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Anime Expo

AX Memories Home
Extra!  Extra!  Extra!
  Yes indeed, what was it like back then, folks?  Well, most of us did watch anime on puny little TVs and huddled together at certain times of the month to trade tapes, share manga, and maybe invade a local anime video shop or anime goods store.  It was the best of times, and it could only get better when you had an anime convention with... BIGGER TVs and all the anime shops were in a single Dealer's Room.  Now how cool was that?  And to top it all off, you could karaoke all night, do a little costume play, watch anime in the 24-hour video rooms, do a little gaming, or whatever!  This wasn't your typical elitist club.  You could frolic around to your heart's content to every Dealer's table, every video room, every panel, and wander into Art Show and pretty much do everything and anything you wanted because everyone else was doing the same thing.  Now, again, how cool was that?  And you know what, it still is!

Now relax a bit and take a gander at a small sampling of a few more memorable images from our first Anime Expo. 

Ken Iyadomi speaks with fans at a party.  In a time when the mere mention of "Akira" made an anime fan's ears perk up, Ken was the one of the big Cool Dudes. Some of us grew up with Speed Racer.  Some of us grew up with Starblazers.  And god forbid, some us of grew up with Battle of the Planets.  But most of us grew up with Robotech a.k.a Macross and that's where we worshipped Minmei, Lisa, and yes, even Rick Hunter, all because of... Mikimoto!

 It didn't matter what he did, cool shows like Kabuto, Cobra, Goku; Buichi Terasawa was just the ultimate coolest of the Cool Dudes.  Take one look at his shades and you swore he was a cool manga character brought to life.
A powerful team, Fred Schodt and Yoshiyuki Tomino were a presence that brought you to your knees if you were a Gundam fan.  You could almost see an aura of heavenly light glowing like a Newtype's halo above Tomino if you looked hard enough. Buichi Terasawa (left) karaokes with AX translators Yoshi Karahashi and Toshi Yoshida. But the excitement doesn't stop there!  Even the *gasp!* staffers have caught the karaoke bug!