[LACC ’25] Running in the 90’s

We only attended Saturday and Sunday of Los Angeles Comic Con. Saturday is the bigger day of the two. So much so, parking is a nightmare situation as early as 9:30AM. Good luck getting parking in any of the main convention center halls! We ended up parking at LA Live, a bit more expensive at $40 for the day, but worth it to save the stress of fighting to get into the convention center lot. 

We passed by a long line of girls in normal clothes. One was in a full gothic outfit. None of them had badges. I had thought it was a line for a convention event. My geriatric millennial eyes spotted “Luffy” on the merch written in cursive. I was like, “There’s a Luffy One Piece concert?!” I was corrected later that night that it was Laufey and Katseye showed up during the show at the Staples Center. 

However, the focus on this report is Los Angeles Comic Con. Badge pick up was no problem. I made the mistake of wearing boots with thin heels on Saturday. I was cosplaying as Misato from Evangelion. The boots made it hard to stand for long periods of time. Most of my Saturday was hanging out in panel rooms. LACC does have some interesting panels worth checking out. I appreciate that LACC sources from the community and industry to have presentations on geeky niches. 

As a creative, I love attending writing panels. The first panel I attended was “Why Every Creative Should Play DND.” I just got back into Dungeon and Dragons after discovering Taylor Swift fan art depicting her as a fantasy series character (I have a paladin based on Speak Now). While the panel was much more focused on acting than writing, it talked about the importance of character creation and how it relates to coming up with characters in auditions and in game.

As an anime fan, I wanted to check out their brand new section of the con, Akiba Station. This was made for the otaku – gaming, anime vendors, anime voice actors, and the gaming stage that highlighted top tier talent in the anime world. I went to two panels at Akiba Station – Titans of Voice Acting featuring Yuriko Yamaguchi, Takeshi Kusao, and Tetsuo Inada. I also went to the Gokaiger reunion featuring Ryota Ozawa, Yui Koike, and Kazuki Shimizu. Perhaps the story that stood out in the 15 minute super sentai reunion panel was how Yui and Kazuki knew Ryota was the red ranger in both heart and in the cast. He helped people who were auditioning for the role to find the bathroom. The cast also talked about a time where everyone got sick after filming episode 10 (or was it 11?). I wished we stayed with them a little longer. Hardcore fans of the super sentai tribute series stuck around to see the cast donned in traditional Japanese dress. I admitted feeling a sense of nostalgia when I used to watch this series in Boston and remembered how the New England toku community was nudging me to cosplay as Ahim (she canonically wears Innocent World!) 

Akiba Station took up most of West Hall, but it had some odd “filler” booths. While it was also overflow for the artist alley, it had a few police and military recruitment booths. In this current climate, I thought it was borderline inappropriate, but that’s just me. 

LACC also had Horror Hall, but I had no time to check it out (my feet were killing me), so I found more panels to sit down and learn something. Not all panels are information sessions, some of them are sing-a-longs like the K-pop Demon Hunters Fandom panel featuring Megan Lee, Esther Chae, Chanel Renee, Elissa Acala, and moderated by Kevin Winston. These featured ADR background voice actors from the movie and two cosplayers. This panel was filled to the brim. I didn’t think the con would anticipate how popular this would be. People were standing in the back! Cosplayers showed off their K-pop Demon Hunters outfits. Kevin talked about the amount of merch South Korea was getting (including official ramen!), despite that this was an American production. What I liked about this panel was Megan and Esther talking about the importance of representation in media and how K–pop Demon Hunters was unapologetic about it.

I really liked exploring the Artist Alley. It’s very clear that Artist Alley had grown in the past few years. Artist Alley made its home in Kentia Hall. This is where LACC first started, in the parking garage of the convention center. It took me a while to explore the booths. You can find book authors, people selling prints and charms, and comic artists and writers here too. Even on Saturday, it was not too crowded to browse around. 

The exhibit hall took up half of South Hall. I noticed that South Hall was divided up that we only used half of the space. The one piece of merch that took over the vendor hall were Labubu’s and their Pop Mart blind box friends. You could even buy clothes for your Labubu’s here too. I usually stop by my favorite unique food vendors, Jerky Hut and Whimsy Chocolate for my annual purchases. I admit, because of the way of the world, I didn’t spend as much as I did. I had to exercise more control on spending than usual. 

I helped out on a few anime related panels in both official and unofficial capacity. I was part of the Millennial Experience panel with Association of Geek Academics where we talked about millennial themes of trauma, escapism, burnout, mentorship, etc in anime made for millennial audiences. We focused on millennial characters we related to. I talked about Lain, Utena, Yukino Miyazawa, and Hotaru Tomoe within this sphere of analysis. I added my shoujo and josei knowledge to this panel. There was an Anime 101 panel that needed help; a few of of geriatric millennials in the audience were helping out the panelists in describing titles like Lupin III, City Hunter, Bubblegum Crisis (girls who fight boomers!), and more. My colleague, Geki, ran a mecha panel and needed my hotspot at the last minute when the LACC wifi failed him.

Of course, I entered Cosplay Wrestling Federation as Sailor Mars. I’m glad we had an engaged audience. It was small, but we’re slowly teaching the comic con crowd what our insult comedy is all about. We had some SNAFU’s prior to the show, but the show must go on. The final round went to George Lucas versus Carl Weezer. Carl Weezer got a big pop from the audience! He took the title. What people don’t know is that I was also doing a lot of the behind the scenes work to make it happen and in spite of the trouble we had getting this all together and the last minute this and that. I’m just happy we still had a great show and we brought in new people to Cosplay Wrestling Federation. 

Fandomwise, LACC is also a great con to show off your cosplay. South Hall was where cosplayers showed off and the occasional gooner with a camera would take photos of you. I normally take my photos on the upper level of the convention center, not as many people or gooners with cameras. For LACC, I represented the anime of my childhood, Misato from Evangelion and Sailor Mars from Sailor Moon. I even got my therapist friend to start watching Evangelion after the con. “You’ll learn that everyone in Evangelion needs therapy!” 

I spent most of my time going to events I was curious about to make the weekend worth it. In addition to networking, I took a ton of hall cosplay photos for the website. If I were to pinpoint the popular cosplay fandoms at the con – Demon Slayer, K-pop Demon Hunters, and Marvel Rivals. 

Overall, I do enjoy going to LA Comic Con. The crowds on Saturday can feel overwhelming, but I like to hide in panel rooms to recuperate my energy. I don’t really do autographs or cast photos (though I do regret not doing Back to the Future last year), but I had friends who came from out of town just for Baldur’s Gate 3 (I would play this but my MacBook says no, girl). I had a good time exploring the convention, checking out panels and presentations (and helping with a few), seeing familiar faces, meeting new friends, and establishing myself as a fandom author in this space.

Also, AI is bad mmkay? Less AI and more art.