The last time I attended an Anime Expo was in 1995, when it was still small, and it was a one-day experience for me. It didn't quite have all the industry support it has now, but the lack of attendance of some of the major anime and manga publishers and video game companies leads me to believe that their marketing dollars are being spent on other forms of advertising and publicity rather than on convention floors. In fact, it may now be the case where these publishers have moved on from the niche of the conventions directly into big publishing and library conventions.
On the last day of the con was a relatively empty schedule -- I attended the TokyoPop panel, where the sales rep went over the schedule of upcoming releases. They have a number of titles that are partnerships with Harper Collins, in some cases novelizations of manga properties or manga versions of novels (for the teen/tween age group).
Viz Media did not show at Anime Expo 2007, which was surprising, considering that of almost all the manga publishers in the United States, Viz is one of the largest and oldest.
Fanime 2007's Masquerade was so much fun that I expected Anime Expo's to be just as good, but sadly this was not the case. While there were a few exceptional performances, most of them were not entertaining, and there were a few that were just very, very bad. Videogame characters consisted of a disproportionately large number of entries for the masquerade, with Bleach, Death Note and One Piece filling in about 50% of remainder of the anime entries.
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