Cosplay Geek Out at Anime Expo 2010

This was my first trek to the truly epic Anime Expo, held this year at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown LA. I’m a geek and I love my share of anime, manga, video games, and asian culture, but I am a complete newb compared to the folks that packed out the convention center’s South Hall and nearly every other square inch of the lobby and hallways surrounding it. I’ve been to Comic-Con for the last 6 years (going again in a few weeks) and have seen the insane array of costumes that fans don for the yearly super-geek event. Anime Expo puts that to shame (at least in regards to the relative percentage of attendees in costume). Anime Expo probably doesn’t have nearly as many people in costume as Comic-Con does, but only a relatively small percentage of people in San Diego show up in costume. At Anime Expo, if you’re NOT wearing a costume, you are part of a very small minority. I felt like the weirdo not wearing a g-string and spandex with a giant fake sword hefted over one shoulder. But there is no doubt that everyone with or without a costume was there to have a good time and check out what everyone was wearing like some sort of alternate universe fashion competition show on the Bravo network. Make no mistake, there are plenty of video games to play, foreign DVDs to buy, live concerts at the Nokia theater featuring the biggest stars in J-Pop, and karaoke sing-alongs to take part in, but it is really all about the costumes. In fact, if you had no interest in any of the other things and just wanted to spend the day gazing at the parade of costumed hotties (and hunks, I guess), you could do that by stepping into the convention center lobby and walk 2 feet in any direction before you ran into someone in costume. They even spilled out into the street, gathering in themed groups based on the video game or anime series their costumes were based on. All I know is that next year, I’m bringing more batteries for my camera…

Check out this newly added highlight video montage from the biggest Anime event of the year!