This is the 13th consecutive year I have attended Anime Expo. As a veteran of the con, I recall the days of the Disneyland Hotel, Long Beach, and Anaheim. Normally, I can roll with Anime Expo being at the Los Angeles Convention Center, but with the X Games in the mix, it really did change my experience at the convention. As a convention commuter, walking to LA Live and to the sit down restaurants up Figueroa was an impossibility. Forget about sit down meals after 6PM; we really missed grabbing the tailgate platter at ESPN Sports Zone. Of course, the X Games was not directly Anime Expo's fault. I believe Anime Expo tried to do the best job they could running the biggest anime convention in the world up against a very popular sporting event. The X Games just really threw things off this year. While we did not stay at a convention hotel, we heard stories from Labyrinth and Anime Expo patrons that they were deemed "cheap" and had to be moved to other hotels to make more room for X Games patrons. I certainly hope that the X Games does not fall the same weekend as Anime Expo in future years. I do enjoy the LA Convention Center, but the X Games really changed the convention field for us.

Despite the X Games, I did manage to have a good time at Anime Expo. However, my major complaint with this year's Anime Expo is the lack of decent programming. I have heard reports that panels such as Psychology of Evangelion and Super Sentai panels were rejected in favor of My Little Pony, Disney's Motorcity, and Superman vs. Darth Vader. While I do not mind seeing My Little Pony and other panels that draw a same target audience, this is ANIME expo. This is an event that promotes Japanese animation and pop culture. Additionally, there was not a lot of panels that piqued my interest. Most of them were either too early in the morning (ie: academic panels) and late at night (ie: con culture with Chocolate Covered Cosplay). We were wondering who came up with the schedule and who made the decisions to determine what panel stays or gets rejected. Luckily, we were able to appeal our Sailor Moon panel. It was initially rejected, but after appealing and explaining that Sailor Moon was celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, we were approved. I do believe anime programming should take precedence over Rob Liefeld, My Little Pony, Motorcity, and others. Transformers can be excused because of it's Japanese origins and also the fact that there have been Transformers anime. I am willing to go as far as to volunteer as staff for programming for Anime Expo 2013 to make this happen.

I also felt that the guest of honor line up was very lackluster. While I have not seen Fate Zero and I do understand that Panty and Stocking has a large following, it really did not seem like the high profile guests of Anime Expo past. We had people like Yuu Watase, Chiho Saitou, Rika Fukami, Shoji Kawamori, etc from Anime Expo past. While I was happy we got Ryo Horikawa and Yuki Kajiura, two up against over the 20 or so guests was not all impressive. I will also say that I disagreed with the choice of having Jessica Nigri as a guest of honor. Though she was not able to show up to Anime Expo due to a family emergency, cosplay is a hobby that fans do out of love. I understand that Anime Expo wanted to bring back Max, the virtual mascot from Anime Expo 2001 and have J.Nig model the mascot. I would have been fine with that - Anime Expo presents Max feautring Jessica Nigri; more emphasis to the mascot than the cosplayer. Besides, I can also think of plenty more cosplayers that would be better suited as guests - cosplayers who now work in the entertainment industry that got work because of skill, not because they had a pretty face.

I felt very 50/50 about Anime Expo this year. I did enjoy the Sailor Moon fan events on Saturday. The panel went fine. I have to commend the Anime Expo panel staff in Petree Hall for helping out with our tech and understanding why we were running late. I also have to commend the press staff for being professional when we had a problem with press registration. Additionally, the info desk people were very caring to Jared when he was not feeling very well. It is good to know that there are staff members that look after the attendees. Anime Expo gets a bad rap on having rude staff and being very not so fan friendly. I encountered a different experience here.

The dealer's hall, though cramped at times, had an awesome variety of stuff. I only wish I saw more discounted dvd bargain bins, but I was able to grab some makeup, perfume, and classic lolita jewelry. It was nice to support small businesses and I certainly hope to see companies like Eyekandy, Aerisk, and BPAL return. However, I would like to see more booths that sold anime dvds. As the anime industry is on life support in the USA, I would like to support the companies by collecting boxsets that I have not added to my collection.

Though Anime Expo's theme was geared around "turning 21," I was not quite feeling it. I did enjoy Lounge 21. I certainly hope this is brought back. I really appreciated the media party. It gave me an opportunity to network with other media outlets. We spend so much time covering the con, we never get a chance to meet each other. The food was decent and I liked the retro lounge atompshere. Other conventions have took the idea of a 21 plus lounge for the older attendees, and I would like to see Lounge 21 return - perhaps under a different name. (Lounge Red and Black?) I was disapointed that two war stories panels were rejected. My colleague, Drew, had his war stories panel rejected. Our site's own, Jared, had his war stories panel rejected. Again, this goes back into proper programming planning.

Speaking of programming planning, I would also like to see consistency in available schedules. While I found the mobile app to be the most helpful, people were relying on the printed program guide and the big screens. It would have been helpful to have a printed program insert or a daily update at the Info Desk for updated information. My colleagues from Anime Girls of TWGTG had their panel time printed on the wrong day in the program guide, but the correct information was on the projectors and the mobile app. Printed inserts would be an easy solution to this. Even a pocket program guide would be useful as mobile apps can take a while to load (especially if you are an iPhone user like me).

However, Anime Expo was still enjoyable. I did like the food trucks, though I felt there could have been more picnic table seating. I really want to see the food trucks come back in greater numbers. The Mighty Boba truck is still my favorite out of the food truck fleet that was present. Attendees enjoyed the free energy drinks from Rockstar. I did appreciate the cosplay repair station. Though it was minimal compared to the likes of Anime Los Angeles, it had your basic bare bones repair tools to fix up a cosplay mishap. The cosplayers this year were in full force. It was nice to see a variety of cosplay, rather than one series taking over the con. I wish I had more energy to take more photos of hall cosplayers, but it was very nice to see almost everything under the sun represented.

Anime Expo has certainly grown throughout the years. It certainly felt much more crowded and cramped due to the X Games taking over the Staples Center and LA Live. It was reported that we had a best guess estimate of over 46,000 attendees. Hopefully, we won't have to deal with the overcrowding in 2013. We made cautious efforts to avoid the South Hall lobby. Almost everyone was being stopped for cosplay photos or there was a group shoot going on.

In a way, I still reccomend Anime Expo. If you are local and may not have sufficient fund to afford the four day cost, Anime Expo does have a dealer's hall badge for $20. You can still enjoy taking cosplay photos and shop in the dealer's hall and artist alley. I would reccomend going the full four days if you are from out of town and if there's a guest of honor that you would like to see. It does not seem that Anime Expo is leaving Los Angeles anytime soon. We can only hope for the best and that Anime Expo will be bigger and better in 2013. We, Scarlet Rhapsody, would like to be involved in the change.

Thank you Anime Expo for another year!

And because of Sailor Moon getting the green light for a revival, I expect Naoko Takeuchi and other Sailor Moon alumni as guests of honor in 2013!

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