Food Trucks by Eri Kagami
Guess who’s back again!? One of my major beefs with the Los Angeles location is the lack of grab and go places for commuters. If you have a hotel, you can grab something healthy that is premade at Target or a corner deli. Since Anime Expo’s first year at the LACC, I sworn off eating convention center food because I ended up getting food poisoning from a smoothie. With that said, right across from South Hall (and even around the convention center), there’s a row of food trucks for Anime Expo attendees. Granted, anyone can go up to the food trucks, but it’s nice to grab filling meals where you got what you paid for. I ended up getting the rice platter special at the Mighty Boba. For about $12, you get your bubble tea and a rice dish that will fill you up for the day. If you didn’t mind sitting outside to eat, there were a few benches outside of South Hall where you can enjoy your meal while watching cosplay meet ups. Con food doesn’t have to be expensive and one does not have to starve at the con. Food trucks still make up for downtown LA’s lack of grab and go options.

Bushiroad by Eri Kagami
I was quite curious to check out the Bushiroad industry panel. The only thing I know about Bushiroad is that they’re best known for distributing Love Live: School Idol Festival in the US. Bushiroad is also known for distributing collectable anime themed deck building games such as Weisz and Cardfight Vanguard. The panel had a special guest from Japan, Dr. Oh. For fans of Weisz, they announced an exclusive Attack on Titan set. They also talked about the premiere of the new Cardfight Vanguard movie at Anime Expo. The most entertaining part of the presentation was hearing what series anime fans wanted to see in the next series of Weisz. Many fans demanded a “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” and a “Sailor Moon” set. Not much news in the Love Live: School Idol Festival department other than announcing 2 million players worldwide, but they did reveal Anime Expo exclusives of the popular franchise (stickers, notebooks, wall scrolls, and more).

Opening Ceremonies by Eri Kagami
Anime Expo opening ceremonies took place later in the afternoon in the main events hall. Opening ceremonies not only officially kicks of another year of Anime Expo, but also introduces the guests of honor. This year’s guests of honor were from all aspects of the Japanese animation industry and related pop culture aspects of fandom. The new Sailor Moon voice actors made up a majority of the American guest list. They also introduced the Unlimited Bladeworks cast and crew. This year, Anime Expo had over 50+ guests. Some of them were not able to show up to the opening ceremonies such as MomoCloZ and KISS. Anime Expo also had J-fashion guests such as h.Naoto, Junnyan, and Chii Sakurabi. Chii Sakurabii had a mini-concert towards the end. However, the highlight of opening ceremonies had to be Toshio Maeda making jokes about his tentacle and proclaiming he is the master of tentacle. The opening ceremonies concluded per AX tradition where in a Japanese statue is brought in and an eye is drawn on the face to symbolize the beginning of the journey. A second eye would be drawn at the end of the con.

Anime and Manga in the Classroom by Eri Kagami
Every year, Anime Expo hosts a symposium of academic themed panels. This gives programming some scholarly additions. They usually take place in the theatre room upstairs. The panel covered how to teacher history and culture behind anime in a college level classroom. I was expecting some suggestions how to integrate anime within high school classes such as English or some type of cultural themed curriculum. However, the biggest discussion among the panelists is debating if there should be a canonical list of what should be covered when teaching an anime studies type of college course.

Art of Big Hero Six by Eri Kagami
You might wonder what a Big Hero 6 panel is doing at Anime Expo. The Disney feature length animated adventure has plenty to do with Japanese anime and pop culture. If you haven’t seen Big Hero 6, well, go check it out for yourself, it’s an ode to kids saving the world in San Francisco. If you have, then you probably might know about how Big Hero 6 is almost like an intersection of Japanese pop culture and American super heroes. Based on the Marvel comic of the same name, Disney animators presented behind the scenes when working on Big Hero 6. Cameras were asked to be put away; the audience was mesmerized by unseen animatics. One of my favorite highlights of the panel was focusing on how each character in the super hero team had a different walk; this shows that character design is more than just a referential visual guide, but rather understanding how a character moves and how personality is shown through everyday mundane action. This was best shown in a series of test animatics where each character is shown sitting differently in a café.

Anime Expo has a robust nightlife. If you have a hotel room, you can enjoy the sounds of the Momoiro Clover Z concert. KISS ended up collaborating with them during their latest single. Additionally, you could hear Toshio Maeda’s uncensored Ask Me Anything 18+ panel. For a commuter, the day ended before 9PM. Thursday was a robust day for industry panels and learning the art of animation. If it’s one thing I’ll give credit to Anime Expo, this is still a pretty awesome conference in understanding all aspects of the animation industry whether if it’s a gallery of stills from Trigger or getting to know how to create a character with Disney animators.

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