This year's Anime Expo was held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California and spilled over into the Hilton and Marriot hotels, which were all located a mere two blocks from the Disneyland Resort. Held during the Fourth of July weekend and at the height of vacation season, hotel rooms and passes to main events were at a premium for otaku whom flocked from all over the United States to take part in the largest anime convention in the nation. I set out alone from northern California, an eight-hour drive, to see just what makes Anime Expo worth getting so excited over.

I wasn't the least bit unhappy as I bypassed Hall E with its monstrous registration line through the crowded main lobby and across the street to the Hilton, where the Press Office had been set up. After verifying I was who I said I was, the polite Press Office staff quickly corrected a spelling error with my name and reprinted me a shiny new press badge, which featured some fantastic artwork from Yuki Kaori's Godchild manga. I was also given the Anime Expo Pack, which contained a Program /Animerica Magazine, a Pocket Program guide, a sample issue of Viz's new magazine Shojo Beat and the first issue of Tokyopop's free new magazine Takuhai.

Left to my own devices, I decided to go back to the convention center and check out the exhibit hall; the only problem was that it hadn't opened yet. Not sure whether or not my press pass would allow me to bypass the line when the hall did finally open and wanting to get a feel for what the average con attendee had to go through, I decided to jump in the convention line. And wait. Hall E was pretty full by that point with the lines snaking around, and people were starting to get impatient. Still, being on my own, I used the time to chat a bit with the people around me. At around noon the doors to the exhibit hall were opened, and the line moved at a decent rate. It was around 12:30 pm that I made it to the exhibit hall.

The exhibit was in Hall C, which was a massive room at about the size of your average football field, crammed wall to wall with every kind of anime merchandise available. Prominently displayed near the doors were booths of industry giants, such as Geneon, Bandai, Tokyopop, Viz, ADV/Suncoast, FUNimation and others. Several of these booths featured screens that played trailers and episodes of new releases and had places for otaku to sit, watch and rest their aching feet. The FUNimation booth featured the Fullmetal Alchemist video game, and crowds gathered constantly to try their hand or to take pictures with the ubiquitous life-sized Al statue that had been making the rounds to all of the cons. Not to be outdone, ADV/Suncoast had a platform from which megaphone-wielding staff gathered crowds and threw T-shirts and other merchandise.

Further away from the door, other dealers sold discounted manga, anime DVDs, toys, CDs and everything else imaginable. Otaku must have been practicing for months, as they had mastered the wallet-from-pocket-to-hand technique almost faster than the eye could see. Realizing at some point that I had forgotten to pack the all-important notebook with me, I set out to find one to buy. After circling the hall several times, I was about to give up when I finally came across one at the Yaoi Con booth. Gratefully, I shelled out the $2.00 for the half sheet-sized notepad (and another $9.00 for yaoi manga), without paying much attention to what was on it. It wasn't until later, after much puzzling, that I realized the art was of a chibi Legolas clutching an Aragorn doll. Some fandoms scare me...

After the screening, I decided to attend the panel for yaoi-manga.com. Anime Expo staffers seemed amazed at the line that formed at the door for this panel, the only yaoi panel that was held at AX, and were obligated to check IDs to make sure we were all of legal age to talk about shounen-ai. Amusingly, the panel about gay manga was run by two very straight men, Issac Lew and Eric Rosenberger. They discussed some of their current releases, such as Only the Ring Finger Knows and Passion, as well as some of their upcoming releases, such as the highly anticipated Yellow, Jazz, and Alone in My King's Harem. Also discussed were the translation and publishing of yaoi novels and the availability of yaoi in retail bookstores and comic shops. They then gave fans a chance to ask questions and finished the session off with a raffle for prizes such as books, T-shirts and yaoi paddles.

Yaoi paddles?

...

Day Two
Arriving at around 12:30 pm after more than an hour in bumper to bumper traffic on I-5, I headed straight for the third floor main event hall to be seated for the Geneon Retrospective Anime Festival and KOTOKO concert, which was supposed to have started seating at noon sharp. I was, however, unsurprised to find that by 12:40 pm they had still not started seating anyone. Spotting a group of people with press passes milling around, AX staff quickly ushered us through the line and into our front row seats to view the event which, we were told, would begin shortly.

To the delight of otaku whom had been promised just one special industry guest, series producer Ueda Yasuyuki and Hirano Kouta were brought out onstage to talk a little bit about the new Hellsing Ultimate OVA. Somewhat disappointingly however, no real answers were given; instead, a mock Q&A session between the hosts and the two guests was played out. The audience did discover that the new OVA series came about because of drinking, that the reason so many people in Hellsing wore glasses is because Hirano has a glasses fetish, and that Ueda donned a green army jacket in the hopes that he would be called "The Colonel" instead of "The Yakuza," which is what he was called the last time he attended Anime Expo. The session did yield the best quote of Anime Expo 2005, in my opinion; when asked, "How did you come up with the story for Hellsing?" Hirano shrugged and replied, "I made up some crap to meet my deadline."

After the anime portion of the event, the stage was cleared and roadies quickly brought in the gear for the KOTOKO concert. Lights swept down from the ceiling and across from the stage right into the press section, temporarily blinding me and, judging from their groans of pain, several people around me. When at last KOTOKO appeared on stage, she was dressed from head to toe in a floor-length, black hooded cape, with the hood pulled down covering half of her face, flanked by a her band and two dancers. The first song started the show off slow, and as the concert gathered momentum during the second song, the two back up dancers tore KOTOKO's cape away, leaving her garbed in a silver, button-down shirt and tie, a pair of black, vinyl shorts with garter belt-style legs, fishnets and a silver wig. Rocking, high energy songs and charismatic dancing quickly brought the audience to its feet.

Singing her heart out during a series of Rock 'n' Roll-style songs, KOTOKO briefly disappeared from the stage. During her absence, the keyboardist and guitar players brought the level of the concert back down with a slower instrumental piece, and concert attendees, true to their techno-geek nature, pulled out cell phones and began waving their lighted faces through the darkness like lighters at a traditional rock concert. In a hall of a few thousand, the audience was bathed in a pale blue light from literally hundreds of waving cellphones.

KOTOKO reappeared on stage, now dressed in a pink and black Lolita kimono with dreadlock falls in her hair. She pulled a piece of paper from her sleeve and informed the audience that it was a cheat sheet. She spoke to the audience in English, stumbling over only a few of the words. Launching into the second half of the show, she sang songs that were more pop, though they were equally infectious to the audience. Performing this time with a lighter, younger tone, she sang songs from Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins, as well as her new song from Starship Operators. After KOTOKO said her goodbyes and left the stage again, the audience started to disperse only to have her appear one last time after another costume change. Wearing a red, plaid Lolita skirt and shredded, black T-shirt, she sang her encore while the crowd, whom had been in the midst of leaving, instead surged up to the stage in an effort to get closer to her. Still, anime fans are pretty well-behaved, and KOTOKO made her final exit unscathed.

Before AX Idol, I hit the Studio Pierrot Panel. Recent Pierrot releases have been Victorian Romance Emma, Bleach, Midori no Hibi, and the very popular Naruto. At the panel, Pierrot announced that Cartoon Network had picked up the rights to Naruto. To allay fears about the translation process, Marc Handler, who is in charge of the scripting and had also worked on Cowboy Bebop, was brought in to answer questions. Marc stated that the changes in translations were kept as minimal as possible and that the American studio is working very closely with the Japanese studio. Voice actors and sounds are all subject to approval from the Japanese studio, and feedback is constantly flowing in both directions. He also stated that though some things will have to be edited for the television release, the full and uncut version will be available on DVD. Pierrot also announced that it was working on its second Naruto movie and that American audiences should be seeing the first movie sometime soon.

For the second half of the panel, Pierrot switched gears a bit and brought in Kobayashi Tsuneo, director of Victorian Romance Emma. Though Emma is different from a lot of Pierrot anime, it has garnered quite a fan base in Japan. When asked, Kobayashi said that though it was harder for him to direct an anime that moves as slowly as Emma, he wanted to pay special attention to the way the story develops in the manga and take the time to get all the details of Victorian England right. Although it is an anime in a niche genre, Studio Pierrot seems hopeful that it will quietly become a fan favorite.

It was just a quick walk from the Pierrot panel back to the main event hall for AX Idol. Hosted by voice actor Crispin Freeman, the event is a contest for aspiring singers and voice actors whom compete for the title of AX Idol in each of those categories. Based on the television show American Idol, the judges critique each of the contestants based on their performance. The singers all gave fantastic performances, two of them singing the same song from Texhnolyze. The voice actors also gave some stunning performances, though one or two of them left the audience wondering if they really were crazy or if it was all just acting. At the end of the event, the winner of the voice acting competition, Julie, was invited to stay on stage for an impromptu voice acting session with Crispin Freeman. Playing Integra from Hellsing, Julie was visibly nervous, though she unwound enough to playfully chide Crispin in Integra's icy, British accent when he couldn't get the computer working: "You're taking far too long to fix that computer."

Continue to Anime Expo 2005: Part II...