|
|
|
October rolls around once again, and with it the year's second MCM London Expo. For those who aren't aware of it, the MCM London Expo is a massive trade fair that is held twice a year in the ExCel Centre in London's docklands. Despite the MCM standing for Movies Comics & Media, anime and manga has a hugely strong presence at the Expo. All of the major UK anime and manga companies and merchandise retailers are in attendance and with no pre-registration or age restrictions the Expo draws crowds in the thousands. Needless to say it is by far the biggest event in the UK anime or manga calendar, despite not being a dedicated anime and manga event.
The October Expo was the biggest yet. Spread over three
exhibition halls in the the ExCel Centre, the Expo was a lot more
spacious than ever before, which was good because there seemed to be
more attendees than ever. Despite the increased amount of
people and the increased hall size the queuing - always one of our
main bugbears with the Expo - worked very well, and best of all the
doors opened pretty much on time both days. |
|
Once inside it's clear why the Expo has become something of a mecca for anime fans. All of the traditional 'big four' anime companies - ADV, Manga, MVM and Beez - along with Revelation Films have stalls where you can buy their DVD and BluRay releases at knock-down prices. Many of them were running competitions and special offers, and you could also have a chat with company reps about forthcoming releases. In fact the huge attendance levels at the Expo has made it a favourite place for companies to announce anime licenses and, despite the disappointing lack of an industry panel, this year was no exception. Manga confirmed their previously announced licenses |
of Ouran High School Host Club and Negima alongside Afro Samurai Resurrection, Ghost in the Shell 2.0 and Naruto Shippuuden. MVM announced the acquisition of all four Slayers series, alongside Blade of the Immortal, Samurai Deeper Kyo and the live-action Cutie Honey film, whilst Beez announced Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
The anime distributors were joined by the leading manga companies
VIZ Media and Tokyopop, who also boasted bargain-packed stalls.
Retail is the name of the game at the Expo, and as well as the
official distributors there were a host of importers, merchandise
retailers and designers on hand to part you with your money!
If you're an anime fan there's few places better to pick up the
latest anime and manga goods, with the likes of
Neon Martian,
TokyoToys and
Kamika-Z bringing the latest figures and snacks from
Japan. You could get your manga fix at
Sheffield Space Centre, whilst imported US DVDs were covered by
United
Publications and
Otaku UK. There were stalls covering all
aspects of fan culture, including Upper Deck for trading cards,
Capcom for computer games,
Gundam Mad and
Gundam Nation for model
kits and even one stall selling hentai and yaoi manga and anime!
Dedicated anime and manga retailers aside, there were numerous other
retailers selling anime and manga goods alongside Western sci-fi
merchandise and DVDs. |
There were also several designers and artists in attendance with a distinctly Eastern style, providing something a little bit more original than anime merchandise. Foremost amongst them was the excellent t-shirts of Genki Gear and Terratag, both of whom launched new designs at the Expo, but they were by no means alone. Team Giblets also sold their own unique t-shirts as well as various other goods and even offered to draw mini manga-style portraits for a small fee. TokyoToys had a host of merchandise bearing their mascot character Coco, and also hosted a table for freelance artist Niki Hunter. Sweatdrop - an umbrella organisation for a number of manga |
|