Review of Anime Expo 2015, Day 2

Anime Expo 2015

Los Angeles, California

Day 2, Friday, July 3, 2015

Review By: John Fragglepuss Evans

I started off day two of Anime Expo by attending the “Introducing Your Friends to Anime” panel, presented by some of the folks at AnimeVice.com. As we learned in the panel, there are rules to go by when introducing your friends to anime. If you follow the rules, you are considerably more likely to succeed in converting them to the anime-side. The rules include ideas like:

1- Introducing an anime that is similar to other types of shows they already enjoy. If they enjoy crime dramas, suggest Deathnote or maybe Psycho-Pass, depending on their feelings toward violence.

2- Keeping the anime short, meaning avoid long series to start since it would be a huge time commitment, which those new to anime will not want to commit to.

3- Avoiding series that are “too anime”, such as anime full of harem, strange sexual fetishes, and other anime stigmas.

4- When in doubt start with a film suggestion, such as the Studio Ghibli films. They are quick to get through, easy to watch, and high quality.

Thanks to the team at Anime Vice for the panel, it was greatly appreciated.

The Manga Lounge was a nice place to stop by to relax and read some of the 4,000 available volumes of manga.

The Entertainment Hall was full of all sorts of exciting activities. There was the Save Point Arcade, which included a variety of Japanese and American arcades. There was the Nendoroid 500 Gallery, containing 500 figures, anime and other, from the Good Smile Company. Next was the VGC Foundation, which showcased a plethora of video game history, as well as many playable video games from the past and present. There was of course the free gaming area, joined by the tournament arena. There was an art show with all sorts of art projects going on, including #cranes4nepal and the charity auction. The last stop in the Entertainment Hall was the Cosplay Sets. I was impressed by the amount of work put into the sets. There were 13 sets total, including bedroom, tearoom, forest, graveyard, rooftop, Arabian, ballpit, Crunchyroll, classroom, torii, gym, sci-fi, and live garden. The sets were free to take photos in and were just such a blast!

Sentai Filmworks outdid themselves with their Parasyte quarantine booth, which had arm-flailing tube parasytes, photo opportunities with a parasite, and even a Parasyte food truck.

Cosplay was once again in full force, with a lot of quality cosplay throughout the day. Sports cosplay is popular, with a lot of volleyball players from Haikyuu and a lot of basketball players from Kuroko no Basket. There were a lot of Shizuos from Durarara, which was fun to see because they were all carrying different street signs. Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul was also present at the convention in all his forms, which was also fun to see. I was even able to find some protester cosplay outside the convention center. I am surprised by the lack of Deadpools, but there is still more time to find them. It was great to once again see Kiba the Cosplay Corgi!