Where do I begin with talking about AX?!
Anime Expo was held on July 1st-4th of this year, but technically had Day -1 and Day 0 available for fun as well! They stepped it up this year to the point where they had about 300,000 attendees to the event. That is 3 times as much as they had capped off last year with a total of 100,000 people. If you haven’t heard about it through multiple sources, this was also known as the infamous, LINECON of 2017. xD
Good thing Anime Expo opened up their badge pick up two days prior for attendees. Both Mike and OSYM were able to grab their tickets around that time, and crazy enough, OSYM didn’t have a problem picking up his ticket. Check out this video to hear about his experience.
Besides the LINECON, there was so much in store for you, so let’s begin and talk about our experience at Anime Expo.
To start it off, let’s talk panels!
PANELS
There were plenty of panels to choose from. They had panels on your favorite anime companies like Crunchyroll and Funimation, all the way to smaller panels that talk about anime and the culture behind it.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to check out some of the panels, but the rest of our crew were able to see some of these.
Our boys, OSYM and Mike checked out the Full Metal Alchemist Live Action panel where they were able to check out some clips from the movie, as well as hear the thoughts behind it, straight from the crew that created it.
INTERVIEWS
Fortunately, I was given the pleasure to interviewing both MomoMC and Steven D’onofrio, both under Night Cafe. MomoMC is a popular entertainer from Japan and Steven is a video creator that produces content for both Viewster and YouTube.
*Stay tuned for the interview video.
Besides having this interview, both Mike and OSYM went around the convention interviewing cosplayers about their outfits and their accessories.
*Stay tuned for the cosplay videos.
VENDORS AND ARTISTS
After checking out all these panels, you would enter into the main exhibit hall. This was were they had all the different vendors and stores, such as iiiiClothing, Wooji, Kinfold, and Creator’s Guild, as well as the booths were all the major industries promoted upcoming anime.
On the bottom floor, they opened up the parking garage for all of the artists, autograph areas, and card/board gaming.
Here’s a quick slideshow of what you could find there.
COSPLAYERS
Throughout the con, both inside and out, you would find PLENTY of cosplayers! For some people, this is the main reason why attendees would check out the con. So many people put their heart and soul into their outfits, which makes the experience so much better. On top of that, it’s such a great way to express your creativity and your love of anime. I wish I was able to take photos of everyone’s wonderful cosplays, but here are some of the ones we got!
Besides seeing all these cosplays outside, a lot of them were posing within the Entertainment hall.
ENTERTAINMENT HALL
Entertainment Hall contained a bunch of cosplay sets for people to get their photoshoots in, but WAY more entertainment as well. Blizzard and Nintendo had their booths set up in there for attendees to check out their merch and test out new games. They also had photobooths, The Chalk Twins, Itasha cars, etc.
Here is a slideshow of what you could see within that hall.
FOOD TRUCKS
After you check out all the greatness in this con, we would get hungry. There were plenty of food trucks to choose from. They had 2 separate lots outside of the con: AX Food Truck Lot and Lightning Lot. Here are some of the food trucks that you were able to check out!
8 BIT JAZZ HEROES
Besides all of the good food and action that was going on during the event, Mike AND OSYM were able to check out the 8-Bit Jazz Heroes show where they were playing a bunch of 8 bit songs JAZZ-styled…if you couldn’t figure out the name.
8-Bit Jazz Heroes is a duo that recreates the classic video game and movie sounding songs that we all come to love into jazz interpretations. They organize the sounds to make them more enjoyable, not just for the gaming nerd that we all are, but for others who love the sound of jazz.
Here was their review of their experience.
NEON DISTRICT
Neon District was a fun event that had a sorts of Japanese and Anime influenced DJs perform.
Read more on it at the following link: http://otakify.com/press-events/neon-district
To give you a further idea of how the convention was, here is a video that will give you an overall view of how big AX was this year!
WALKTHROUGH OF AX
Anime Expo had so much to check out and it was definitely one of the best weekends that I’ve had this year! I definitely can’t wait for what’s in store for us next year!
SOCIAL MEDIA:
I highly suggest picking up your ticket in advance, LIKE RIGHT NOW for the best bang for your buck. It’s only $56 for the whole weekend, so make sure you SNAG IT! Head over to their website to find further information about the ticketing next year.
To be up-to-date about Anime Expo 2018 and to see what happened during this year’s festivities, follow Anime Expo at their social media down below!
Website: anime-expo.org
Facebook: facebook.com/animeexpo
IG: @animeexpo
Twitter: @animeexpo
Thank you Anime Expo for having us and can’t wait to see you soon! 😀
