google ad

Friday, July 9, 2010

Anime Expo wrap-up

                 When I first got to Anime Expo I talked shortly with Andrew Craig of Hen Dai Nei .com a seller of naughty manga known as doujinshi hentai. He's been selling at Anime Expo since 2002 and heard rumors of discontent with fans. I enjoyed this years expo more than any other I've been too so far. I can understand though, some of the other expos weren't as fun and it seems since new leadership has taken over the expo it has lead to a slight better event.
                Throughout the expo I had a chance to talk with the volunteers. I found out it's a fair gig you get free lunch something like a subway meal. I think you get four hours free for every fours hours you work. Your also awarded by letting into events early. Some people had been volunteering for years and slowly worked there way up. It's somewhat strange giving power to people who don't get paid anything.
               I found out people at the very top get paid for their services. I don't know how much that is or if more of that money should go into the expo. I have to say every volunteer I saw did there job courteously even if some fans acted childish. The people who weren't volunteers however look so out of it. You can spot someone whose working there by there strange stares and miffed expression.
                  There were still some problems such as this, which I like to call Epic Box Fail.


If you watch for a while you'll check out some great No More Heroes cosplay. I think the people here felt rushed or didn't know about other service elevator which have to be bigger than the one they were trying to use. This by the way is there second attempt at trying to put the boxes in the elevator. They had previously left for a while and slight put the boxes closer together. I know I was a dick to just video tape it, but really that was just poor planning.


       In artist alley I saw so much work from deviant art. If you don't know artist alley is 6 rows of different artists selling special prints and other stuff you might care to buy. It's mostly fan art of Anime. I talked with artist Christy Lijewski who currently has the online comic Samurai Host Club. She one the TokyoPop Rising Star Competition. She had some great pieces of Durarara and a giggling gaggle of fan girls by her table. Her main influence when she started to draw Sailor Moon.


       I ended one day going to my favorite both Kichi Oni. They have no online store or physical one. What they have are Japanes video game posters for cheap. I love going through hundreds of posters of never seen before in the USA video games. I love how random the posters can be and how stunning they can look. I"ll look right away for this booth next year.