Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) Celebrated the 26th Anime Expo and in my opinion, it was better than before with more events, more premieres, and more concerts! This year the Anime Expo started with badge pickup on Thursday (day -1), in which I picked up my badge with little wait time. This was just the beginning, day 0 was pre-show night. I saw a dramatic increase of attendees. According to the AX website, the overall turnstile attendance was marked at 357,178 with Pre-Show Night.
HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDED:
The return of Anisong World Matsuri, featuring ten acts over the course of two days.
Neon District, AX’s inaugural EDM concert, which featured ☆Taku Takahashi, R3LL, banvox, Ram Rider, TeddyLoid, Pa’s Lam System, Massive New Krew, YUC’e, and Slushii.
World Premieres: Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Prologue, Infini-T Force, Welcome to the Ballroom, Violet Evergarden, The Ancient Magus Bride, and the Tokyo Ghoul live-action movie.
US Premieres: BraveStorm, The irregular at magic high school The Movie: The Girl Who Summons the Stars and Lupin the Third – Italian Game.
Dub Premieres: Anohana, Digimon Adventure tri.: Confession, and Food Wars!
The highlight for me was the Asian Kung-Fu Generation concert.
Now to address the concerns a lot of people had with lines. On day 1 (and possibly day 2), the lines were massive curving around the Staples Center just to get inside. This was a miscalculation on the convention part. Some waited over 5 hours just to get in and missing out on a whole day. The issue was addressed and what was made available was one-day badge refunds and more entrances. For me, Los Angeles is a very huge metropolis. It will always be overcrowded. I personally find ways to get in and around the convention center and never had a problem or an issue.
The cosplay gets better every year and I saw some interesting cosplay costumes this year. I did see a lot of D.VA but I think there was a good variety this year. Others may not think as such.
Day 1:
Day 2: (pictures to come) Kakashi and Steampunk Umbreon
Day 3:
Day 4:
Click Here for some pictures
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