AnimeNEXT’s Artist Alley was practically bursting at the seams over the weekend. I’ve never seen it so busy! Plus, there were even a few more artists in the dealer’s room.

The alley had also somewhat morphed into half craft fair. Printed sticky notes, handmade clothing, glass ornaments, handwritten scrolls, pottery, hand-knit dolls, hair clips, dioramas, candles, body spray, and the list goes on. But by far the most popular new item seemed to be washi tape, printed rolls of tape with cute graphic patterns of different characters. (I didn’t actually buy any of this mysterious tape, but perhaps that will change at Otakon.)

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 It is still going to be a little while before I get used to the fact that AnimeNEXT can get a packed room for anime production guests. It would be easy to assume that the hype around Kill la Kill lead to an unsustainable turn out for Studio Trigger last year. But the fact that the room for the Trigger panel was completely filled this year proves that if you properly bill the Japanese guests you can a full house in a big room. It was amazingly heartwarming. People WILL attend Japanese guests panels. I would love to see Otakon up their game and get a similar turn out with their Japanese guests.

But in turn Trigger brought their A game this year. Last year that really wowed the audience with never seen before Kill la Kill production sketches, great commentary, and a lively Q&A. This year they went one step beyond. They had a lot of hard to see or exclusive video. When they pulled out the big guns I think everyone was sufficiently blown away. If anything they had much less Q&A despite the panel being two hours because they had so much to show everyone. That alone made AnimeNEXT 2015 worth the price of admission. Everything past that was just a bonus.

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