Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Answers the Question: What's so special about Anime?

Japanese animation, affectionately called "Anime," is unique. With good reason, parents and grandparents (as well as friends and siblings) from around the world have noticed the passion around anime and wondered what they were missing. In recent years the phenomenon, like video games and superhero comics, has breached containment in "nerdy" subcultures and gone mainstream.

In a panel by a market research firm "fanserveUS" led by CEO John McCallum at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, the team went over findings from their new "Kaiju report" produced with a partnership with the Japanese Company GEM Partners. The firm reported that since the pandemic anime has exploded into the mainstream, jumping from 8% to 19% of people 13-69 reporting having watched anime in the last three months.

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Many areas (entrances, AX Crossing, Beer Garden, etc.) stay open later-often until midnight or 2 AM on the first three days.

At first glance, Anime reminds some Americans of western cartoons, just dubbed or captioned into English. Like children's shows and even adult comedies such as "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy," Cartoons carry the impression, perhaps started by the association with Walt Disney, that they are primarily for children. Child-oriented western animation is friendly, ridiculous, bright, and colorful, and the adult-oriented shows use the incongruity to find comedy in something seemingly meant for children actually being irreverent and mature.

The differences however soon become apparent: Western Cartoons are usually either child entertainment or adult humor, while Anime of virtually every genre are popular. Another potential line of comparison, American comic books, also have die hard fans and their own conventions, but don't have the breadth of subject matter that Anime does either. While Anime has its roots in comics and has its fair share of superheroes, its popular appeal isn't limited to one kind of story-making anime more similar to mediums like 'live action' and 'claymation' than to genres like superhero, or comedy, or romance. While the genres can be anything, there is an underlying Japanese perspective underlying the way the stories are written and told, and that is most noticeable in art style.

The art in Anime is completely different from western animations: humans are, even by cartoon standards, incredibly unrealistic. Eyes are huge, greatly exaggerated to express emotion, noses and mouths are single lines, and styles and proportions change abruptly. Anime Faces can be so similar to one another that accessories and hairstyles become more extreme to help tell characters apart. Realism generally increases the less human something is. Pets are more impressionistic, wild animals less so, familiar physical objects are relatively normal, and the infrastructure of modern society is displayed in realistic line art. Some of this helps to simplify the things that have to be drawn repeatedly in stories about people, but the result is a dreamlike, hypercharged emotional quality reminiscent of the kinds of details left out of ancient myths.

Compared to the general western art tradition, anime oversizes the eyes, which people regard as the most important part of the face. Children, who cause our most emotional responses, have disproportionately large eyes. Anyone trying to draw a human head for the first time will place the eyes too high, as people fixate on eyes. The eyes are called the windows of the soul for a reason, and humans dedicate a portion of their brains to facial recognition which skews our perception of reality. The Anime art style is focused around being emotional, something modern western cartoons usually shy away from.

That emotional connection is evident in the enthusiasm of fans. When an industry panel of professional market researchers appears at a convention to a full room of people excited to cheer on the growth of their favorite entertainment medium, that is likely an indicator in itself. Perhaps the most notable indication that something is different about anime was the way that a market analytics firm could claim to love their work since they were themselves fans, and have everyone believe them.

Anime Expo (AX) 2026 is taking place July 2–5, 2026, at the Los Angeles Convention Center (1201 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015). It is currently sold out.

anime-expo.org

Main Event Hours (General Public / Exhibit Hall, etc.)July 2 (Day 1, Thursday): 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (exhibits); entrances open until midnight or later depending on gate

July 3 (Day 2, Friday): 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (exhibits)

July 4 (Day 3, Saturday): 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (exhibits)

July 5 (Day 4, Sunday): 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM (exhibits)

Many areas (entrances, AX Crossing, Beer Garden, etc.) stay open later-often until midnight or 2 AM on the first three days.