It’s time for another Anime Expo 2018, our favorite time of year. It’s a great event when around 110,000 fans come together and share their love of anime, manga, and yes, hentai. This year our panel is early, on Wednesday, July 4th at 9:00 pm-10:00 pm in Workshop 1 (403 AB). We’ll have surprise announcements, excellent goodies for everyone who attends, plus the lovely former JAV star Kaho Shibuya as a guest of honor. Check our blog post for all the juicy details and make sure to enter our official contest.
There’s a lot to love about anime conventions. Since the first dedicated anime-only event (Anime Con back in 1991, which was the predecessor to the current Anime Expo), anime conventions have become the primary place for fans to come together with other fans to celebrate world peace through shared popular culture. A lot of people live in parts of the country that aren’t blessed with highly developed and nuanced sub-culture, and I believe anime cons let people meet like-minded people and build great social bonds, exploring new sides of themselves and making new friends.
Anime cons are also a great place to enjoy some awesome cosplay culture, and I know I’ll be taking lots of photos of cosplayers during Anime Expo 2018. As usual, it’s fun to trace the history of concepts that are familiar today and find out where they came from. The word was coined in the June 1983 issue of My Anime magazine, which included a special feature on “hero costume play” that had to be shortened to “cosplay” on one page to fit into the layout. Of course costuming has been a thing for decades, but Japan’s approach and dedication to the art form has been great fun for for us all.
Will you be at Anime Expo 2018? If so, make sure you visit either our 18+ or all-ages booths and say hello!
J-List is having a pre-Anime Expo $10 coupon, and you get it automatically, no coupon to enter, when you make a purchase of $40 or more from J-List. The only question is, what to get? Well, we’ve got some great new “ero” toys on the site that parody your favorite anime characters. Browse the new onaholes and save $10!
