Anime convention

An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activities and panels, with a larger number of attendees participating in cosplay than most other types of fan conventions. Anime conventions are also used as a vehicle for industry, in which studios, distributors, and publishers represent their anime related releases.

Anime conventions have long and varied worldwide history. The original Comiket, mostly based on fan published manga called dōjinshi, started in 1975 with around 700 people in Tokyo. In recent years, Comiket has attracted over a half million people. Japanese anime conventions are heavily sponsored by studios or publishing companies and are used as platforms for new releases. In addition to Japan, convention officials at venues such as AnimeJapan have been trying to reach out to overseas manga otaku. Anime conventions started showing up in the United States in the early 1980s.Project A-Kon first started in 1990, and is considered to be the first anime convention in the country, but this is disputed. It is also claimed that YamatoCon, a convention "devoted to Japanese animation" was first held in 1983 in Dallas Texas. Since then, multiple anime conventions have appeared in numerous states. Since the first anime convention which brought in a few hundred people, anime conventions have exploded in popularity.AnimeCon which was held in San Jose, California in 1991 is notable for being the first convention to break the 1,000 attendance mark. It was also the first convention to receive support from American and Japanese production studios.Anime Expo which has been held in California since 1992 is the largest anime convention in North America and attracted approximately 90,500 people in 2015. Anime conventions in other locations, such as Europe began to take off in the Mid-1990s. AUKcon was a one-day anime convention held in London, England in 1994, and was chaired by Helen McCarthy.Salón del Manga de Barcelona, first held in Barcelona, Spain in 1995 is also one of the largest European conventions. Japan Expo in Paris is the largest convention in Europe, and in the world outside Japan. Anime conventions later spread to Australia in the late 1990s with Manifest, first held in 1998.

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