Top 27+ BEST Anime Expo, Conventions & Events in the World!
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[Top 10] Biggest Anime Conventions in the World
Fan Expo Philadelphia will feature My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dragon Ball Z, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mulan and other popular anime and animation franchises as Fan Expo Philadelphia announced the addition of 16 voice actors. The pop culture ...
Anime Expo is the largest anime con around, with over 100,000 fans in attendance.
1. Comiket, Japan. Short for “Comic Market,” Comiket is the definite largest anime and manga convention in the world, bringing in over 750,000 anime fans, ambitious artists, and cosplayers in 2019. Comiket is also Japan's largest indoor public gathering.
Ages 14-17: Anyone 14 and older must purchase a 4-day or 1-day general attendee badge. Attendees under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult to pick up their badge. We recommend attendees ages 14-17 have a parent or guardian close by for the duration of the event.
List of 2022 Worldwide Anime ConventionsDatesLocationAniFest 2022April 2, 2022Torrance Cultural Arts Center Torrance, CAAnniCon 2022April 2, 2022Zinn Park Anniston, ALCHS Otaku Fest 2022April 2, 2022Centennial High School Ellicott City, MDNova Con 2022 CancelledApril 2, 2022Connelly Center Villanova, PA116 more rows
Sakura-ConInaugurated1998Attendance25,000 (est) in 2017Organized byAsia-Northwest Cultural Education Association (ANCEA)Filing status501(c)(3)8 more rows
After canceling their 2020 convention and going virtual in 2021, Anime Expo will return to Los Angeles as a live event in 2022. Following two years of setbacks due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, Anime Expo has announced that the convention will return as a live, in-person event in 2022.
As cosplay has become more mainstream and accessible, people have been able to enter the world of costume creation at younger ages. On average, cosplayers wear their first costume to a convention at age 21. However, there is no age limit for cosplay. People of all ages are welcome to dress as their favorite characters.
COSPLAY IS AN ALL-AGES EVENT. There will have one competition for children 13 and under and then a contest for anyone else entered. The Cosplay choice should be considered a PG-13 rated event at the most.
Find Anime NYC - 3 Day Pass tickets New York starting as low as $317.00. Most tickets will be general admission. We sometimes have premium or VIP tickets available. They can cost as much as $761.00 a ticket.
Anime Frontier is three days of exciting exhibits, premieres, and special events featuring some of the biggest guests in anime and manga making rare appearances in Texas!
The history of anime can be traced back to the start of the 20th century, with the earliest verifiable films dating from 1917. The first generation of animators in the late 1910s included Ōten Shimokawa, Jun'ichi Kōuchi and Seitaro Kitayama, commonly referred to as the "fathers" of anime.
Generally, if your child is above the age of 13, well behaved, and traveling with a group of trusted friends, it's probably fine for them to attend the convention without you. Is my child safe? Anime cons are generally very safe environments.
A list of 2022 USA Anime Conventions from the biggest convention database as found on AnimeCons.com.
Dates Location; Cosplacon 2022: June 16-19, 2022: Capitol Plaza Hotel Jefferson City Jefferson City, MO: Arkansas Anime Festival 2022: June 17-19, 2022: Four Points by Sheraton Bentonville
Anime Expo is the largest celebration of Japanese pop culture in North America! Join us in downtown Los Angeles on July 1-4, 2022!
Anime Expo is the United States’ largest anime convention, boasting over 100,000 attendees. It usually takes place in the middle of summer, so make sure your schedule is open—you won’t want to miss this convention.
Make sure you go to at least one of the following biggest anime conventions in the United States. 1. Anime Boston. If you’re an anime fan living in the northeast, you must attend Anime Boston. This convention is typically held in the spring and rakes in over 20,000 attendees.
On the other end of the coast lies Sakura-Con, a huge pacific-northwest anime convention with a growing guest list. In 2017, the convention saw about 25,000 anime fans.
Expect to wander around the dealer’s room, check out artist’s alley, partake in a masquerade, check out live performances, and take a peek in the manga library.
Anime Boston is New England’s gathering place for all things that have to do with Japanese pop culture.
Katsucon doesn’t only have events that have to do with Japanese pop culture—it also aims to educate attendees about traditional Japanese culture.
Location: National Harbor, Maryland. Occurring in mid-February, Katsucon is the perfect convention to wash away your winter blues. Each year, the event hosts famous guests that star as voice actors in popular anime or Japanese video games. You might get the chance to meet J-rock stars and American actors as well.
It is held in Los Angeles, California.
Yama-Con is an annual three-day anime convention with multi-genre elements held during November/December at the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. As explained at RunRex.com, Yama-Con’s name comes from the Japanese word for mountain, “Yama”.
might have had humble beginnings with an attendance of approximately 300 people during its first year, its numbers have gone up since then, and now attracts over 20,000 attendees annually as discussed at guttulus.com. The convention is entirely volunteer-run, and all the proceeds are set aside to fund the following year’s event.
As the name suggests, this anime convention is held in Atlanta, Georgia, and it is a fan-run anime that offers everything from fan panels and tabletop games to cosplay galleries and concerts as covered at guttulus.com. Fans from all over the US flock to this convention for its wide range of activities as well as its festive, celebratory atmosphere.
This is an annual three-day anime convention that is held at the Four Points by Sheraton Bentonville in Bentonville, Arkansas. AF2, as it has been billed, is the largest anime convention in the state of Arkansas and is family-friendly.
Anime Matsuri is a four-day springtime convention that invites all types of fans to enjoy anime and Japanese pop culture and is held in Houston, Texas. The activities in this event are usually well-received, and as captured at guttulus.com, it is great for cosplaying, as is the case for all anime events.
This anime convention is traditionally held throughout Easter weekend in Seattle, Washington, and is put together by the Asia-Northwest Cultural Education (ANCEA). The organization runs programs and activities 24-hours a day for the duration of the three-day convention as revealed at RunRex.com.
One of the biggest anime festivals in the world would have to be in Tokyo, and this event has consistently hosted more than 100,000 guests every year since it started in 2014. The 2020 event was canceled, but the most recent 2021 convention was successfully held online, and planners are hoping to get back to normal in 2022.
The biggest anime event on the smallest continent, the Madman Anime Festival tends to rotate between Australia's major cities for location. The first festival was held in Melbourne in 2016, with Perth, Brisbane, and Sydney taking turns in the years since.
One of the biggest and most popular events to be held annually in the entire Pacific Northwest, Sakura-Con is scheduled for a weekend in April at the Washington State Convention Center for 2022. This convention is famous for its massive cosplay participation, card game competitions, parties, raves, and even a masquerade ball.
One of the biggest anime conventions in Asia outside of Japan, Comic Fiesta is held every December in Kuala Lampur.
Also known as AX, this popular convention is hosted by Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) every year, often in the summer. New York and Anaheim have also hosted this event, but it's usually held in LA, and in 2022, it's scheduled to take place there again.
Not to be outdone by the folks in California or the Pacific Northwest, the heart of America has its own massive anime expo. What's even more fun about this convention is that it supports a related holiday event that takes place in Florida in December and Matsuricon, another anime convention that takes place in Columbus, Ohio.
This isn't just a celebration of anime, video games, and manga, but an exposition of Japanese culture in general. People who are enthusiasts of Japanese cooking, history, cuisine, and clothing will enjoy the Japan Expo as much as the typical anime fan.
The chance to bond with fellow fans, look for cool merchandise, or see your favorite celebrity is what draws us to these cons. Here is a look at some of the ten biggest conventions, picked by peak capacity.
Japan Expo, France. An extraordinary convention. The largest anime convention outside of Japan, the Expo had over 252,000 visitors in 2019. Based in Paris, Japan Expo runs multiple events in Belgium as well as other places in France.
Comiket, short for "Comic Market," is the largest anime and manga convention in the world, bringing in over 750,000 fans, aspiring artists, and cosplayers in 2019. That's more than half a million people for those of you that, like me, stink at math. Comiket is Japan's largest indoor public gathering.
Formerly known as Salón Del Manga, which translates to "Manga Room" in Spanish, Manga Barcelona is Spain's biggest anime convention, bringing in over 150,000 people in 2018.
Probably the most recent example on the list, Anime Japan is a merger between two former conventions that started in 2014. Its last run brought in over 140,000 attendees.
While recent controversies have cut the total attendees down from 40,000 attendees in 2018 to 29,000 in 2019, as of this writing it is still one of the most popular anime conventions in the United States. What's unique about this event:
Comic Fiesta, Malaysia. Some of the fantastic cosplay you'll see there. Comic Fiesta is one of Southeast Asia's largest conventions, bringing in 65,000 visitors in 2019. It plays host to the biggest amateur creative market in Malaysia, as well as to many guests in the comic, music, and animation industries.
Japan Expo in Paris is the largest convention in Europe, and in the world outside Japan. Anime conventions later spread to Australia in the late 1990s with Manifest, first held in 1998. Many anime conventions were cancelled or postponed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activities and panels, with a larger number of attendees participating in cosplay than most other types ...
Anime conventions often have panels, which are open ended discussions involving some pre-determined topic, usually related in at least some way to anime. Panels usually come in two segments, the host puts on a presentation or does an interview with a guest, and then the fans are asked to give questions.
A guest can be an industry figure, some notable examples include director Hiroyuki Kanbe, author Tsukasa Fushimi, and Kazuma Miki from Ascii Media Works. In 2013 they screened for the first time the final three episodes from the second season of Oreimo. Guests can also include artists and performers, some notable examples of these include Kazuki Takahashi, creator of Yu-Gi-Oh!. An anime convention represents an opportunity to interact with such individuals that may not be possible outside the event.
Anime conventions started showing up in the United States in the early 1980s. Project A-Kon first started in 1990, and is considered to be the first anime convention in the country, but this is disputed. It is also claimed that YamatoCon, a convention "devoted to Japanese animation" was first held in 1983 in Dallas Texas.
AUKcon was a one-day anime convention held in London, England in 1994, and was chaired by Helen McCarthy. Salón del Manga de Barcelona, first held in Barcelona, Spain in 1995 is also one of the largest European conventions. Japan Expo in Paris is the largest convention in Europe, and in the world outside Japan.
Comic Frontier, an anime convention held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
This three-day anime convention gives participants the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in Japanese pop and cartoon culture. Many people who attend Anime NYC also choose to cosplay, or dress up as their favorite characters, which may involve using spectacular props. The atmosphere is kept family-friendly and welcomes people of just about any age.
More than 350 different staff members work together to make Anime Boston a reality.
Anime Central was first started in order to fill the anime con gap in the Central United States.
Anime and Manga, or Japanese animation and comics, have drawn a huge number of fans from around the world. People just can’t get enough of the styles, characters, and fictitious worlds that Japanese media brings to life! Unsurprisingly, events that promote the celebration of fandoms and Japanese pop culture often draw in huge numbers ...
Source: wikimedia.org. Otakon might have had humble beginnings with an attendance of approximately 300 people during its first year, but its numbers have climbed much higher since then! Otakorp Inc., which organizes Otakon each year, is an educational non-profit and includes educational elements throughout the event.
Sakura-con is traditionally held over the course of Easter weekend, and is put together by the Asia-Northwest Cultural Education Association (ANCEA). The organization runs programs and activities 24 hours a day for the duration of the three-day convention! Sakura-con also includes a number of fundraisers to support charities such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
75% or more of a cosplayer’s costume must be created or altered by the contestant in order to be considered for a prize.