Anime Contents Expo Day 1 & 2

After its unfortunate cancellation in 2011 following the Great East Japan Earthquake, the first-ever Anime Contents Expo (ACE) began on Saturday in otaku-targeted anime, often times holding events featuring the voice casts of various shows. An entire third of the floor was dedicated to a special stage for events, most of which featured voice actresses talking and singing, causing loud and energetic cheers to be heard nearly nonstop throughout the entire hall. Anime News Network was there gathering photos and coverage of the major booths, so read on to learn more!

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Day 1

Aniplex

Aniplex had one of the largest, if not the largest booth on the floor. Their main space featured small compartments that displayed everything from promotional videos and information about shows to production materials and replica props for dozens of series that the Robotics;Notes, which was only announced yesterday.

As most booths at ACE were, Aniplex was selling limited-edition merchandise for many of these shows as well, such as Inu X Boku Secret Service poster and toilet paper sets, and more. In addition to the various Aniplex-related events on the main ACE stage, the company also brought along its own stage, where they held smaller talk events and radio shows.

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Animate

The anime and anime merchandise giant Animate drew one of the largest lines in ACE with their booth dedicated to doing what they do best, selling anime merchandise. Limited-edition merchandise for sale encomed everything from smaller goods for programs such as Monthly Newtype anime magazine.

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Bandai Visual

Bandai Visual's booth featured a large wrap-around screen that d various properties such as Summer Wars, and more.

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Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video had a significant presence on the show floor, promoting both anime and live-action titles. A significant part of the booth was taken up by the Accel World anime, but live-action Hollywood films such as The Dark Knight Rises were also quite noticeable, especially on a show floor primarily dominated by anime and manga titles.

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Dentsu

TV Tokyo and Dentsu, both of which also had large booths at TAF, teamed up at ACE to exhibit together in one large booth. The front of the booth featured a giant screen playing various promotional videos, while the back side of the booth had posters displaying information about current and titles such as Medaka Box.

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The Chichibu Anime Tourism Executive Committee

Animation production, distribution, and merchandising companies weren't the only groups with exhibits on the show floor, as a tourism committee from anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. Maps of the city that showed where visitors could go in order to see the areas reproduced in the anime were also distributed at the event.

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Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

A centrally-located booth for the Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita was another one of the few displays dedicated entirely to one program or Romeo Tanaka light novel series-turned-anime that is slated to begin airing this summer. The exhibit d itself as having something for "all five senses," and had an impressive display in the front, complete with character cut-outs, promotional videos, and three-dimensional greenery, as well as light novel and manga samples in the back. To round out the rest of the senses, a ments for a "Secret Factory Chicken Sandwich" sold in the food court were posted around the floor, claiming that it was "straight from the factory" and depicting it as a sandwich big enough to be straight out of Blondie.

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Special Exhibition

One of the more unique spaces on the floor was the "Special Exhibit" that featured rare and one-of-a-kind items from popular anime series. Visitors could view everything from a full-sized Madoka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a full-sized version of Saber's Maken-Ki! breasts mouse pad.

Update: ACE's location corrected.