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Anime Expo - Author's Notes - 2005 As the 2005 convention ended, Anime Expo announced they had set a new attendance record of more than 30,000 people at the Anaheim, Calif. over the four-day Independence Day weekend, an increase of at least 5,000 over their 2004 attendance. The event didn't feel that large. It wasn't small by any means, but Anime Expo in 2005 felt like a smaller convention than in 2004. It wasn't less busy for this writer, as we spent a lot more time in interview sessions and rushing to get images of costumers. Anime Expo didn't feel as crowded as events with comparable attendance, such as the Gen Con Game Fair or Star Wars Celebration. The event just didn't seem as crowded in 2005 as 2004, and we weren't the only one to feel that way. We spent some time trying to figure that out. The place that may have been more crowded was the dealers' room, which seemed to have more booths from front to back, even though it was in the same Anaheim Convention Center hall. That dealers' room exited into another equally sized room used for Expo's animasuri festival with fair-style booths, shared with some of the event's registration lines, and that could have held some fans - although it seemed lightly attended when we wandered through on Monday. A separate indoor cosplay gathering area was located in that hall, we think...call us easily lost, but we never found the place all weekend, and most of this site's cosplay pictures came from the same area between the convention center and the Anaheim Hilton where fans gathered in previous years. Part of the reason for the less-crowded feeling might have been the move to the south halls of the convention center. There also was the exceptionally busy event schedule, which had as many as six parallel tracks of panels, workshops and shows in the convention center and two hotels. Giving fans so much to do may have taken more of them out of milling-about circulation and given the impression that things were less crowded, when they were really busier. The highest compliment ever received by this site came from a fan who said that "people are starting to take you for granted." So it must have been frustrating for visitors to this site who found broken links and missing pictures during the Expo. Apologies to those who had those trouble and for others who wondered why material took longer than usual to appear. Part of the situation was that something we've started to taken for granted, easily accessible, useful Internet access, was hard to find on this weekend. Part of the reason was this writer's decision to get a room at the best cheap motel close to the convention center, which had great room rates but only phone line access, and those lines were so dirty that we got only slow connections. But the pay-per-use WiFi at both the Anaheim Hilton and the convention center was little better; it really couldn't be called "high-speed" access. On Monday afternoon, this writer took a chance with the convention center's WiFi, and found it wasn't good enough to handle a basic eight-megabyte upload in less than an hour. We got so desperate on Monday evening that we tried uploading with our cell phone link from the shuttle van taking us to the airport; it almost worked, and we were able to get a few more files online. We spend time at interview sessions because we're trying to make sure this site looks at not only cosplay, but the artists and creators who make the art that inspires cosplay. The closest thing we saw to a controversy all weekend came from some of the entrants in the World Cosplay Summit U.S. finals, who said they'd been disqualified from a chance at the world finals in Japan in August because they'd chosen a Rose of Versailles theme - the same one they'd used to acclaim at Fanime Con five weeks earlier. We hadn't heard anything more about this by the time we left the convention to head home. Anime Expo continues to show more interest in dubbed anime. They brought in three dub actors as "special guests," one level below the guests of honor. And the big 2004 .hack dub panel was followed by a big panel on the R.O.D The TV dub, with most of the series' dub cast on one stage to meet fans. That group of dub actors had a big autograph line after the panel was over, and we spotted at least three Yomiko Readman costumers in that line at one time (one of them was male). Here's the listing of awards from the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation: Best male character, Japanese release - Ichigo, Bleach Best female character, Japanese release - Fuu, Samurai Champloo Best non-human character, Japanese release - Maromi, Paranoia Agent Best manga, Japanese release - Death Note Best publication, Japanese release - Newtype Best male character, U.S. release - Sagara Sosuske, Full Metal Panic Best female character, U.S. release - Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell Best non-human character, U.S. release - Calcifer, Howl's Moving Castle Best manga, U.S. release - Bleach Best publication, U.S. release - Newtype USA Best TV series, Japanese release - Tsubasa Chronicles Best movie, Japanese release - Howl's Moving Castle Best OVA, Japanese release - Tales of Fantasia Actus Best music album, Japanese release - Mai Hime soundtrack Best film debut at Anime Expo - Princess Mononoke Best TV series, U.S. release - Wolf's Rain Best movie, U.S. release - Howl's Moving Castle Best OVA, U.S. release - Happy Lession Best music album - Samurai Champloo soundtrack Best booth - Geneon Best U.S. compamny ADV Filma Most innovative industry sponsor - Stephen, Geneon Pictures Panels