Into the world of anime
A journal of Anime Expo, the nation's largest anime convention
By Alvina Yeh, staff writer
July 31, 2007
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Photo by Alvina Yeh Anime Expo is the nation’s largest anime convention with more than 44,000 in attendance this past July. Usually held in Southern California, this year’s convention was in sunny Long Beach.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. – I like to watch anime, but I wouldn't really consider myself an otaku (overly zealous fan). I haven't really kept up with many series but in the earlier college days, anime was one of the many ways I procrastinated.

This past year a friend of mine brought up the idea of a group of us going to Anime Expo (AX) in Long Beach, Calif. – the largest anime convention in the U.S., featuring four days of Japanese-culture-related workshops, panels, concerts, dances and other activities. Sure, I watch anime every now and then, but actually traveling out of state specifically for an anime convention? Madness, I say! As you will see, I was eventually convinced.

We brainstormed costume ideas for several months, going through many possibilities until we decided to go with “Ranma ½” – a comedic series about cursed gender-bending martial artist Ranma and his friends. With all the homoerotic comments going around in my group of friends, dressing up as a boy/girl wasn’t really that far of a stretch.

The week before
Less than a week before leaving for California, I began work on my costume. It was definitely hard work: carving, sawing, sanding, spray painting, cutting, hot-gluing, sewing, stenciling and ironing – all in just more than 12 hours of work. While I started last, I managed to surprise everyone by being one of the first to finish my costume!

Thursday, June 28
Though we arrived in California the night before, the excitement of AX didn’t hit us until we went to the Long Beach Convention Center to pick up our badges. Even though the convention hadn’t started, there were already people in costumes. Seeing other attendees already getting swamped for photos inspired us to go home and put the finishing touches on our costumes.

Photo by Alvina Yeh Avatar, Appa and Sakka from Nickelodeon’s "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

Friday, June 29
The morning started with walking around the convention center posing for and taking pictures. I’m not usually a vain person, but I will admit being stopped every few minutes with, “I love your character! Can I take your picture?” is pretty gratifying. We attempted to find the exhibit hall where more than 150 industry vendors set up booths to showcase and sell Japanese-, anime- and manga-related items.

Ready to blow some money, we had to give up when we realized the line was more than three hours long to get inside the hall! Instead we stood in a shorter half-hour line to see the S.K.I.N. concert, featuring Japanese superstar rockers Yoshiki, Gackt, Sugizo and Miyavi. Finally reaching the front of the line we were told to leave because there was a strict no-weapons policy – apparently giant foam spatulas and wooden kendo swords were now weapons. While there was a myriad of concerts, movie screenings, anime showings, workshops, panels and other activities to do, there was one major downside to all of this: lines! For every major event there is always an enormous line to get tickets and then seats.

We returned to the hotel to change into street clothes only to return to another three-hour line to watch the anime music video contest – one of AX’s most popular events. In this contest, talented fans edit hours of footage and music into humorous or dramatic music videos.

It was a hot three hours spent in the parking lot but we met a friendly group from Sacramento who let us play Spades with them. Upon finally sitting down in the arena to enjoy the show we were told that someone with “sticky fingers” deleted most of the videos leaving us with only six of the 40-plus videos to watch. The director assured us the rest of the videos would be shown, but on Sunday morning and in Anaheim instead of Long Beach. Imagine thousands of fans hearing this news after three hours of patience in the sweltering California sun – it was not pretty.

After a day of mostly waiting outside we decided to end the evening in the 24-hour game room. Filled with fighting, music, skill, driving and dancing games this was definitely the spot to be past midnight. On our return to the hotel we decided to check out the ballroom to see how the late-night dancing was going. It’s really surprising that the same guys who can master complex moves in “Dance Dance Revolution” and “Para Para” (a Japanese dance craze) look like robots having air sex while dancing with girls. For fear of being smacked in the head with an errant glow-stick, we went back to our rooms to retire for the day. >> continue