AnimeJapan took place at Tokyo Big Sight

Normally at this time of year I would have been attending the Zenkaikon anime convention in Lancaster, PA. However I missed out on that this year because I was taking a vacation in Japan instead! I went on the “Animated Spring 2023” tour group offered by PacSet Travels and one of the scheduled stops was AnimeJapan, one of the largest anime consumer shows in Japan. AnimeJapan was scheduled for the weekend of March 25-26, 2023 and I attended it on March 25th. Before actually going to the con I had been warned that Japanese anime cons are a different beast than American or western conventions. I was told not to expect much from it. Well, after having gone through it myself I can definitely see why there is the hesitation that results in such warnings, but for what it’s worth I actually quite enjoyed the experience.

When you think of American conventions you think of cosplayers lining the halls, you think of panels and guest appearances, you think of concerts and special events, you think of large market venues lined with merchants and artists hawking their wares, and most importantly you think about the time that you spend bonding and having fun with friends. Western conventions are a communal event where you go to have a good time while basking in our shared otaku interests. On the other hand AnimeJapan and Japanese conventions in general are described as “consumer shows” and are differentiated by the focus on the marketing of anime properties. Japanese cons are not really about the communal get-together to have fun but is more geared towards promoting and marketing their brands and IP.

AnimeJapan took place inside the Tokyo Big Sight convention center (the famous upside-down pyramid). Almost the entire convention space was lined with elaborate exhibit displays to catch your eye and entice you to come look at their booth. This is the place you go to bask yourself in your favorite franchise and perhaps learn more about what’s coming up in the future for the shows. There are only a small number of shops that sell general otaku merchandise, most of the merch that you find is sold exclusively at the various major companies’ booths instead. You also won’t find very many people walking around in cosplay (if at all). Japanese cons are built to set aside a specific area for cosplay purposes. Most folks seem to show up and use one of the changing rooms to change into their cosplay, go out to have photos taken, and then go change back into their regular clothes. It’s a very different approach to cosplay and cosplay photography which can be a major disappointment for western fans expecting to see a lot of cosplays there.

In terms of guests and panels, there really aren’t any panel rooms set up specifically for these kinds of events. Many of the larger booths have their own built stages where they have scheduled guest appearances and talks. Naturally there isn’t really that much space area these stages so it’s pretty hard to actually sit in on the guest appearances unless you camp out at the sites. The convention as a whole is pretty accessible to a foreigner who speaks no Japanese (like me!) as you can easily walk around and gawk at the presentations without actually having to understand what is written there. The only real disappointment that I had was that some booths and merch lines had a strict requirement where you had to scan a QR code with a LINE account before you were allowed to enter the booth or merch line. For instance, I wanted to buy some of the limited AnimeJapan Re:Zero merch but couldn’t because I didn’t have a LINE account and when I tried to create an account it requires you to verify your phone number which I couldn’t do while in Japan.

So was AnimeJapan a different experience than an American convention? Absolutely. And I certainly understand why this kind of setup and experience may be off-putting and uninteresting to a lot of people. I personally had a good time though as I enjoyed looking at all of the elaborate booths and displays. I probably would have had an even better time if I could speak and read a lick of Japanese.