of Elf Princess Rane on a Titanium in line. Wow, so I did
watch an episode of anime at AX! J
The next 3 hours were the TokyoPop/Mixx panel, AnimEigo panel, and the CPM
panels. After writing up report for that, I headed to the Guest of Honor Focus
panels for Masayuki Kojima and Mario Asaka(director of CCS TV and both
movies). Everyone who attended their panel got tickets for an autograph. I
arrived too late to both of their autograph sessions to get anything signed. I
was quite upset. The last panels of the day were the Studio Pierrot and
NewType magazine panels, both hosted by Digital Manga. I think the girls of
Digital Manga are trying to single-handedly take over the US anime industry.
With Saturday night here, it was time for the Masquerade. Due to a new venue,
there were a lot of technical difficulties, but for the most part everything
ran smoothly. The night started with the answering of wish of a child from the
Make a Wish Foundation. Omar has sickle-cell anemia, and his wish was to
attend Anime Expo. He received gifts from many different companies, including
a ton of DVDs and a DVD player, though it was a Samsung. The audience felt a
HDTV should have been given also. Roughly 50 groups competed. Three different
groups used Moulin Rouge music to dance to. I especially loved the group that
modeled their outfits after Miykui-chan in Wonderland. They won Best in Show.
The two groups that modeled their costumes from Clamp’s Clover were also
excellent.
After 6 hours of sleep, I went to get in line for Sunday morning’s open
autograph session, which began over half an hour late though this is always a
tentative event. I arrived in line at 7:30 and the line was already very long.
First, I had Matsubara sign my AMS LE DVD set. My Cyberteam in Akihabara DVD
was next for Tsukasa Kotobuki. Then I grabbed a signature board for Hisashi
Abe(character designer, animation director, and director of Devil Hunter Yohko
2 and 3, animation director for the new Vampire hunter D movie), and last
another signboard for Makoto Uno(character for Love Hina). Kawamoto, the
character designer from Cowboy Bebop, seemed to be the most sought after
signature. People who waited for his signature only got one if they started
around middle of the line.
I hit the dealer’s room for a final time looking for some deals and got six
Gunsmith Cats manga for 30% off. Mahou Tsukai Tai #2 was my only DVD purchase
at AX. Against all odds, I was hoping for AnimEigo to have AMG #1 there. I
then took a quick look to see what were the sketches for the Charity Auction
and left the con.
Final Thoughts
This was my second time at Anime Expo, and I enjoyed it even more than the
first one. Last year, I watched 4 films at AX, but this year I watched none,
but that was fine. The line control was superb to me. AX staffers for the most
part were very professional, except for a few occasions where they were a bit
snippy. I wish the staffers at handling individual events would be better
informed by their superiors on what is going on. There were a few times when I
received false information. The greatest story I heard was one of the security
personnel for the film room was stopping people with cameras from going into
the film room, but ignored people with video cameras.
I met a lot of great people at the con, especially readers from this site. The
Anime on DVD site has formed a community of great people, and I would really
like to take another moment and thank Chris for starting this site and giving
me an opportunity to represent it. With luck, I didn’t embarrass it and myself
too much with my Inoue fanboyishness.
Will I be back for AX2002 next year? I’m already pre-registered
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