The following is a report on Anime Expo 2009 (a.k.a. AX09) located at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

EXHIBIT HALL:

In terms of scale, the Exhibit Hall of AX09 is “smaller” than that of AX08. The biggest shocker was the lack of any major anime/manga company presence (apart from Funimation). ADV and Geneon were not in attendance as usual. Bandai Entertainment was also not in attendance. Where were Viz Media, Tokyopop, and Broccoli? The absence of these major companies definitely said something about the seemingly sad state of the anime/manga industry in the U.S., if not the sad state of the economy in general.

However, there were some key exceptions:

Crunchyroll made a very large presence in the Exhibit Hall. It basically took over the roles ADV, Bandai, and Geneon had when they had their large booths in past AXs: staging mass rallies that attracted many attendees who want free stuff or free excitement. In essence, Crunchyroll “replaced” ADV, Bandai, and Geneon in spirit.

Atlus (the makers of Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, and Trauma Center) also made a large presence in Exhibit Hall. The sheer size of the booth left a rather strong and lasting impression on the attendees (including me). It even rivaled Funimation’s booth in terms of size.
There was an unusually large booth that promoted and sold Japanese eroge games (with English subtitles) and other erotic stuff. Obviously speaking, you have to be at least 18+ to get inside the heavily curtained walls (and purchase the most epic sized shopping bag ever sold at AX for $5). If you are male, you can also get a free demo of the games.

The vendors in the Exhibit Hall were more or less the same. A majority of the vendors that I saw in AX08 returned to AX09. However, it was more difficult to do business with the vendors mostly because they preferred cold hard cash for all transactions. The merchandises offered by the vendors were good, although not spectacularly awesome. There were some very good deals (i.e. $6 for manga) but the fact that several large and/or popular vendors were promoting more or less the same deals reduced the deals’ significance.

CONCERTS:

AX09 marked the first time in five or six years that I did not attend a concert (partly because I was in Artist Alley). From what I heard from friends who actually attended the concerts, they were mediocre at best.
Unlike AX08, where concerts were held in the Nokia Theater, AX09 concerts were held within the halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center. In short, they were scaled down in size.
Also, AX09 had fewer concerts than AX08.

The concerts most likely appealed to those who are regularly involved in the Japanese music scene (and I am not counting listening to anime openings, inserts, and endings as being regularly involved because the performers had nothing to do with them). Attendees who are not familiar with J-Rock or J-Pop in general, let alone the people behind them, would have a hard time enjoying the performances of Morning Musume or Moi dix Mois in its entirety.

In short, AX09 concerts were worse than AX08 concerts primarily because of the lack of quality and quantity in them.

GUESTS OF HONOR (GoH):

To be honest, AX09’s Guests of Honor were not as impressive as AX08’s Guests of Honor. It’s not because I do not like them, but rather because their presence in AX did not leave a strong and lasting impression on me as an attendee. The fact that I did not know some of them and their works did not help in fully caring about them. Also, my inability to attend every Guests of Honor panel (because of my participation in Artist Alley) also did not help.

Some Guests of Honor had their presence in AX cut short because of their company’s presence in Exhibit Hall. I’m talking about the staff of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (director: Seiji Mizushima, writer: Yosuke Kuroda, character designer: Yun Kouga). They did not receive the same treatment that Tomoki Kyoda (GoH of AX06) or even Shoko Nakagawa (GoH of AX08) received – and that treatment was provided by Bandai’s immense presence in the Exhibit Hall. Without Bandai to actively promote the key makers of the series, let alone the series itself, to potentially many, many people in the Exhibit Hall, the three Guests of Honor lost much of their impact on the attendees.
There’s a lot more to write about the Guests of Honor, but my lack of care for and knowledge of them will mostly likely hinder my ability to do so, let alone want to do so.

Autographs successfully obtained from the following GoH: Seiji Mizushima, Yosuke Kuroda, Yun Kouga, and Toshiyuki Morikawa.

ARTIST ALLEY (AA):

AX09 marks my very first time participating in Artists Alley, let alone my intense “exploration” in it as an “attendee.”
Artist Alley was more or less placed in the same large room that also contains the Exhibit Hall. The only difference was that it was placed on the right side of Exhibit Hall (as opposed to the left side as it happened in AX08). The overall layout was probably the same as that of last year except that the spaces between the rows were a bit more spacious.

From an attendee’s perspective:

The artists in general were talented and skilled in one or more ways. They were also courteous and friendly (and even outgoing). However, there were some who leaned toward the role of a pushy salesman or saleswoman (I will not disclose their names in the name of protecting their privacy). Most of them demonstrated good customer service skills to warrant an attendee’s satisfaction in buying from and supporting them. Most of them also demonstrated their willingness to conduct friendly and fun conversations with attendees (if you take the initiative to do so). If you buy something from an artist, chances are you will most likely return next day or even next year to buy from him or her again.
Of course, the sheer size of Artist Alley will overwhelm you at first (there are 250 tables with up to two people occupying each table), but you have all four days to meet and greet with each and every artist (assuming you have “4 Day AXess” a.k.a. four day admission). Each artist provides his or her own line of merchandise that can take in the form of bookmarks, prints, key-chains, plush doll, or anything legally and realistically conceivable. Again, you have all four days to browse and pick among thousands of merchandise produced by all artists in Artist Alley.

From an artist’s perspective:

The attendees (a.k.a. customers) were friendly and polite. They were also pretty honest in their opinions and reactions to the artists’ works. I did not observe any noticeable moments when an attendee made one or more negative comments in front of artists. When they purchased something, they demonstrated their enthusiasm for it (at least for me).

The artists themselves were pretty friendly to other artists. Some of them actually take the liberty to check out other artists and their works. Of course, artists are competing against one another in terms of their ability to attract and sell to customers, but the feeling and mood of competition appears absent in the mind at best. More often than not, artists will most likely engage in friendly dialogue rather than fierce dialogue with other adjacent or far away artists (at least that was what I observed at my table). If you are lucky, you can forge and maintain new friendships with other artists.

Sure, there will always be one or more artists who are better than you but chances are that you are most likely be inspired rather than intimidated. To put it in another way, you will mostly likely think about something positive about the artist(s) rather than something negative.

By the way, if you are artist who has a deviantART account and took the time and initiative to meet other artists who also has a deviantART account, chances are that you will be rewarded for your efforts (I have done something like this quite a lot and it was fun doing so).

(Incomplete) list of deviantART artists visited in Artist Alley (in no particular order):

=cartoongirl7
~e1n
*bluessence
*Kamaniki
*dchan316
*sykoeent
=kathy100
*Potatobuns
~barbaroo
~mell0w-m1nded
=Banzatou
~RueLi
=hakuku
*angichan
~EverAfterCo
~takaaa
~Dreamsraven
~nil00
~rubberyjido
=miemie-chan3
~Mirai-LD
*ipmaster
~muhoho-seijin
=Raburabbit
=NikkieCole
*ramy
`zeiva

Apart from the notoriously long and tedious check-in process for participating artists, everything else went pretty well.

MISC:

ARTIST ALLEY SKETCH JAM AND MIXER:

In short, it was a pretty amusing and interesting experience. Somehow, I managed to win free stuff. It was nice meeting and interacting with other fellow artists. It was the only time to meet and interact with the Artist Alley Staff in person.

VOCALOID PANEL:

It was not as good as I thought. It was mostly consisted of screenings of well known music videos (i.e. Love is War, Black Rock Shooter, Meltdown, the vegetable juice song, etc.) composed by famous composers. There were some commentary, but not apparently not enough, especially those that talk about the making of Vocaloid music and music videos in greater scope and detail.

In retrospect, AX09 is good in some aspects and not so good in others. However, I have to say that AX09 is worse than AX08 for reasons already described in the above. That is not to say AX09 is like AX07; in fact it is far from it. I did enjoy AX09 overall despite the apparent shortcomings.

Will I attend next year's AX (and AA)? The answer is most likely a yes.

That is all for now. I plan to add more things to this already ridiculously long report, but I don’t feel like writing more right now. Well, at least you got a pretty detailed anime/manga convention report that was published on the same day the convention ended.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your time.

For those who stopped by my table and purchased prints from me, thanks for your support.