Crunchyroll Expo 2019 | My Experience

Last week @rokutsu and I heading over to San Jose, CA to attend Crunchyroll Expo 2019. This was my second year, I was pretty impressed with how well things went then. This was Nick’s first time. We were mainly there to hang out with our friend and previous podcast host Lauren Perrin. I had goals that I wanted to achieve during this trip and Lauren helped me immensely with that. So I thought I would talk about my overall thoughts about the con and also talk about what this con has done for me.

Before leaving for Crunchyroll Expo, I was kind of in a slump when it came to writing or doing anything really in the creative department. I don’t know what it was but I couldn’t even draw, which is my usual escape from everyone. I had a feeling that I needed something like this to rejuvenate me, whether it was just to make me want to do creative things again or just bring back the love I had for the anime fandom. I didn’t plan for any of it to be “content” for BAYOG. I personally just wanted to gain back an outlet that I once I had which has been writing, drawing and talking about anime.

One of the goals I set for myself was to get out of my shell more. Every con I go to, I bring my Canon with me and then I leave it at the AirBnB or just take it and never shoot anything. I have all these internal reasons like “They look like they are chilling with friends now, I don’t want to disturb”, “My pictures suck so why bother?” and “Someone else can get a better shot.” I know this is pretty negative. I wanted to change that and Lauren was instrumental in that. Last year when I came to CRX, she was taking shots left and right and was even instructing the cosplayer to get better shots. I want that! So, she took me under her wing this con and I got many shots! It was probably one of the best con experiences I’ve had because I was able to interact with so many people that I normally wouldn’t.

Alright, let’s talk about the con!

The issues that occurred at CRX this year were very minor and fixed fairly quickly. One issue was not being able to bring in DSLRs into the convention. This seemed like a communication issue between security. Apparently, they had three different sources of security and I don’t think they were all on the same page. I respect the fact there was that much security in the first place so I won’t complain about that.

There was one major difference in the panels this year. This year felt very official and industry-focused. There’s nothing wrong with that but for me, I do like to break things up by going to the fun silly panels. One of my favorite anime con panels is “Anime Burger Time.” It is what it sounds like, watching anime characters eat burgers while you eat burgers. The lack of this wasn’t jarring or anything. Just know moving forward that CRX may be more of a place for formal panels to get insight on what’s happening in the industry.

I believe Crunchyroll really stepped it up with their guests for this year. As a fan of almost all of them, I was pretty excited that I would have an opportunity to meet any of them. I was pretty sad that I didn’t get to meet Junji Ito but I did meet the amazing people behind Mob Psycho 100 and get a poster signed by them! Also meeting King Vader and getting to shoot some shots of him was a fun experience.

After working with and being a fan of Crunchyroll for many years, I’m happy to see where they have gotten. They are oozing potential and they probably still have so much in store for us. Hopefully, next year I can go with a press badge so I can bring more to you guys. Thanks so much for reading this and just being there through my inconsistency. Working on it. Have a great weekend!