The 2014 Anime Banzai event begins today and continues through Sunday, October 17-19th at the Davis Conference Center in Layton, Utah. This is the 10th anniversary for the event that celebrates Japanese culture in Utah. The event goes long into the night both Friday and Saturday with dances and panels restricted for anyone under 18. Don’t let that fool you though, during the day the event is kid friendly and families are encouraged to attend the festivities.
There are panels on Japanese culture, anime, acting and voice-acting, animation, comic books and manga, foods and even more. There are art contests, anime screenings, cosplay contests and an artist’s alley made up of local artists. The special guests for the year will fill panel rooms. Chris Patton (“Pokemon”, “Inu X Boku SS”), Jan Scott-Frazier (14 years in the Japanese animation industry), Vic Mignogna (“Tiger & Bunny”,”Soul Eater”), Chuck Huber (Actor “Dragonball Z”, “Full Metal Alchemist”), Warky (Singer & lyricist with “They Might Be Elders”) and Sonny Strait (Krillin in “Dragonball Z”, Comic book artist for “Elfquest”) will be attending the convention and hosting wonderful panels built around their specific expertise.
Make the trip to Layton and have a great time
Pre-registration for the event is obviously closed but single day tickets are still available and people are encouraged to make the trip to Layton and have a great time dancing with the cosplayers outside, attending anime screenings inside, learning something new in the panels, visiting the merchandise booths and artist alley for something amazing, and attending late night parties for a wonderful fall evening.
Big Shiny Robot will be at the event so be on the lookout for Zendobot (Mark Avo), Neverbot (Cassidy Ward), & BSR Anime-bot Gax-bot (Shawn Cogswell). If you think we’ve missed something that we need to let the Internet and the readers of Big Shiny Robot know, let us know. For those that cannot attend, we’ll be featuring Cosplay from the convention and telling you about everything we thought was amazing.
Mark Avo AKA Zendobot can usually be found reviewing comic books and picking out his favorite moments every week for “Five and Three” right here on Big Shiny Robot. You can also find him writing and inking The Salt City Strangers comic book or pretending he’s an expert for The Undead Soup Podcast (http://undeadsoup.com/undead2/). In fact, the crew from The Undead Soup will be podcasting live from Anime Banzai Saturday at 4PM so don’t miss it! You can delight or even heckle him with your tweets @MarkAvo and he’ll be totally thrilled.