May and June were big travel months and I was out of the house for weeks at a time. Still, looks like I’m going to Anime Expo. If anything I hope I get to hang out with some friends, that’s my main win.

I’ll take a minute to jot down some logistical stuff just to remind myself how much goes on at AX every year, and how you just can’t see everything. Maybe it’s good that I am not going to care for a lot of these. Also, a lot of the stuff in is going to be me refreshing the departure situation at EWR as that’s the airport that I typically fly out of, and currently it’s suffering from a long cascading series of delays from last weekend. The hotel strike, at least, is not on my worrying list.

Programming: Panels and such. I’ll highlight the ones I might go to.

Day 0:

Teddy, Waipa, James Landino, feat. DDK.
Summer Kickoff party Grand Star Jazz Club, formerly known as the Anime Expo Kickoff Party but got D/C’d into a name change.

Day 1:

• Opening Ceremony, 10:30 Main Events: Not going but there’s going to be some band (Asterism) playing there, hmm.
• COLORFUL STAGE, 11:00 Petree: Featuring Tomori Kusunoki and Hinata Sato, about the hot mobile game of vocaloid characters
• Kafka Asagiri Panel, 11:00 JW-Platinum: Bunko Stray Dog’s creator seems pretty interesting, but probably not going.
• Zom 100 Preview, 12:30 Petree: It’s the next hit anime I guess.
• Pompo screening with director Takayuki Hirao, 1:00 403 AB: Special film with a special creator, no bueno for me though.
• Trigger new title announcement & Dungeon Meshi sneak peek: 1:45 Main Events: You know the drill, gonna be fun with this crew and Dungeon Meshi will be good stuff. Sayaka Sembongi and Kentaro Kumagai probably will be there too.
• Bandai Namco Industry Panel, 2:00 408 AB: To feature special guests…
• MAPPA Panel, 3:00 JW-Platinum: Should be fun with some news
• Netflix’s anime panel, 3:15 Main Events: special guests and more. Finally get to see Maruyama after all this time maybe? Good lineup.
• Magus Bride S2 panel, 3:30 408 AB: creators talk good stuff.
• Bannam Showcase 2023 panel, 4:30 Petree: Trailers I think.
• Obey Me! stage, 4:30 JW-Platinum: Not going but should be lit.
• Spy x Family with Eguchi, 5:00 Main Events: Speaks for itself.
• Love Live panel, 6:00 JW-Platinum: Featuring Kobayashi, Sagara and Date. Not a concert, right?
• Fate/strange Fake panel: 7:00 Main Events
• Mashle Panel, 8:00 Petree: Kobayashi and Aleks Le
• SMT30th LIVE: Band of Shadows, 8:00 The Novo
• Nonstop V, 8:30 JW-Diamond, Vtuber concert

Day 2:

• Twisted Wonderland Feat. Hanae and Kobayashi, 10:00 Main Events
• Manga Publishing Roundtable, 10:00 402 AB: Manga peeps talk, should be cool with some higher ups and Ed there.
• Fuji TV’s +Ultra Panel, 10:00 403 AB: Yoko Taro and others
• Mappa x Crunchyroll, 11:30 JW-Platinum
• The Art and Mediums of Storytelling, 1:00 JW-Platinum, Featuring Yoko Taro, Seshita, and more.
• Undead Unluck panel, 1:30 Main Events, with Hanae and Moe Kahara
• LazuLight talk show and performance, 1:30 JW-Diamond
• Mecha-Ude ep1 screening, 2:30 404 AB: I backed this anime, but probably won’t go LOL.
• Yoshitaka Amano Panel, 2:40 Petree: The same old.
• Jujutsu Kaisen panel, 3:00 Main Events: Special guests! Who?
• GBF panel, 3:00 408 AB: Featuring Cygame’s Fukuhara and Yasuyuki Kaji
• Conversation with Yoshiki, 3:45 Petree.
• Demon Slayers Event, 4:30 Main Events: Featuring Hanae and Kawanishi
• Like a Dragon panel, 5:30 Petree: Takaya Kuroda, woo. Yong Yea. Sega’s Hiroyuki Sakamoto.
• FGO 6th Anniversary x Type-Moon panel, 7:00 Petree. Kawasumi, Takahashi, Akabane! A must see for me.
• AX Summer Fest, 7:00 The Novo: It conflicts, but this lineup is really good.

Day 3:

• Kenshin Premiere, 10:00 Main Events: Featuring Rieri and Soma Saito. Dang, even him?
• Wit Studio Panel,10:00 JW-Platinum: Could be interesting if they announce some news here.
• Aniplex x A-1 Pictures panel, 11:30 Petree
• Bushiroad, 11:30 JW-Platinum
• The First Slam Dunk screening, 12:00 Main Events: Great movie go see it on 7/28 when it comes out in US and Canada folks.
• King Records Panel, 12:00 511: I hear some people I know is going to show up.
• Denpa Books and Kuma, 1:30 404 AB
• AniWaves 2, 4:20 The Queensberry: See details here. Friends throwing a party.
• AX Cinema Nights Presents, 5:30 411: Peter is here lol
• Gridman Universe, 6:00 JW-Diamond: I really want to see this…ahhh.
• Rascal Does Not Dream of a Sister Venturing Out, 6:30 JW-Platinum
• Neon District, 8:00 Main Events: Not even the Novo… but Shaq! And Taku! But they cancelled the guests I actually wanted to see so I am torn for sure.
• Projekt Melody, 9:00 JW-Diamond: Vaguely interested in this story.
• Denpasoft Panel, 9:00 402 AB
• Geekboat World Tour, 9:00 411: this is the sekrit Trigger panel (after dark).

Day 4:

• Horimiya: The Missing Pieces panel, 10:30 408 AB: Featuring Kouki Uchiyama and director Ishihama (oh welcome back).
• CyberConnect2 panel, 12:00 408 AB
• Charity Auction, 1:30 Community Stage
• Fake Star Constellations vol. 4, 7:00 1720: BPM15Q, D-yama, DJ Wildparty…what a lineup. Bad venue I guess but it is what it is.

Day 5…DDK, Teddy and Fake Type. If anyone’s still here.

Con Autographs: these are the ticketed ones they give out in the morning at 8am, this time at the plaza out front by near where the ticketing and buses are. The actual signing area is by the Artist Alley in Kentia Hall. BTW Pixiv has a booth at the AA? There are other autograph chances depending on what if you look. Just the ones that got my interest below.

• Day 1: Sasara Sekine(???)
• Day 2: Takayuki Hirao, Masakazu Morita, Kotaro Takata, Kentaro Kumagai, Sayaka Sembongi
• Day 3: Kotaro Takata, Co Shu Nie, Trigger (Sushio, Koyama, Otsuka, Wakabashi, Imaishi), Mecha-Ude, DDK, Masakazu Morita, Kamierabi (Jin, Seshita, Ohkubo)

Dealers/Exhibit Hall/Entertainment Hall:

Kadokawa giving away swag at their big booth. I want that Clear Bookmark Set from My Happy Marriage…

Entertainment Hall E-16 is GBF Relink play stations.

GSC, Aniplex, Hoyoverse, BN, Yostar, Cygames, Bushiroad all have presence at the E-hall.

In the main hall, CR, Aniplex, GSC, Altus/Sega will take big chunks of the front. BN and Gundam Base are also there, probably along with giant Luffy and some Naruto thing. Cygames, Bushiroad, Toho, a couple Kadokawa outposts, round out the big guys. A row of tier 2 booths are just behind that, then it gets into the normal dealer room stuff.

Community Stage schedule.

Linking the plain jane Kotaku list here if you want to see the basic stuff, like all the premieres I ignored. Here’s a list of guests…not sure if complete. Exhibitor list here.

With so much going on Anime Expo is an exercise in dropping what I can’t do. There are only a few things I really want to see, so I will probably stick to my guns on those. More over, I am going to LA to see the folks I haven’t seen since COVID, on the west coast. I hope everyone is doing well!

For those of you going, god speed, good luck, and I wish you the best in dealing with AX.

Returning to Chicago for Acen is a no-brainer this year. Not just for Pequod’s or some good Italian beef, but for Tadokoro Azusa, Tanaka Rie, Kubo Yurika, and Ichinose Kana. I mean, dang, any con that makes me list Ichinose Kana as the 4th largest headline-getter seiyuu guest is doing something spicy.

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I was just looking on twitter randomly and noticed Holiday Matsuri. This is the annual event in Orlando, Florida, right before the end-of-year holidays. I can’t find easily the attendance numbers, but it’s held in a large resort hotel that maxes out at 10k in its largest meeting space, so it’s probably safe to say the con is not larger than 10000 per day in warm bodies. The guest list and content checks out for a mid-size con. There are several other cons in Florida of similar nature and varying sizes. None of them hit my radar because of the lack of both industry and Japanese guests. It’s not to say they never show up, just very rarely… Still, the programming at those events look really good and would be pretty great to attend, from a hangout point of view.

To the extend that there are quite a few anime-culture events that are destinations for the now-fit-for-travel Millennials, which is really the first generation who grew up with family-friendly (to the extent that you could be going before you were an adult) cons of this type, cons mixing with popular travel destinations are a thing. HolMat is on the doorsteps of Disney World, Anime NYC is in Manhattan, and Chara Expo was across from Disneyland are of any note for vacationers. There are the Colossal cons, which are basically resort cons. There are cons in Vegas. There are cons in Hawaii. And there’s always going to Japan for a couple weeks for Comiket or whatever event you fancy.

Which is also to say, “American anime cons” are its own thing. If you look at the programming available on HolMat’s site you can see it’s listed with about 13 or so events tracks, on top of various gaming, social, and the usual AA/Dealers setup. No JP guests, just a bunch of influencers, dub actors, cosplayers, DJs and the like. The content is highly tailored to indie or fan material.

On my way home from DFW, I can’t help but to think this is really what Anime Frontier should copy from to have a good jump in a year where they can’t pour in the outside help. This is what they sort of need to go in to a new place that has already established conventions around.

Anime Frontier plans pic.twitter.com/ohQvdvAMHI

— omo@KawaiiKon2024 (@omonomono) December 3, 2022

Anime Frontier 2022 was in Fort Worth Con center. It’s a nice and large space in downtown Fort Worth. It was also my first trip in that part of the country so I had a chance to walk around and take in the sights. If you can ignore the fact that DTFW is a giant parking lot for a good 1/4 of it, the experience was fine as the holiday vibe was on full. Given FLOW was the primary draw for me at the event and they’re gone by Saturday (I guess they were playing in Mexico City on Sunday after?), there was not much to do at the con either for the most part. The last guest they invited had to be cancelled on Sunday so I just switched my flights early to take off first thing in the morning.

I walked the dealers/AA room in full on Friday and canvassed it on Saturday. That’s probably a first in many years… Actually the quality of vending is just fine for this event, but the foot traffic and sales are low, given what I heard and seen. Gundam Base being there is a big boom but I wonder how well they sold. I was able to pick up a couple Gundam Aerial HG, which seems to be sold out in Japan but not elsewhere, or some such.

The panels at the con had a lot of industry content. What caught my eyes are the concert archive streams, but none of the show jumped out at me. The movie screenings were probably more pertinent, with Shin Ultraman on Sunday and Blue Thermal on Saturday. I passed on those and instead caught a showing of the Gotobun movie at the local theater about 8 minutes away from the con. I also went to Goldee’s, which is what I did at the other Dallas region con earlier this year. The BBQ game at these places are a full blown experience and worth every minute of it. Oh, I guess I did watch the USA Men’s National Team lose at the World Cup while having breakfast at the hotel.

Anime Frontier did have some fan-run panels, but it’s thin. There were 2 panel room tracks, that’s it. Maybe it’s a new con so few people had the ability to work it in their schedule, but this felt big time lacking. The con also basically shuts down by 10pm, and has no attached hotel presence like many other cons in these parts of the world.

There are a bunch of places in DTFW to eat, or you can cross over the highway to lounge out at spots at the south side, which is what I did on Saturday night. The places there are all legit but it’s very…what’s the word, a car kind of a city. It’s not the most pedestrian friendly. You can walk it, but it’s not a great walk. The food is good though.

As for the rest of AF, I think until they kind of gain momentum and bring the big guns to the South, I’ll probably just treat it like a “winging it” kind of an event like I did this time. Hotel and flight weren’t expensive, and probably can be had cheaper if I wasn’t winging it…

PS. I had a weird situation at this event when my hotel reservation were transferred to the wrong day in the system. I think it was using one of the event booking system. Thankfully everything worked out in the end and I confirmed it with the hotel directly.