The Dangers In My Blog

As I begin writing this I wanted to give a special shout out to Takina whose birthday it is today. This probably doesn’t post on that day (August 2nd) but that is what was going on when I started.  On any given day there is gonna be a birthday of some character. Recently I have come to accept that Lycoris Recoil, Takina especially, has become especially important to me. Of course I say this as I type on my Takina keycapped  keyboard, which is on top of my Lycoreco mousemat, next to my Lycoreco look up figures and acrylic stands. Most of that merch is not exclusively Takina, since I prefer to get all the merch of the duo together rather than just the Takina ones. Funnily enough I just got a huge package from Mercari Japan which was exclusively Lycoreco merch and spent an extensive amount of time making the arrangement for all my stands.

My main display shelf with my arrangement, the Imigimuru stands I have on my bookshelf. My favorites here are the Y2k and the Namori stands!! 

Most of it was actually Imigimuru art and some small acrylic stands from collabs I thought were particularly cute such as the Lawson collaboration acrylic stands they ran back in September of 2022. I would love to go into why I love this series and its two leads but I would probably need my own post for that and that isn’t the focus here. What’s occupying my mind currently is the Anime Expo, which I attended about a month ago.

Not to age myself too much but I have been going to anime expo since 2012; over the years I have been going semi consistently. I would say 10-11 times out of the last 14 years, give or take. Sometimes I went for a day, sometimes all 4, this year I went for 3 out of 4. Overall I have very little desire to attend this event and that little desire diminishes every subsequent year. I returned this year because their line up of panel guests and premieres was actually so devastatingly interesting to me it almost felt personally curated. Sayonara Lara premiere with Q and A from the director, Sparks of tomorrow premiere with Q&A from the director, Jaadugar premiere with Q&A with chief director FUCKING NAOKO YAMADA, Hibike Euphonium movie panel with Q&A with LIVING LEGEND TATUSYA ICHIHARA, Ghost In The Shell premiere with Q&A with the director and staff, Magic Knight Rayearth premiere with Rie Takahashi and Saori Hayamai, Marriage Toxin panel WITH MY GOAT SHION WAKAYAMA (Takina!) and somehow even more.

Autograph from Goodbye, Lara director Takushi Koide which I was super lucky to get! 

Jaadugar Panel with Naoko Yamada (woman with the plaid sabrine neck dress) was allowed to take a picture of the GOAT in this one! 

From my focal point as a fan, this spread encompasses where I have gone and the people I have come to admire both recently and years prior. These were even panels I couldn’t attend like The Apothecary Diaries panel, which featured the absolute maven of voice acting, Aoi Yuuki. The con is second to none as far as bringing fans closer to these types of talents. The enjoyability of the con outside of this varies greatly.

The process of attending panels at AX can be an absolute slog depending on your anxiety about getting in and in turn your commitment to attending each panel. Rooms aren’t cleared before a panel begins, that is to say, if you wanted to attend the Frieren panel, a highly sought after event held at 6:00 pm, you could attend a panel held in that room that morning and have sat in that room for 8 hours to secure your spot. Now I didn’t do anything as extreme but I still implemented this for panels I found I could not miss. In years past I have arrived at lines 90 minutes prior to start time, for panels I wouldn’t even say were high end and have been turned away because they was capped. Living with this past fear and heightened anxiety about missing out, I lined up my days to start at a panel in the morning and wait in that room that had the ideal line up of panels throughout the days to guarantee I saw each one . A good example was the Sparks of Tomorrow panel which started at 10:00 am ended at 11:20 am, then the Hibike Euphonium panel didn’t start until 12:30 pm, then Jaadugar at 2:45 pm. So I was just in the Marriott from around 8:45 am when I first got into line until 4:00 pm when Jaddugar finally ended. Pretty much a full shift at work, exhausting and leaving me diminished, hungry and desiring a rest.

Free Shikishi given out at Sparks of Tomorrow panel

Now as I had mentioned earlier this all stemmed from an anxiety of not being able to get into panels so I wanted my ass to be sat cause I wasn’t missing these premiers or these guests. Perhaps stemming from the disconnection I have from modern day anime fans and what is popular today but all these panels that I was worried about filling up and missing were shockingly vacant. Sparks of Tomorrow, Kyoani’s new anime with Director Ota in attendance? Maybe half full. Hibike Euphonium with Industry legend Ishihara there? Maybe even less than half full. Jaadugar was actually decently full, I was like, Naoko Yamada a little bit more popular, she just kinda got that motion. As I found out it was full like that because people were using the method and attending Jaadugar to be in the room for the Kagurabachi panel. That panel reached capacity and had an hour plus queue. All that to say I could have walked in minutes before for most of my panels minutes before start, save for Cyberpunk and Ghost in The Shell and saved some back pain from sitting in those dog ass Marriott chairs for hours on end.

Edgerunners 2 premiere in Crypto.com Arena where GOAT James used to play. Insane venue for an anime premiere

  Partially a complaint because I do wish there was a better system than incentivizing just camping out in the room the whole time. Since it prevents those who really want to see the panels from doing much outside of roughing it out in the panel rooms. Those who chose to enjoy the rest of the con can’t get into more popular panels at all. I do realize that clearing the room each time is probably painfully time consuming, with the volume of panels and the shifting of bodies with the already ridiculous attendee count but surely someone has some better ideas.

The con itself was something I wasn’t entirely looking forward to. The biggest drawback for me and why I didn’t want to go was the price tag. When I first attended in 2012 you could get a 4 day pass for 50 bucks, sometimes cheaper. Maybe closer to 60-70 if you did late to same day registration. I paid about 200 dollars for my 4 day pass this year. That is ridiculous, the con used to never sell out, it does consistently now and to be charging more than double, sometimes quadruple, regardless of inflation is ridiculous. The guest quality was as high caliber even back then, I remember in 2012 they had a world premiere of the finale of Fate/zero with the director and Lisa who did the OP. LiSA, Kalafina and Hatsune Miku’s first US performances, just off the top of my head. The amenities are kinda cool now but absolutely do not warrant the price hike. The beer garden is just full of overpriced drinks and food stalls and same thing with the “AX Crossing”. When I first attended the con I used to spend loads of time in the exhibit hall. After years of buying merchandise and making my own money, the exhibit hall started appealing to me less and less. For one it’s abundantly clear to me that it is less of a fan experience and just a large marketplace to sell overpriced goods and offload literal crap that the booths give you as “freebies” that are just advertisements. Though I do like my HI-DIVE pen I got. Even as years have gone by I find there is less concentration of smaller shops and the larger companies have increased their presence and their booths have just gotten inordinately large. I was in awe seeing the Colosseum of Crunchyroll which sat in the back of the exhibit hall talking up 20 percent of the room. All to have just some big displays for their upcoming anime and some photo op stuff. Of course I did take some photos of some displays I found cool like the Apothecary fox mask display or the Madoka Magica new movie display.

Some of the exclusive merch can be cool like Newtype magazine had a “global edition” that was only sold at the con and was fully in English. I purchased it due to having an interview with the Sayonara Lara Director. I actually shared that interview on twitter which ended up stirring some ridiculous discourse regarding if the series was a “yuri” or not. I have been purchasing merch for about 15 years and visited Japan this year so I was not about to buy anything aside from a-con exclusive items. The mark ups are atrocious, seeing prize figures go for 70+ dollars is horrible. Yet I see people walk away from and around the con with bags full of merch and items that clearly feed the demand for these vendors to be here. I also complain about these prices but they sell out every year which allows them to gouge prices as much as they want cause it will be paid. The crowds don’t bother me too much, I will say the average attendees lack of spatial awareness is incredibly annoying but what you gonna do. The artist alley, one of my favorite parts of the con due to it being strictly by and for fans, was kind of dreadful. Despite what I just stated about crowds, it was jam packed from edge to edge, one way traffic and very hot. I chose to mostly skip it which is regrettable but as I stated my time outside of panels was limited.

I was also very sad to find there wasn’t much of a presence of TCG at the con. Two years ago when I attended and we had just started getting into one piece, Bandai had a full card booth and was demoing the Union Arena pre-release. They were offering the newest One Piece sets at retail. Now with horrors that are the One Piece TCG markets I have since abandoned that game and have moved onto the Gundam TCG. A franchise I am trying to get more into and also I think the baseline quality for the cards is insane.

Even in those moments where I didn’t have a panel to attend and I was trying to find ways to enjoy the con I ended up just buying a beer and just sitting there. Which isn’t all that bad, people watching is a very fun part of the con and for whatever reason I saw a Misaka Mikoto cosplayer and a Takina and Chisato for the first time. Besides those small moments of respite I couldn’t think of much I wanted to do or see. It being in the middle of LA in July it was uncomfortably hot, crowds of people that made most walkways congested and thus even hotter. Add on the previously mentioned average spatial awareness of a con goer and it also just felt like a task to maneuver anywhere. The cosplayer will all be positive and it is fun to see everyone go all out with their outfits and that makes the aimless walks through and around the con a little more bearable. Ultimately I really don’t like it enough to want to dish out that money for it. I don’t mind spending money on myself, on the contrary I take myself on trips all the time. But the con feels like a glorified interactive billboard that also doubles as an aftermarket reseller showcase. It’s best part is the fans that gather there and the chance for them to meet the creators that brought the works they love to life. That at least was enough to get me back in the door and I would make a return trip for a similar opportunity. It is sad to see the most fan-facing aspects of the con like the artists alley thrown to the wayside and it grew into a more corporate space of commercial prominence. I promise this isn’t just nostalgia for going to cons at a younger age. I just feel like there are other things I would like to do than stand in lines and get upsold.

Despite having a 4 day pass I opted out of attending the 4th day. There weren’t enough panels to be a driving force to stay and try to enjoy the con for another full day. I wanted to go home and wash my hands of the con, potentially forever. Seeing the guests I did though is something I will never forget.

At the Marriage Toxin panel where I saw Shion Wakayama! pictures of guests were nto allowed here.

Being some time removed from the con I do still hold the sentiment of it being a tiring experience. I remember in years past they just had rooms where they were streaming episodes of whatever shows that you could pop in at any moment. Stuff like that made it feel more like an “anime convention” that was made for a fan experience. Overall I am glad that something like this exists and it is in close enough proximity where if I wanted to attend I can. I am glad that there is a demand for people who want to go and attend and have a good enough time doing all this. Maybe I should try to attend Comiket at some point? 

Overall this took way longer to release as usual as mentioned in the text I began this at the beginning of August. The real point here is that as a venue to see industry folks I like the con but as a space to enjoy myself I don't enjoy it much and fuck paying 200 dollars lol. My next piece will be an unspooling of my mind regarding one of my greatest internal turmoils, rating systems.