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Anime Expo is a shining beacon of insanity for many anime and manga fans, with so many events crammed into a 4 day weekend it's pretty much a given that you'll never be able to take up all that the event has to offer but it never hurts to try, this year we take a look at AX 2008 as it arrives in LA at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Nokia Theater. The space spanning over the entire convention center from South Hall to West Hall giving people arcades, console gaming areas, live programming panels, video rooms, a manga room and a massive theater thanks to their partnership with the Nokia Theater just across the street from West Hall.

This year was a given to be a challenge to the SPJA, with rising gas prices and economic problems circling about even I was speculating on how the show might pull out. The overall turnout though was huge with 43,000 unique visitors coming in over the 4 day span and over 103,000 visitors running around in general over the span giving a good level of consistent traffic over the days of the convention. I guess it helped to have a massive exhibition hall for buyers to get lost in, a giant artist alley hall and so many activities present that people could easily get lost in them and forget about time entirely.

The show itself was quite a scene this year with things like Man Faye taking a huge back seat compared to oddities such as Hard Gay dancing rather oddly with tentacle monsters at times and Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders taking on all fighters. This only made a larger ball of energy for those attending though as a consistent positive vibe followed throughout the show given prior speculation about the location and safety of visitors.

Let’s jump forward from the general overview into the AX2008 offerings this year.