Anime Expo 2009 – A retrospect
For some reason ‘retrospect’ always sounded like a bug minion from a Voltron rip off toy line, but that’s not important. What is important is that FUNimation is back from AX 09 and we had a blast at the show. Here is a full report on all the different events we had going on at this year’s show.
Thursday
I have to say we were very surprised when the first wave of people came in the door at shows opening. We expect large crowds at AX but I thought a legion of uruk-hai just hit our booth 5 minutes into the show.
We went through our entire weekend stock of Heroic Age posters in less than three hours. There was more than one occasion that I couldn’t walk on our booth. I was just waiting for the Fire Marshal to come and tell me we had to many people in an enclosed space.
After the initial rush was over we still stayed amazingly busy. It helped greatly having the Evangelion home room on the booth keeping the fans happy and fully engrossed with one of our newest films.
The classmates welcomed everyone to join them with games of heads up 7-up, Eva pictionary, and name that pokemon FUNimation character. Giving out free posters and giant postcards also helped rally a crowd.
We also unveiled the first sneak peek of our new social networking site Shodojo.com. We had preview demos running every 15 minutes on the booth as well as a giant back wall graphic that cosplayers loved to use as a backdrop for photos.
Speaking of cosplay. The cosplay meet-ups were starting to kick off and we tried to make it to as many as we could. Check out this D Grayman meet-up!
Friday
Friday was one of the biggest days on the floor for FUNimation (and my daughter’s birthday – Happy birthday, Lain!). Starting with Takashi ‘Bob’ Okazaki (Creator of Afro Samurai) signing at our booth. This of course drew a large enough line that sadly we had to close it before signings end.
Next on the docket was the Eva autograph signing with Mike McFarland (ADR Director) and Brina Palencia (Voice of Rei Ayanami). And what is the best place to have them autograph on the booth? Why the Eva homeroom of course.
This lead us up to the highlight of the weekend – The Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone English dub premiere. We packed the largest room at the convention for the showing and had the film introduced by six singing Rei’s followed by Mike and Brina. From the reaction of the fans during the film we’re pretty sure they enjoyed it. :) Afterwards Mike and Brina answered questions from the fans and talked about working on the film.
As soon as this ended I fought the crowds to make it to the last FUNimation related panel of the evening – our sneak peak panel. I was very happy to see a standing room only crowd for the panel. We went over a few dub clips from our latest shows as well as some not in stores yet. The fan favorites I would have to say were D Grayman, Kenichi, Kaze No Stigma, and Stg. Frog.
Saturday
Saturday started with some action right out of the gate. We were giving the first 100 fans to our booth that morning tickets to our Vic Mignogna booth signing later that day. This leads us to – well, the Vic signing. Last year things got a bit out of hand* with the Vic signing so we were pleasantly surprised that using the tickets streamlined everything for us.
At the same time as the Vic signing over in the West Hall we had our industry panel. If you read Rojas’s post on this during the event lots of things happened.
The biggest items based on fan reaction I would have to say would be the Slayers Revolution cast announcement, Dragon Ball Season One, and the acquisition of Sengoku Basara. Right after the announcement we even ran into Basara cosplayers.
We had another round of autographs with Mike and Brina at the booth shortly after Vic left. The fans were happy to return to the booth after seeing Evangelion 1.0 to talk to Mike and Brina about how they enjoyed the film. The day finished out quite well and we stayed nice and busy up till the end of the day. Check out this Ouran meet-up!
Sunday
The final day of the show was still pretty busy for us even with all the panel and signings being over. We had hours of HD screenings going on all day and people still were coming buy grabbing DVD’s for the long trip home. and of course cosplay
cosplay
and cosplay. Check out this Baccano! Meet-up!.
Don’t forget about Soul Eater! – Tons ‘o’ Fans for this show. Check out these fan’s photostreams.
We even had special guests show up from time to time.
Good times, good times. But alas at the end of the day we had to say good by to Anime Expo fot this year. We had a great time as always and we are looking forward to next year already. Gotta keep your eye on the prize though, and Otakon begins in one week tomorrow. So for now good bye AX, it was fun.
*too many fans, out of control pre-lines, security teams, and me swearing to buy the first round if we survived the next few hours.
20 Responses to “Anime Expo 2009 – A retrospect”
Corey Lucas on July 9th, 2009 at 6:27 pm says:
Amazing Adam. Dube Thanks Again for getting Sengoku Basara. You guys really know how to pick my favorite titles! For that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glxyFu8YNJA
Tell me what you think and I hope you guys announce the Soul Eater Cast soon!
Chrisc on July 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm says:
Haha wow what cave men would do for Kanon. I bought all six volumes and the art box last year!!
Adam S. on July 9th, 2009 at 7:02 pm says:
@Corey Lucas: Well played, well played. I agree, Basara is a very manly show. ^_^
Chrisc on July 9th, 2009 at 7:25 pm says:
Adam whats the next big Expo, Fest or Con your going to?
Adam S. on July 9th, 2009 at 7:36 pm says:
@Chrisc: We will be at Otakon in Baltimore, MD a week from tomorrow and San Diego Comic-Con the week after that.
otakureview on July 9th, 2009 at 7:39 pm says:
@Chrisc: They’ll be at Otakon later this month.
Sad that I wasn’t able to catch up with you all at AX but here’s hoping to run into you in NY
Mario1-7 on July 9th, 2009 at 7:42 pm says:
Will you guys have those xxxHolic Boxsets at Otakon? ^_^
Hannah on July 9th, 2009 at 8:20 pm says:
Awesome Baccano cosplayers. 
Tyrenol on July 9th, 2009 at 9:17 pm says:
That first pic of some guy “trading a kid for a Kanon box set” is LOW, Adam. LOW.
kit-kat on July 9th, 2009 at 9:32 pm says:
Love the uruk-kai pic 
! Want to thank you guys again for picking up Sengoku Basara! I let out a big scream in my office :P… thankfully no one looked at me funny 
!
Looking forward to seeing you guys at Otakon!
Corey Lucas on July 9th, 2009 at 9:44 pm says:
The Ennis cosplayer is SEXY!! ME WANT SOUL EATER & SPICE and WOLF CAST!! HULK SMASH!!!
dragon0 on July 9th, 2009 at 10:29 pm says:
Trading kids for kanon box sets, don’ty care who you are THATS FUNNY! 
glade you guys had fun, cant’t wait for more great news for other cons and Funi in general. 
Adam S. on July 9th, 2009 at 10:40 pm says:
@otakureview: We will be at New York Anime Fest in September. Hope to see you there. We should have some extra fun stuff for that show.
@Mario1-7: Thats the plan. Holic all the way.
Doom85 on July 10th, 2009 at 2:19 am says:
Awesome Baccano cosplayers! Also glad to see Soul Eater getting popular.
Cathy on July 10th, 2009 at 9:05 am says:
wow. There wern’t this many blog posts about Anime Central. I guess it’s too small of a con, huh? I should try getting out to AX next year.
Alexis N Vazquez on July 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am says:
people rally have fun in Anime Expo specily the people that cosplay in the comvention (I wish I was there to se it) I hope I can se you guys in onother comvention or If not maybe next year if you decide to go to anime centrar in chicago 
Agent Hazel on July 10th, 2009 at 10:26 am says:
Wow, Anime Expo sounds really epic… Glad that the FUNi team once again made it through another crazy convention! Thanks for all the cool cast announcements and all… but where is Soul Eater news?
Rad on July 10th, 2009 at 12:14 pm says:
Awesome experience.
http://radicalpatriot.vox.com
nightastronomer on July 10th, 2009 at 1:05 pm says:
Wow,those are some awesome D.Gray-Man and Baccano! cosplayers.I’m wondering where those lavi cosplayers got those life-size mallets from. 
I’m guessing they must have gotten them with their costumes. 
Supermutant on July 10th, 2009 at 2:13 pm says:
I’m stuck in New Jersey with a year to wait for Anime Next and no way to get to Otakon or New York Anime Fest. 
