Fans packed the halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center for Anime Expo. (Arash Zandi/Neon Tommy)

Over 200,000 people from around the world gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center this past week for the 25th annual Anime Expo (AX).

“I’m very excited and have come here for the past three years," said Harrison, one of the attendees. "I get to hang out with a bunch of nerds and go shopping as well."

Organized by the non-profit organization Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) and first launched in 1992, Anime Expo is North America’s largest anime convention.

Dealers dabbling in all sorts of anime paraphernalia—from t-shirts to figurines to video games to jewelry—set up stalls and booths in the large Exhibit Hall, while artists selling their paintings, drawings and stickers populated the nearby Artist Alley.

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Thrilling fans, voice actors from iconic shows such as Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon attended AX as well. 

Sean Schemmel, Chris Sabat and Justin Cook were in Los Angeles for the world premiere of the English dub of the latest chapter in the long-running show’s saga, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

“This is my first time at AX," said Schemmel, the voice of Dragon Ball Z's Zoku. "I’m super excited to be here and I’m really stoked about the film. It feels like something we’ve been working on for 15 years."

Arash cosplaying as Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians. (Arash Zandi/Neon Tommy)

Hulu will begin airing the remake of another iconic anime series, Sailor Moon, in its new form, Sailor Moon Crystal, and the voice actresses for the protagonists were on hand at AX to join in the festivities, participating in autograph signings that many fans reveled in.

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All in all, the Anime Expo is a place to honor fandoms, the subculture of devotees dedicated to a particular anime, manga, TV show, movie, book or video game. Such a gathering allows people to engage in discourse and form friendships with like-minded fans.

Anime fandom in particular began in the 1970s, and has a special history of fans dressing up as their favorite characters, in what is called cosplaying (short for costume play).

Throughout the halls of the Anime Expo, fans showed off homemade costumes featuring their favorite characters from anime, video games and even Disney movies.

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Historically, anime has been somewhat dominated by men, resulting in common depictions of women as passive counterparts to the heroic males, an issue that the ladies of the Women in Popular Culture panel addressed.

“Creating content that more people can relate to and showing women on the same level as men is key,” said panelist, singer/songwriter Bean Noelle.

Yet, many women who cosplay are subject to barrages of vitriolic insults from both men and women—especially when they choose to wear revealing costumes, an issue addressed in the Cosplay is not Consent panel hosted by veteran cosplayers who have experienced such harassment.

The voice actors for Dragon Ball Z were on hand for the convention. (Arash Zandi/Neon Tommy)

“A lot of conventions don’t define rules of sexual harassment," said Kimberly Doerner, co-creator of Cosplay Deviants. "Some people don’t realize that what they’re doing is inappropriate especially since there’s no guideline out there that defines what's wrong."

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Anime Expo didn’t just feature panels from Japanese animated shows, however. Black Dynamite, an American show satirizing 1970 blaxploitation films, hosted a Q&A panel, in anticipation of the first season’s Blu-ray and DVD release on July 15.

“Telling stories from a black perspective is one that we’re familiar with. But it’s really about the nature of stories we want to tell," said Carl Jones, the show’s executive producer. "If the focal point is to tell really good stories, it doesn’t matter what nationality the characters are, as long as it’s honest."

Various anime related items, such as these figurines from the anime Sailor Moon, were on sale at Anime Expo. (Arash Zandi/Neon Tommy)

Anime and manga rarely see the light of day in academic environments, but New York-based librarian Mikhail Koulikov tried to break that barrier with his panel, Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs of Anime and Manga in the Classroom.

“As academic professionals in anime and manga, we want to know what do current or potential students actually want from us, expect from us and how can we help you,” said Koulikov.

Alex Leavitt, a graduate student at USC's Annenberg school expanded on this idea in a panel focusing on a recent phenomenon, Twitch Plays Pokemon (TPP) where people from all over the world collectively played the popular video game, Pokémon Red Version, by inputting button commands via text messages on Twitch.tv.

“I’ve always been really interested in online culture phenomena, especially when it brings a lot of people together for one particular thing," said Leavitt. "TPP is interesting particularly because it was this interesting intersection between the researches I’ve been doing on video games, fan cultures and social media."

With the convention boasting events and panels for novice and seasoned anime fans alike, there was something for everyone to enjoy at Anime Expo.

Reach Staff Reporter Arash Zandi here. Follow him on Twitter here.