AnimeVegas 2009 pt. 3

I was told that the character on the left is from Full Metal Panic! and of course the blue character is Sonic The Hedgehog.



Every year at AnimeVegas these past six years I have had a booth and because I like interacting with people who may buy something from my booth and want to introduce my store to them, I've never gone to any of the events held outside the exhibit hall. In addition to the dealers selling manga, anime, and items related to this field, AnimeVegas has mini music concerts by Japanese pop bands, panels with guests such as voice actors, and costume contests, as well as almost around the clock anime screenings. So since I don't leave the exhibit room, I'm not taking photos of the other events, but I just wanted to mention this to let anyone thinking about going to next year's AnimeVegas that there's a lot of things going on that don't cost anything.

The past two years or so, the manga and anime industry has been going through a somewhat turbulent period and a lot of companies that are or were producing various series have had to constrict or seize to exist altogether. This is mostly due to a lot of people who now follow manga and anime being able to get their "fix" online. I'm not going to get into why people do this, but until this changes, people who create, distribute, and sell manga and anime are going to have to find new ways to make this work for them so that they can continue to make a living doing so. Hopefully more people who just get their entertainment fixes online will realize that if they want to continue to enjoy manga and anime, that they have to actually buy some of the series that they've enjoyed after getting turned on to them for free online.

Anyway, I hope my tone here just now didn't come across as too doom and gloom, but I just would hate to see the growth that had occurred in manga and anime a few years ago just completely vanish because this is an artform that can tell many diverse kinds of stories and still is a source of great fun for many as evident by the still strong attendance this year at AnimeVegas 2009.