So I have an interesting set of reasons as to why I ended up at LA Comic Con this year. For awhile I’ve really wanted to try out Nintendoland in Universal Studios Hollywood plus with my autograph collection I needed another trip to LA to meet up with actors that I’ve never had a chance to meet before. So to do all of that while trying something different I made this the year I try out LA Comic Con for the first time.

First lets look at the guests. LA Comic Con features some absolute icons in pop culture including Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen from Star Wars, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd from Back To The Future, Ming-Na Wen from Mulan and Marvel’s Agents of Shield and the list goes on and on. You have notable voice actors from My Hero Academia, Avatar the Last Air Bender, and loads of comic book creators. It was an incredible list, but this only includes the guests brought by the convention themselves the vendors have their own guests to highlight which I’ll get to shortly.

The vendors and artist ally ended up being my favorite part of the entire convention. Not only was it spacious and full of merch to shop for but it had a wide variety of actors. Walking around I found the cast of X-Men 97, and other voice actor guests like Brian Beacock, Doug Erholtz, Rachelle Heger, Valeria Rodriguez and so many more. I found an entire conventions worth of actors just in the vendors that it felt like a convention within a convention. Then you have the merch that you can buy which made me spend way more than what I thought I would. I found artists that I personally knew like Chunky Tomato and I was introduced to all kinds of cool stuff that was new to me. I found a Snorlax inspired Pokeball, coins to add to my ever growing collection, so many pins, prints and more. I even met some of the incredible talent behind the Power Rangers comicbook series. It was so easy to walk around and look at everything even at the peak hours of the weekend. It honestly surprised me all weekend how easy it was to walk around and do see everything. I expected everything I wanted to do to take far longer than what it did leaving me with plenty of time to explore at a very comfortable pace.

Now I do have one negative and that was finding an artist who was selling merch that looks exactly like art I bought from another artist I’ve been a fan of for years named CatCrossing art. For long time followers you’ll know this is an artist I bought merch from several years ago which is still hanging on my wall today. Now I know that’s tricky for the convention to sort out but I know the vendor was reported to them and I hope it’s someone that’s not allowed back at future events.

The panels were so much fun to and this was another motivator behind attending LA Comic Con. Several years ago I attended and enjoyed a panel called Chillin’ with Voice Actors. This year LA Comic Con featured the 10th anniversary of the panel. So naturally I wanted to go and I loved it. I ended up laughing so hard my sides were hurting. I also got to attend other panels including an improv show and panels highlighting the importance of diversity.

As for the main stage panels these took me by surprise at first. I’ve never seen 20 minute panels but that’s exactly what we got in the main stage events. These events are right in the vendors area which is not my favorite way to have things but foot traffic wasn’t hindered too much by this as the stage was a good distance away from the vendors themselves. I can see why these panels were short though because there was limited seating room and most of it was reserved. Because of that I really didn’t do too many of these panels but it was nice to walk over for a few minutes when the stage featured a guest I really wanted to see. You also had a gaming hall which featured it’s own panels that were fun to watch and a lot of live gaming including a Fortnite Tournament called the Milk Cup. There was no shortage of things to do.

Now here’s a rare thing for me to talk about in my reviews but I also want to talk about the food options. Sure you had your overpriced convention center food but there were also a lot of food trucks here. Both sides of the convention center had food trucks to choose from and I love food trucks. It’s a great way to try out stuff for the first time and I took full advantage of that. Plus it’s been almost a couple of years since I had any of the food from Okamoto Kitchen so I made sure to stop by for a nice big meal from them after loving their food so much at Anime Impulse.

The convention also had an incredible mobile app. It had a very helpful map of the venue, list of events and the vendors. Honestly it was something I was glued to almost the entire weekend as I had so much I wanted to see and it was hard to remember where everything was at otherwise. Plus the app featured a scavenger hunt where you could scan QR codes found all over the convention. It was fun going around and finding them all and you got to see the entire convention doing so.

Overall LA Comic Con was an event I had high hopes for and I simply didn’t put the bar high enough as it surpassed all my expectations. I came into this event thinking the potential for the crowd would mean struggling to get from place to place and being forced to prioritize my favorite things and forgo others, as I’ve done in this venue before. Thankfully I was able to do everything I wanted to do and far more. With my experience here it was so easy to enjoy everything it has to offer regardless of how busy the event was. It’s a large event that doesn’t feel overwhelming and I had so much fun being here.