Japan Expo 2012

Exhibit Hall

At Japan Expo, the total exhibit and event space is 120,000 square meters (approximately 1.3 million square feet). So just how big is 120,000 square meters? Here's a little video we took from on top of Kaze's booth (they had a double decker bus as part of their booth, pretty cool). This video doesn't even show half the total exhibit space.

To put things into perspective, San Diego Comic Con's exhibit space is just over 460,000 square feet and Anime Expo's exhibit space is only a fraction of that. To be fair though, both SDCC and AX have a significant amount separate space for panels and other events, while Japan Expo builds stages inside the main exhibit hall for many of their events (they do have two external stages for their main events and concerts, as well as one external theatre for film presentations).

(many of the photos below have accompanying text)

Hall 6 is mostly for comic-con and video games, but it still includes a significant amount of Japanese content. Nintendo had a massive 1200 sq. meter booth. That's 13,000 square feet. Namco Bandai had a similarly large space.

The right side of hall 6. Notice the martial arts demo, one of the many cultural aspects of Japan Expo.

The left side of hall 6.

The hallway between halls 5 & 6. Ankama's multiple booths combined to be one of the largest booth spaces in the event.

The MMA stage, sponsored by "Free Fight," otherwise known as "Tough" in the rest of the world. These women are preparing for a demo.

atsuatsu has numerous food stands throughout the exhibit hall. They sell donburi (Ricebowls - gyudon, etc), yakisoba, okonomiyaki and other Japanese food. It's a little overpriced though, a bowl of gyudon (beef & rice bowl) costs 15 euro.

More food vendors.

The official Studio Ghibli booth.

The "Hall of Fame" art gallery showing artwork from classic anime that were popular in France in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The Japan National Tourist Organization had a large booth space promoting tourism to Japan. It was organized so that independant tourism related organizations also had their booth in the same general vicinity.

Japan Foundation, another official Japanese government agency that focuses on Japanese cultural exchanges and has was also exhibiting in the area.

The city of Kyoto had it's own booth across the aisle from the JNTO area.

Kaze's rather large booth was split into numerous areas, including this bus, from which the above video was shot. Kaze is Europe's largest anime publisher. They were recently acquired by Viz Media Europe.

Perhaps one of the coolest exhibits in all of Japan Expo was Kaze's Shojo Cafe.

Not wanting the other 48% of their consumer base to feel left out, Kaze also had the Geek Bar to promote their shonen and seinen titles.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's booth

Forerunner of adult manga and creator of Urotsukidoji and La Blue Girl, Toshio Maeda spend much of Japan Expo at his booth doing original commissions for fans.

Moto Hagio's booth

TMS's large Lupin the Third booth.

Fujiko Mine throughout the years. This is the same image that was displayed at Tokyo Anime Fair this year.

Kana's booth for I am Hero. Kana is one of the largest manga publishers in France.

Kana's bookstore. Or rather, half of Kana's bookstore.

Unsurprisingly, Kana dedicated a large portion of their booth to Naruto. It might surprise many people, but while Kaze is a subsidiary of Viz Media (and therefore Shueisha, the Japanese publisher of Naruto), it doesn't hold the rights to the Naruto manga. Kana is a larger manga publisher than Kaze, and acquired the rights to Naruto before Kaze was acquired by Viz.

Kana had a large art exposition for Naruto.

Not wanting to be left out, Namco Bandai also dedicated half their booth space to this huge inflatable Kyūbi.

Tokyopop may be all but dead in North America, but Anna Hollman's stupid story, an original German language manga published by Tokyopop (and published in France by Taifu), is so popular in France that there was a constant lineup to get her autograph.

Evan large Japanese electronics firms like Brother get in on the action. Brother set up a number of displays at their booth, each one showing products that would be of interest to anime and manga fans, from Karaoke players to color printers (for printing your fanart).

During show hours, Brother's Karaoke was quite popular.

There was a whole booth dedicated to the Japanese art of Zanzen. Zanzen is the Zen Buddhist meditation discipline for calming one's mind and body. Attendees could take one on one Zanzen courses right at the booth.

Or for something a little more exciting, attendees could learn to play Mahjong.