Anime Expo 2018 Day 1 / Retro Gaming Around LA

A quick blog highlighting the few video game-related items during my week-long vacation at Los Angeles (29 June to 6 July).

Anime Expo 2018 Day 1

Anime Expo was one of the two major ticket items during my week-long trip to Los Angeles and it was more overwhelming than I thought it would be. I knew it was big as in the past few years AX has exceed over 100k attendees, but I never expected to be on my toes constantly navigating through hordes of enthusiastic fans inside the Los Angeles Convention Center. In spite of the crowd issue, I'm glad I went even if it's only for one day. I'm not sure if I could handle attending the full four-days of the event, just imaging the crowds again gives me chills.

Anime Expo:

Unlike my time at Otakon 2013, I did not bother to stop cosplayers and asked them to take a picture of them due to the constant crowd movement. Two cosplay highlights were two Persona 5 cosplayers, one as the cafe owner Sojiro and the rebel doctor Tae.
I also did not have a chance to thoroughly check out the thousands of retailers in AX's Exhibitor Hall due to the crowds as well.
Check-out lines to the bigger exhibitors (who had bigger stalls/spaces) were extremely long and time-draining. My brother waited in line for over an hour just to reach the checkout counter at Atlus's booth and his two friends waited over 90 minutes to buy a few Gunpla models at the Bluefin booth.
Atlus's booth was simply a long line to their checkout to buy Atlus merchandise, which primarily consisted of Persona 5, Persona 3 Dancing, and Persona 5 Dancing items.
Bandai Namco had playable demos of Jump Force, Code Vein, and two other games I cannot recall.
NIS America had a shop and playable demos of one of their games along with the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection and SNK Heroines.
Other gaming companies at AX Exhibitors Hall were Degica Games, Idea Factory, Arc System Works, XSEED/Marvelous, and Aksys Games.
AX's Entertainment Hall is a dedicated hall for folks who want to play video games and trading card games with others.
Blizzard and Square Enix had sizable booths inside the Entertainment Hall. Blizzard was primarily selling merchandise while Square Enix had playable demos for Kingdom Hearts III and Dragon Quest XI.
There was an arcade section where you actually had to pay, in quarters, to play the arcade machines.
There was also a huge booth for a Fate VR game of some sort.
Kentia Hall hosted AX's large Artist Alley.

Anime Expo 2018 Merchandise Purchases

Atlus: Persona 3 Dancing Pin; Persona 5 Makoto Keychain; Persona 5 Dancing Pin; Persona 5 Art Book (bonus item, same as art book included in Persona 5 limited edition release); Persona 3/5 Dancing bag (bonus item)

Eighty Sixed: Noel (BlazBlue) T-Shirt

Shunao (artist)

Charms: Chie (Persona 4) & Orie (Under Night In-Birth)

Representing my BBTAG team for the moment.

Crunchyroll Panel - Anime 101 with Giant Bomb

(Sorry for the blurry image.) Here's a quick video I took of Dan and Jeff walking up to the stage.

In the middle of Anime Expo's Day 1 madness, I made my way over to The Conga Hall where Crunchyroll stationed themselves over the weekend and held an interesting panel on Thursday at 3 PM PDT with Giant Bomb. While the panel simply consisted of Dan and Jeff watching 30-second clips of various anime and their reactions to it, both of them along with the host really made the panel entertainment throughout. There was no surprise that Dan really took a liking of the clip from Black Lagoon, but Jeff surprised me in being interested in Laid Back Camp and still not enjoying the art of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. I'm glad I made the panel and see Dan and Jeff in-person. I actually caught Dan before the panel started and got to shake his hand and had a quick chat. I could've asked for a photo but I did not want to be too bothersome to Dan.

Retro Game Stores

Game Realms at Burbank, CA

Game Realms was a neat store to visit. Nothing too crazy about the selection but the big open space and the dedicated game stations at the back and just how clean and organized the store was won me over. They also host local fighting game tournaments as well. They sell both retro and modern games so if anyone in the local area needs an alternative, give Game Realms a shot.

Few Observations:

Nier:Automata Black Box limited edition for $500!
Project Justice NA Dreamcast, full packaging, $170!
Garou NA Dreamcast, full packaging, $70.

Little Tokyo Mall at Little Tokyo Los Angeles, CA

I didn't catch the name of the store, but there was a retro video game store inside of Little Tokyo Mall that focuses on selling retro imported Japanese video games. They have Japanese video games from most consoles with a sizable chunk of their inventory filled with Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64.

Frank & Sons Collection Show at City of Industry, CA

This place all the way out at City of Industry is essentially a large, indoor warehouse flea market. There were a number of retailers inside the warehouse that primarily were selling used video games. It may not be the best place to find a legitimate copy of a video game if you are the person concerned with that stuff. I would give this place a YMMV if you were ever looking for older video games here.

Closing

You can click here if you want to read additional few observations and the places I hit up with my brother and his two friends during our week in LA.

Thanks for reading!