AnimeCon, held in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

in 1991, was the fourth

anime convention An anime and manga convention (often called just anime convention) is a fan convention with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Anime conventions are commonly multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college cam ...

created in the United States, the first convention to have major backing from the anime industry, the first anime-specific convention within the state of California (which spawned many similar conventions thereafter), and the first anime-specific convention in the US to break 1,000 attendees. It also formed the genesis of

Anime Expo Anime Expo, abbreviated AX, is an American anime convention held in Los Angeles, California and organized by the non-profit Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA). The convention is traditionally held annually on the first we ...

(currently the largest anime-specific convention in North America).

Guests

Guests included

Jerry Beck Jerry Beck (born February 9, 1955) is an American animation historian, author, blogger (person), blogger, and video producer. Beck wrote or edited several books on classic American animation and classic characters, including ''Looney Tunes and ...

Colleen Doran Colleen Doran (born July 24, 1964) is an American comic book creator, writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and ...

, Geoff Everets, Carl Macek, Ken Macklin, Johji Manabe,

Leiji Matsumoto was a Japanese manga artist, and creator of several anime and manga series. His widow Miyako Maki is also a manga artist. Matsumoto was famous for his works such as ''Space Battleship Yamato'' and ''Galaxy Express 999''. His style was chara ...

, Luke Menichelli,

Haruhiko Mikimoto is a Japanese anime character designer, illustrator and manga artist. Mostly active during the 1980s, during that decade he rose to prominence and is considered one of the top character designers of his time. He graduated from Keio University, ...

, Robert Napton, John O'Donnell,

Toshio Okada is an anime producer, author, and lecturer. He is a co-founder and former president of the production company Gainax. He is portrayed by actor Gaku Hamada in the 2014 TV Drama '' Aoi Honō'' based on the autobiographical manga by his fellow K ...

Katsuhiro Otomo is a Japanese Mangaka, manga artist, screenwriter, animator, and film director. He first rose to prominence as a pioneer founder of the New Wave (manga), New Wave in the 1970s. He is best known as the creator of ''Akira (franchise), Akira'', bo ...

, David Riddick, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto,

Toren Smith Toren V. Smith (April 12, 1960 – March 4, 2013) was a Canadian manga translator and founder of Studio Proteus. Early life Smith learned to read by the age of four, and by the age of 12 had won his first award for writing from the Calgary ...

Kenichi Sonoda is a Japanese manga artist and anime, animation character designer. Professional career Born in Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture, Sonoda moved to Tokyo in 1984, at the age of 21, and began work at Artmic, an anime studio. During this time, he worke ...

Rick Sternbach Richard Michael Sternbach (born July 6, 1951) is an illustrator who is best known for his space illustrations and his work on the ''Star Trek'' television series. Early years Born July 6, 1951, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1969 Sternbach enr ...

, Jeff Thompson, Adam Warren, Robert Woodhead, Trish Ledoux and Toshifumi Yoshida.

Attendance

Attendance was officially estimated at 2,000.

History

During its inaugural year, AnimeCon went deeply into debt due to severe budget overruns. Soon after, a management dispute erupted which imperiled the chance of a follow-on. Many of the staff went on to form Anime Expo, while others went on to form a rival convention, Anime America (which was canceled in 1997 and went defunct shortly thereafter). The period between late 1992 and early 1997 is sometimes referred to as the "Con Wars" by attendees and staffers of both conventions. It was typified by a number of personal attacks and allegations of sabotage on and off the Internet (and in particular on rec.arts.anime). Although Anime Expo is, for all practical purposes, considered separate from AnimeCon, the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (AX's parent organization) took control of AnimeCorp in 1992 and assumed many of its legal and financial obligations (including all debts incurred), the rights to the AnimeCon name, and existing stocks of unsold merchandise (including large numbers of the aforementioned T-shirts). Pre-registrations for the planned AnimeCon '92 were converted into Anime Expo '92 pre-registrations. AnimeCon Corporation was formally dissolved in February 1993. Filed 23 February 1993. Today, AnimeCon merchandise is considered a collectible item by some. Program booklets and T-shirts can still be found. AnimeCon T-shirts were sold on behalf of the SPJA during the subsequent years of AX. San Jose would begin hosting another anime convention known as

FanimeCon FanimeCon is an annual four-day anime convention held during May at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, over Memorial Day weekend. Programming The convention typically offers an AMV contest, artist's alley, contes ...

in 1999. Since 2004, FanimeCon has taken place at the San Jose Convention Center.

References

{{Reflist Recurring events established in 1991 Recurring events disestablished in 1993 1991 establishments in California 1993 disestablishments in California Defunct anime conventions Conventions in California

Guests

Attendance

Sponsors

History

References