Every summer, anime fans from around the world flock to Los Angeles for the ultimate celebration of Japanese pop culture: Anime Expo. Held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, this year's Anime Expo, which ran from July 4th to July 7th, was a whirlwind of excitement, creativity, and community.
Anime Expo, often abbreviated as AX, is North America's largest anime and manga convention. Organized by the non-profit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA), AX has been a staple of the anime community since 1992. The convention offers a unique blend of anime screenings, industry panels, artist alley exhibitions, cosplay competitions, and much more. It's a place where fans can immerse themselves in the latest and greatest from the world of anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture.
This year's Anime Expo was packed with panel discussions, previews, cosplay, gaming, and merchandise. Here are some of the standouts:
The Games:
At the Aniplex of America industry panel, they spoke about the new/current Twisted Wonderland event “Cloudcalling on the Savannah,” which brings players new limited cards and a storyline that offers a look at Leona’s hometown, Sunrise City. Over at the large multimedia Aniplex booth, they also offered cosplay meetups and a talk show featuring Nobunaga Shimazaki, the voice of Diasomnia’s Silver.
A teaser was given for an upcoming 2.5 Anniversary event to be held on 7/29, with details to come later.
Over at the Aksys Games Panel, there was some discussion of some of their current/previously disclosed games, before a whole slate of new games were announced for the Switch, Playstation, and PC.
Trailers for the rest of the announced games can be found here:
Game publisher Idea Factory International had their own IDI Summer Festival just a block away from the convention center where they revealed their new games in the works:
After their title announcements, the Summer Festival opened with carnival games, musical performances, photo-ops, ice cream (courtesy of Tsun Scoops) and merchandise!
Out in the Exhibit Hall and Entertainment Hall, there was a large assortment of game companies offering up a number of interactive opportunities for fans to play, purchase, and generally enjoy mingling with like-minded enthusiasts.
In case you were looking for something new and specific to your interests on which to play your games, gaming system specialist iBUYPOWER was there, exhibiting some of their many decorative and collaborative bundles.
In all, there was a plethora of activities for gamers of all types at Anime Expo this year, from people interested in the latest technology to those old-schooling it at the tabletop area. If you would like to experience it for yourself, Anime Expo will return to the Los Angeles Convention Center next year on July 3–6, 2025. Badges for the event will go on sale in early 2025, with tickets for the small, more intimate Anime Expo Chibi (November 9-10, 2024 at the Ontario Convention Center) available now.