By: Peggy Sue Wood | @pswediting

Hello, Everyone! You know, almost every year I say that this will probably be my last Anime Expo because it’s just become so big and so complicated, but this year I think I’ve committed to coming back.

If any of you saw our announcement on June 29th, I was set to present 4 times during AX this year (and I did). I’ll get into that (awesome) experience near the end. First, let’s talk about attending:

As with last year’s assessment, this is a large-scale event with lots of people. It is the biggest anime conventions in North America with over 100,000 people in attendance. You can spend days just going up and down the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley–moreover, there are a great number of panels to consider that often feature lines outside in the LA heat for a few hours before the event with many panels also happening at secondary locations like the JW Marriott.

This convention is not good for first-time convention goers, particularly if you are not great with being in large crowds and struggle in long lines. The parking is also pretty horrendous and costly. Last year it was about $20 a day to park in the convention lots, that price jumped up to $30 a day this year which genuinely upset me.

Of course, you can park off the convention lots… in the middle of LA… when it is pretty dangerous to walk around alone at night back to your car… but I prefer not to go that route if avoidable as a Southern California native who has seen the ways LA is beginning to fall apart.

So, there is the first negative. The convention is too big and parking too limited (and area becoming unsafe) and should really move to another location, like the Anaheim Convention Center, but that might be competing with Comic Con so they may not be able to do that. Well, that aside, let’s get into some more specifics.

Size and Scale + Food Alley

Location: Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

Size: 5XL LARGE. Over 100,000 people and busy most of the day.

Food Alley: The food trucks and stalls are the primary ways to get a meal during this convention. They are pretty overpriced, but the food is good. The average meal at a food truck when you include a soda or bottle of water is close to $45-50 which is really pricey even for the area. It would be cheaper to walk to the nearby restaurants and eat local. Lazy Dog, for example, was about $25-30 (with tip) for a good burger, fries, and soda. That’s not to say you can’t find cheaper food. For example, some of the stalls at the Ichiban Market and in the Beer Garden (also outside, on the upper levels) were a bit more reasonably priced. I ended up eating at a dumpling stall in the Ichiban Market area 3-4 times. They sold shumai (a favorite of mine) for $10 plus $4 for a bottle of water. Serving sizes were appropriate and the food was delicious.

For the sake of this review and because of limited time I risked eating the convention center food this year, which I have not done for years at AX because previous attempts have given me pretty horrific food poisoning years prior. It was just as bad as I remember, but no food poisoning so there is a plus, I guess?

Look, if you want to go to AX, I recommend either packing your own food and drinks (or bringing a refillable water bottle as they have refill stations all over the center), or bringing money to buy food at the stalls. The convention center food, while fine this year, has historically been bad. Even this time, the food was horrible. I purchased a corn dog (if you can call it that with the thin batter cover) that had been “cooked fresh” within the last 30 minutes and it was an over cooked grey color when I bit into it. The chicken tenders I got after that when I couldn’t stomach the hot dog looked good but were 80% breading. To the point that I spent part of the meal stripping down to the chicken only to fill up on the over seasoned fries I decided to get as a side as a “just in case” the chicken turned out bad.

Moreover, getting a drink there was almost $8—double what the food stalls charged and no refills. It was overpriced and not worth the risk consider the quality control is not that great.

Health and Safety Policy

Masks are optional. In terms of safety, I felt fine at the event and did enjoy walking around the convention center. However, I did not venture far into surrounding areas until Day 4, when myself, Kathy (our copyeditor here at TAV), and one other could join me for the walk through downtown LA to the local Lazy Dog. Overall, the city is pretty big and the immediate area next to the convention centers was fine, but not a place I would consider safe to wander around at night by myself.

Security at the event was all right. They seemed pretty good about making sure people had badges and scanned in, checked large bags, etc. However, other attendees mentioned to me that depending on the door a lot of people were passed through quickly and without checking bags. This was not something I witnessed, but I can say that I was a bit frustrated with security at night.

They often blocked direct exits to the parking areas, and redirected people to go back and exit through the other end of the building to walk to parking through the car entryways outside at night in LA.

I want to stress that this area is not like it used to be and there was not enough security outside the building to make redirecting people outside okay late at night. If they had security lined up outside to make sure attendees are safe getting to their cars, with appropriate signage and warning at morning parking, then I would feel differently, but that has not been covered well enough and it poses risks to attendees.

Vendor Hall

The Vendor Hall at this event was large as usual. I spent a lot of my time going to each stall and trying to get as many free goodies as possible. It was super fun but there has been a significant decline in the promotional items. While you can usually, reasonably, walk away with a backpack full of free posters and small goodies if you come in with a fully charged phone and an active Instagram, this year you could probably fill about half the backpack or a mini backpack. Some items, such as tokens for platforms like MangaPlaza and Tapas, were one-use codes with nothing for people returning on multiple days.

In honesty, and I’m sure this will come off as a bit greedy since they did have some freebies, it felt stingy that they did not have multiple codes for different days or more promotional materials as an attendee. This a huge marketing opportunity, and attendees are likely to spend hundreds of dollars or more at some of these vendors. I think having a few different codes so that visitors coming on multiple days can get, for example, 100 tokens a day from Tapas or a free postcard would be appropriate. When the pandemic was in full swing, I understood cutting back on those areas. Maybe last year as well as things are still getting back into the swing of things. However, by now it sort of feels like the cutbacks are getting to be a bit too much, particularly when several of these vendors are owned by the same conglomerate.

Also, freebie codes for you all:

Tapas: TAPAS24PRCP1 (good through December)

MangaPlaza: mpax2024 (good to add through July 31st, but must use by Sep 30, 2024)

I’ve been going to AX on and off since 2009, and this was the first time that the freebies did not make me have to take a trip to the car for a drop-off. I literally got my freebies in exchange for my posts and survey inputs, and then… walked around. Considering how much I spent walking around, it was a large space that definitely took advantage of setting up a large, asymmetrical layout. Some brands, like Crunchyroll and Aniplex, had huge spaces for activities, with odd spacing that divided up the area a bit more making it harder to weave up and down fully without accidentally missing something. As such, the Exhibit Hall is definitely a place that takes a whole day to fully explore and I love that!

However, that also makes it seem like the Vendor Hall was less full than usual. It was still packed with people and stalls, but there seemed to be less vendors overall than years prior, which is a tad bit unusual. It’s possible they were moved to other areas outside the main convention space or that the layout caused this illusion, but that’s just a theory on my part.

Artist Alley

Artist Alley took up its own space, as is typical for AX and many other large conventions. It took me two days to complete a walkthrough of this area. Surprisingly, I recognized a lot of the vendors from Kumoricon, which was awesome. I was able to pick up some items that had sold out before, and enjoyed the space more than I have in years prior. Like last year, this area was much better planned than last year or the year before that. The walkways were much wider and, therefore, far less clogged/blocked with traffic in the hallways which was very good for all of us. It also allowed for those with wheelchairs more accessibility.

Moreover, there were some vendors on the opposite side of the area, like the Book-Off stand, which is one of my personal favorite places to stop and shop at conventions in Southern California since they often have merch from lesser known favorites of mine like Natsume’s Book of Friends.

Cosplay Area / Entertainment Hall

The cosplay area had its own space, which I enjoyed walking by in the Entertainment Hall. It was often busy with cosplayers and seemed to have been close to the game space, like it was last year. I didn’t see any new backdrops, but I was doing a really quick walkthrough so they might have been something I missed there. The Entertainment Hall has Studio G selling merch, and a few other hot spots. Hulu, for example, was place in the entertainment area and had apparently been selling boba earlier. We didn’t get to purchase any boba, but we did get to play the Nerf game that they had and sat at their miniature cafe-style front to rest our legs for a bit.

The Ichiban Market was a fun stop-off too (last year I called it the Night Market and that was incorrect, so… sorry!). There were several food stalls there and one boba place called “Bobaful” that we got drinks from a few times. It was right past the Entertainment Hall and where I got the shumai. It is a nice place to chill at the end of the day, and even during the day with a good amount of seating and atmospheric lighting at night that made it nice to sit comfortably at. Moreover, since it’s kind of in the back and not close to lines for panels, not as many people go there during all hours of the day so while the lines for food can sometimes be long, it’s nowhere near as long as many of the lines for food trucks or lines for food stalls in the Beer Garden.

Entertainment – Presenter Experience

Now we can get into the presenting experience! Like last year, presenting was fantastic and I hope to do so again. Staff were quick and helpful when going for badge pick-up.

As a note, my ticket was a free general admission 4-day badge. This was given to me as a presenter, and I’m not sure if every presenter is similarly given a badge. I believe mine was given as a result of me making it into the academic track and regular programming. While many conventions do allow presenters a +1, often at a discounted or free rate, AX did not allow a +1 this year. Now, this could be for many reasons. This is a huge convention, so it could be because last year tickets sold out and those plus ones are valuable slots. It could be that no +1 was given because I simply didn’t ask. Not sure, but either way, that was the case this year.

In regards to the presentation, I presented :

Panel Title: “Keynote: Researching Anime – An Introduction to Anime and Manga Studies” (speaking in the second half of the hour)
Date/Time of panel: July 4, from 10:00am-11:00am
Panel Room: 411

Panel Title: “Anime Blogging Basics with The Anime View”
Date/Time of panel: July 4, from 11:30am-12:20pm
Panel Room: 408AB

Panel Title: “Death, Yōkai, and Demon Slayer” (speaking for about 15 minutes for my section, near the beginning or end of the panel)
Date/Time of panel: July 6, from 11:30am-12:30pm
Panel Room: 411

Panel Title: “Virtual Tourism With Anime with The Anime View”
Date/Time of panel: July 7, from 10:00am-10:50am
Panel Room: 403AB

All of these presentations are viewable here: https://theanimeview.com/2024/01/05/tav-the-editors-presentations/

Being in front of so many people can be a bit nerve-wracking. By Day 4 I was sleep deprived and rushed through my presentation, so I feel a bit bad for those in attendance considering that I literally zoomed through a 45-50 minute presentation in about 35 minutes, but the Q&A went phenomenally well, so there’s a plus!

I also rushed through during the Anime Blogging panel as well, which happened early during the convention, as I was pretty nervous. Kathy, our copyeditor, joined me on stage and though we had done a practice run beforehand, something about being in a huge room (like, one of the anime preview rooms that seats 1,000 people) totally overwhelmed me and I speed-read the notes section of my slides so that it went fast.

If I have the opportunity to present in a room that large again, I don’t think I’ll be as nervous as I was this time, so… fingers crossed my pitches will be accepted again next year! At the very least, it seemed like those who came to the panels liked or loved my topics. In fact, in the Demon Slayer Panel I was on, which was really a panel on folklore and yōkai from various series (Demon Slayer was the main stream name that was being used to pull interest and it worked), I got asked the most questions, which surprised me as I thought my topic was far less interesting than those of my co-panelists. At the same time though, I’m elated that it was so popular because it was a passion project on Natsume’s Book of Friends—my absolute favorite anime/manga—and anything that can boost the series in the US is a positive in my books!

Entertainment

I did not, unfortunately, attend too many panels. I did attend a few academic ones and went to the AX office hours for the academic track, but was ultimately focused more on enjoying the convention itself since Kathy was with me and I was enjoying my Summer Vacation.

Of the panels I did attend (that were not my own):

Panel Title: “Webtoons to Anime”
Date/Time of panel: July 3, 6:45 PM – 7:35 PM

The moderator for this panel was Deb Aoki, the Editor of Mangasplaining. It was hosted with panelists from a handful of webcomic publishers. There was mostly a lot of previews of various anime that has been set to release or already released which were based off of a webtoon/webcomic. Overall, a very chill panel but not one were I can say I absorbed a lot of knowledge.

Panel Title: Panel Title: “Writing About Anime – Discussions with the Editors-in-Chief”
Date/Time of panel: July 5, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

This was part of the academic track, and had the Executive Editor of Anime News Network, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Mechademia, and the Editor of the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, discussing what they look for in, for example, ideal pitches to their respective publications and what type of topics tend to get published in their respective publications. Having been to panels like this before during previous AXs and other anime conventions, it was not a lot of new information for me, but could be for others.

So, for those thinking of submitting, keep in mind that all of these publications post their guidelines for how to submit and what they are looking for. Look them up and read them before pitching/submitting! It will definitely help you in finding the right home for your work!

Panel Title: Panel Title: “Japanese Manga Editors Industry Roundtable”
Date/Time of panel: July 6, 4:45 PM – 5:35 PM

This panel was also moderated by Mangasplaining‘s Deb Aoki and featured a handful of editors/publishers from several companies. It was a great panel that discussed the increased sales of manga internationally and also discussed adaptations of manga into anime and live-action works. One of the fun things about the panel was getting to see how these publishers were working to bring in international voices, advertising programs that they host to take in mangaka from places like Brazil, Australia, and various other countries to create new works. Really a fascinating panel! I’ll try to do a separate post on this subject later.

Panel Title: Panel Title: “How Is Manga Made? A Background Session for Educators and Librarians”
Date/Time of panel: July 7, 3:00 PM – 3:50 PM

This was hosted by editors and marketers from Kodansha. Was a nice panel and I did end up learning something new at this particular panel about the manga publishing process, which I’ll try to post more about later.

In all, because half the panels I attended were my own, and I was pretty exhausted, I went to the panels I thought were most interesting to me and that which were located in the convention center building. There were many other panels I would have liked to attend, but which were located outside the convention center, such as the JW Marriott hotel, which did not feel worth the walk to me as I didn’t want to risk not being able to get back into the building since there were so many people in attendance this year. I’ll try to post about the topic of how manga is made in detail later as well, likely in a separate post. So, please be on the look-out for those soonish!

Final Judgments

Venue: 4/5 – The venue is becoming too small for the size of the event but at least it now has cell service in some areas even at the highest population point of the day (lunch).

Staff: 4.5/5 – Staff were wonderful, but security needs to be on the same page about hours of entry/exit.

Organization, Layout & Management: 4.8/5 – The Exhibit Hall could use a bit better organization, but was ultimately well managed. Artist Alley was phenomenal and made up for Exhibit Hall layout in a lot of ways.

Organization, Media Use: 4/5 – The app was regularly updated and accessible most of the time. The app really has come a long way and I hope continues to improve. However, a full point is deducted as advertising was not seen leading up to and around the event area except in the immediate few blocks around the convention center. Usually there are billboards, a lot of social media posts flooding my feed and so on, but this year I felt like advertising was missing. I saw more videos from people planning to attend advertising their cosplay process than I did for the convention itself which could mean that not enough time or money was invested in building up the convention itself, therefore I have deducted one full point.

Attendance: 4.8/5 – Turn out was excellent and I did not have unusual/uncomfortable encounters. So, yay!

Affordability: 5/5 – This is one of the more expensive conventions, but because of its size and scale it is worth the cost.

Overall: 4.51/5 – Worth the price.

Thank you for reading! Please let us know if you attended AX this year or plan to in the future. Also, if you attended AX, what were your thoughts on these topics?

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Copyedited by: Katherine Cañeba | @kcserinlee