BayAnime.com

Anime Expo, the largest anime and manga convention in North America, was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 2 through July 5.

This was Anime Expo’s second year at the LACC. The previous year’s convention, AX 2008, was a great success with the fans and in general was a well-run convention without any major snafus or mishaps, no small feat considering it was the convention’s first time being held at that enormous venue.

Thursday, Day One, started off with a sobering keynote address by Austin Osueke, founder of San Francisco publisher eigoManga. Osueke’s emphasis was on the recession’s effect on the manga business in general, and on emerging companies like eigoManga in particular. The keynote address was followed by an industry roundtable discussion on turning anime and manga properties into Hollywood movies, the difficulties thereof, and working in cooperation with the original Japanese creators.

Popular Japanese seiyuu (voice actor) Toshiyuki Morikawa, one of the convention’s guests of honor, had his panel on Thursday. Morikawa charmed the audience by telling them that he had just flown in from Japan the day before, and was worried about leaving his dog, William Axl Morikawa (“Axl” for Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses), a 70-lb. Labrador. Morikawa stated that he has done “hundreds” of BL (Boy’s Love, or yaoi) roles, and that from the outset he has never minded doing them, as he feels that an actor should be able to portray any role.

The crowds were a bit light on Thursday, probably due to the fact that some people still had to work at their jobs and wouldn’t get off work until Friday.

Day Two got started with a lively industry roundtable discussion on the commercial viability of OEL (Original English Language) manga in the U.S. Participants in the discussion included Northrop Davis, a writer-producer and teacher of anime who pitched Battle Angel Alita to Twentieth-Century Fox, which subsequently acquired it for director James Cameron; artist Robert Le; Tokyopop senior editor Lillian Diaz-Przybyl; Radical Comics editor Luis Reyes; and Robert Napton, Bandai’s director of marketing. One of the topics discussed was how beginning artists can use the Internet as a place to train and to try out their comic art.

BAAU (Bay Area Artists United) was represented at Anime Expo. Their table in the Artist’s Alley was well-positioned at a corner/intersection near the entry area. The group’s eighth collection of comic works, “BAAU 8,” was for sale, along with previous volumes.

Lane Terasaki of BAAU

Dan Perkel and Po-Lung Chia of BAAU

Attendance definitely picked up on Friday:

San Francisco-based company Viz Media held its panel in the afternoon, discussing its full slate of upcoming manga and anime products for the remainder of 2009 and beginning of 2010.

Ran across a happy gathering of Saiyuki cosplayers, as evening approached:

Saturday, Day Three, dawned bright and early with a keynote address on the digital distribution of anime by Kun Gao, CEO of the San Francisco-based company Crunchyroll. Gao narrated a powerpoint presentation on the efficacy of digital distribution, then participated in the industry roundtable discussion on the same topic that followed. The roundtable was dominated by Crunchyroll and Viz, as they seemed to have the most experience in this area.

One quote really caught the audience’s attention: Justin Sevakis, founder of Anime News Network, noted that years ago when DVDs were the hot entertainment item, people would collect DVDs in order to display them proudly across their living room wall, taking pleasure in the fact that they could watch any of these movies at any time. “Now,” Sevakis said, “It’s more like: ‘I bought all those?’” Meaning: in the age of digital delivery/distribution, actually owning physical DVDs now seems… obsolete.

The Sword of the Stranger showing drew a large audience in the biggest, ballroom-sized video room. It was my first time seeing this movie, but it won’t be my last – it’s fantastic, with some of the best samurai swordfighting scenes I’ve ever seen in a film. Bandai needs to be promoting this movie a lot more than they have been… it deserves a wider audience.

Saturday, South Hall

Sgt. Frog invades AX

Dealer’s Hall

This year, Artist’s Alley was included within the Dealer’s Hall, at the far northern end of the gigantic exhibition space. Last year, Artist’s Alley was located in a separate hall. It was interesting to see emerging artists essentially sharing space with professional dealers in anime and manga goods; one side doing it basically for the love and enthusiasm of it, the other side trying to move product in hopes that their sales would justify the trip to L.A. for the convention. It was obvious that the artists had been moved into the Dealer’s Hall because space was available – in other words, the tight economy meant fewer dealers and hence, empty space opened up in the Dealer’s Hall that needed to be filled.

Hello Kitty goes shopping in the Dealer’s Hall

One of the best things about a convention are the spontaneous events that crop up unexpectedly, usually involving fans. The above photo doesn’t do it justice, but some fans were playing songs from “Thriller” on a boombox in the large unused Concourse Hall space, and began dancing like Michael Jackson in tribute to the late pop idol. At one point there were at least 50 fans gathered in a semi-circle to watch and cheer, as a kid cosplaying as Naruto did the dance from “Billie Jean”…

Sunday, the fourth and final day, was a quiet day/getaway day, as last days of conventions generally are.

Some fans relaxed in the manga library:

Crunchyroll held its official panel in the morning. Another panel, presented by NIS, a gaming company located in Southern California, discussed the “localization” process (i.e., the process by which a Japanese video game is remastered/dubbed/modified for the English-language audience), and announced that they were looking to hire an editor to oversee the English language translated materials. They are located in Santa Ana, California, and the editor would need to work on-site. Their website is: www.nisamerica.com.

Conclusion

The estimate of the number of unique attendees for the convention has now been tallied at 44,000, approximately 1,000 more than in 2008. I would say the death of anime in America is a rumor that can now officially be put to rest. 

Jan Suzukawa is a freelance writer who works in the manga industry as an editor and English adaptation writer. Website: www.jansuzukawa.com.