Anime Expo 2008, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the first time in the Expo's history, started out with a lot to prove. The first item was the location. Between the announcement of the venue on the last day of AX 2007 and the first day of AX 2008, fans moaned on message boards that the con was being held in the "ghetto"; that attendees would be attacked on the street en masse; and that potential attendees would stay home in droves. The second was the taint of AX 2007, which was held in Long Beach after years in Anaheim. Event after event was scheduled wrong or failed in some way, purportedly due to the staff not being used to the new venue. Finally, there was an air of doom and gloom in the American anime import industry. Major player Geneon USA went under in September 2007, dragging several fan-favorite titles with it; and ADV lost its relationship with a Japanese sponser in Spring 2008, and lost a bunch of licenses with it.
All of these harbingers of doom suggested that AX 2008 would be a deserted, depressed affair, perhaps with tumbleweeds blowing through the convention center in between raids by the marauders of Downtown LA.
None of that came to pass. Some 43,000 folks attended the con, up 2,000 people from last year. By all accounts, every event went smoothly; the staff performed with aplomb. I haven't heard of anyone who suffered any criminal attacks. And Funimation swooped in like a white knight to rescue the licensed shows orphaned by Geneon's and ADV's problems -- besides announcing popular shows it had licensed itself, such as OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB. (Here's a photo of the English Language cast of that show.)
We had five houseguests staying with us during the con -- Natalie, Christie, LoGan, and Sarah, all from Utah; and Laurid, from Colorado.
My first day of AX was the con's second day, July 4. We started it out bright and early: The Meet the Guests Reception, traditionally held in the evening, was this time held at 8 a.m. in the morning, complete with continental breakfast buffet. There were a couple of benefits to this: I got to start out the con by meeting the special guests, so that I would not have to go to other events to see them speak; and I got to talk to one of the guests, Japanese voice actor Toshihiko Seki, who would not be able to stay for the entire con. The Meet the Guests Reception is always my favorite part of AX, because it gives the fans a chance to sit down with the guests in a fairly intimate setting and ask them questions one-on-one.
Because all of our houseguests were big fans of the vampire manga and anime HELLSING, and make and wear costumes related to that series, several of our con activities revolved around events related to that show -- including Friday night's unannounced showing of the dubbed Volume IV of HELLSING ULTIMATE (one of the shows temporarily orphaned by Geneon's problems -- but now it's coming out on DVD in September); showings of the first two HELLSING ULTIMATE episodes on Saturday night; and several photo shoots of folks in HELLSING costumes, including the houseguests and Amy.
In short, AX 2008 managed to exceed everyone's expectations -- a rare event for a convention nowadays.
No comments:
Post a Comment