Parts 1, 2, and 3
Flickr Photoset
Youtube Videos

The Events

Anime Expo seems to get the most high-profile guests in the industry, especially from Japan. They staged a coup this year by getting the notoriously reclusive female manga artists, CLAMP. The directors of Fullmetal Alchemist, Mushishi, and RahXephon–all shows I love–also came. It was a shame that the CLAMP event, the most hyped, also ran the most late, and it was the most scripted; they asked CLAMP a set of 10 pre-chosen questions and showed some photos of their surprisingly neat, undecorated offices. The main surprising thing was discovering how fast their output was–they write and draw with assembly-line like efficiency, completing 12-20 pages every day. That’s pretty amazing–I wish I could write that fast! Perhaps the most memorable thing, though, was during the opening ceremony as the titles of CLAMP’s various works were read out by the announcer. Most of the titles only invited girlish squeals from the fangirls, until Chobits was read–whereupon the cheer became much, much louder and throatier.

I missed many of the panels I really wanted to attend, either because of transportation issues (it usually took 90 minutes to drive to the convention center in Anaheim every day) or because I needed to wait in line for tickets for main events. I did manage to see the director of Fullmetal Alchemist answer some questions about the storytelling choices he made and some of the ideology/philosophy behind the show. Unfortunately, I was unable to ask the question I wanted to ask–the way alchemy seemed to be a way to talk about technology and its problem–because I failed to get in line early enough.

Perhaps the greatest surprise, though, was the Masquerade. Having seen the Otakon masquerades, I can tell you that the cringe factor is much lower at Anime Expo. The skits seemed to be much better produced and acted overall, and some of the costumes were convincing. (Especially the young lady whose dress was entirely made of duct tpe. No, it’s not what you think. Get that out of your mind! Look below.)

My guess is because this is LA, the city of media dreams, filled to the brim with aspiring actors and “Industry” wannabes looking for their break. There was an interminable Taiko drum performance at halftime, though, which made half the audience impatient. By the time the winners of the competitions were announced, half the main events hall was empty.

The Dealer Room

For many, this was the real reason for the con–especially if one has commercial interests. One of our club members is a writer for Play magazine, which does reviews of games, anime, and manga, and he had to man a booth in the dealer room for all 4 days (and thus missed most of the events, except for the Masquerade). That didn’t sound like too much fun, to be honest. Nonetheless, if the Masquerade is the con’s heart, the Dealer Room is like the lungs: where money, the oxygen of the anime and manga industry, gets exchanged and where all must pass through some time or another, entering with empty hands and leaving with bags and bags of merchandise.

AX’s dealer room didn’t seem too different from the dealer rooms at Otakon. The big companies like Geneon, Viz, and ADV had their own big booths, as usual, and like every year, ADV was doing various stunts to get people’s attention. One year it was handing out free panties. This year it was the relatively subdued banging of a drum and throwing out swag from a balcony. It was something like this:

I was unlucky and late this year. Unlike past years, I didn’t get almost any free swag at all, especially not the free canvas tote bags that Viz was giving out every couple of hours. I always ended up getting in line too late. I’d look at all the people who had one slung on their shoulder enviously as I carried my deterioating plastic bag, which was given to me at registration.

I was also quite surprised to see the J-pop band The Indigo in concert once again; the first time I saw them was at Otakon 2005, where they had a full concert as well as smaller shows at the Geneon booth. Their music is catchier than most J-pop (to my ears) and I had always wished I’d bought their album a year back, and so this year, I rectified that mistake. Too bad I left the CD in the car during the autograph session…

Wrapping Up

I started this series with a reflection on what it’s like still being a fan, all these years later, given the vocation I’m called to. I have to admit that I’ve been watching a lot more anime for the past month since the con, almost as much as the height of my college fandom, and this time (for the first time in year), I’m keeping up with the very newest shows: Welcome to the NHK!, Le Chevalier d’Eon, Haruhi Suzumiya, and the like. I’m not sure why it’s happening now. It could be the renewed sense of being with lots of people who are into the same things. It could be because I have more free time than usual this quarter, though last month was one of the most intense in my academic career. It could be because there has been a surprisingly good crop of shows this season and because I’ve discovered some shows that match my taste so well (Mushishi and Monster in particular).

Coming as it did at the end of a class, the con felt more like a vacation than almost anything I’ve had in a long time. Maybe that’s the best these kinds of experiences can hope for, the inducing of a temporary sense of willful forgetfulness that we all need as human beings to get through the day. I hope I never forget that thinking and talking about soteriology is vitally important and should occupy more time than thinking about the latest fansubbed series. I also hope that those anime creators in Japan keep pumping out great new material. They too perform a service, at best more than just fan service.