I’ve hated Anime Expo for years, and it seems the anime community has finally had enough of this.
I’ll be honest here. A few years ago, I went Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center, stood outside in a brutal, shadowless two-hour line that felt like mild torture, and decided, Yes, I am good at this forever. It was crowded, overwhelming, and why? Seeing the same vendors in Artist Alley that I saw at three other events that year already?
For a long time, whenever I expressed this, people looked at me like I was just a hateful bigot who hated having fun. It seemed like some accepted factoid the original nerds have to be willing to stand in a motionless, sweaty crowd just to see a mouse pad with breasts that has been at every anime event for the past few years.
Well, looks like I was onto something.
AX 2026 it just folded, and the internet is in complete meltdown because the foundation cracks have officially become a giant sinkhole. The meeting has become an absolute pressure cooker, and those in attendance are finally admitting out loud what I’ve seen over the years: AX is a dumpster fire.
Here’s a look at some of the tweets from poor anime fans suffering through Anime Expo 2026.
The complete death of personal space
If you scan social media right now, it looks less like a joyous celebration of fan service and predictable plot points and more like a post from a disaster zone. People describe the convention center as a lawless world with a “seamless line,” where crowds simply form into giant blocks of pushing and shoving.
At several points over the weekend, the fire department announced that no more people could enter the convention center (even with tickets) because the event was full. Yes, it was literally a fire hazard. You would think they would just, I don’t know, sell a few tickets after this it continued to happen for the last few years.
“AX was fun and all, but it was unbearable to sit in the meeting place for more than an hour, and it was just disgustingly hot inside and out, and it smelled bad, and they had to leave the floor I was in.
Some attendees stood up for the Anime Expo, saying that the event wasn’t there, and the Fire Marshall was there because of the bottle at the door. Others pointed out, however, that the crowds seemed unable to “move,” making the areas feel crowded and chaotic. Is that even better?
On Thursday night, there should be an event called Midnight Mahjong, a mahjong-style party. But this was also, of course, too crowded to work well. There was so much crying that some who attended the event reported that the games had not even started for an hour or more.
It was so bad this year that some who attended the event reported security guards and policemen rolling around in areas with batons and tasers just to control the volume of people’s bodies. You know the meeting has lost its cool community feel when the police presence looks like a riot squad.
One poor cosplayer even reported that their costumes were permanently ruined in the flat of five seconds because a squishy crowd shoved them into a random cold spaghetti dispenser. Yes, cold spaghetti. This is where we are.
The tragedy of Artist Alley
For many people, Artist Alley is the true heart and soul of any convention. This is where you find unique prints, indie charms, and support for real creators. But this year, the management of AX apparently decided that what people really wanted were a few artists and corporate disappointments.
The conference reportedly reduced the number of artists by a large amount, pushing the remaining creators to the very back of the hall. And what did they put in that main building instead? Pokémon card dealers and Temu stores. People were crammed like sardines into traffic jams trying to reach the real artists through the labyrinth of strange vendor booths.
Your other option? A free, unique artist setup near Little Tokyo that was entirely outside, meaning you could choose between crushing indoors or roasting under the unforgiving Los Angeles sun. A friend of mine attended Artist Alley in Little Tokyo and came back to report that it was very crowded.
But… It looks better than this:
The “normies” have officially broken the system
Anime is no longer a hobby. It’s mainstream pop culture, and that change has brought a huge wave of mainstream fans. Although the merger is good on paper, in reality, it causes a lot of conflict.
Longtime fans lament the days when conventions were a safe place for imported otaku to hang out and make friends. Now, it might be an indoor Coachella. What’s the word people on TikTok use these days? Larping?
It reminds me of my issue with regional Pokémon tournaments. What used to feel like a secret club for card game nerds has turned into scalping and a family affair. That would be great, but the Pokémon Company clearly can’t handle the influx of new entrants. That’s the same story with Anime Expo: it seems like the organizers didn’t really do anything to support the growth of anime fandom, leaving it sad. It’s not really a “principle” fault: it’s a mistake managers.
This influx of people completely ruined the feel of the panel. This year, die-hard fans who arrived two hours early in search of tickets, like Kagurabachi, were turned away by the hundreds because the stadium blocked the escalators.
To make matters worse, people camped out in the panel rooms for hours just to reserve seats for the latest events, completely ignoring the current presenters. Imagine you’re a creator on a panel and you’re looking at a crowd of people who don’t care about your work, only to watch them throw away your free promotional materials because they’re waiting for the next big train.
It is disrespectful and a direct result of overselling tickets.
A $115 Uber ride and a $12 onigiri
Even if you managed to survive the meeting place without getting covered in mysterious pasta, just getting to and from the place was a nightmare. The Metro trains were so packed that hundreds of people were left stranded on the platforms as the full trains just passed through them. If you gave up and tried to drive an Uber, you were looking at over $100 in surge pricing just to go a few miles.
And don’t even get me started on the food. When people complain about paying $12 for one onigiri with a $1.25 increase in chili powder, and that stuff. still sellingyou know the ecosystem is broken.
Yes, Los Angeles is expensive. But that’s not the case that it is expensive. I usually get a Lyft from DTLA to LAX for $30-$50. And a popular place in Little Tokyo, Rice & Nori, has onigiri for $2.50 to $5.50. I have eaten there many times and it is very good. These prices are apparently inflated to benefit guests who do not want to leave the convention center.
At this point, keeping ticket sales open when the physical meeting place cannot safely or comfortably accommodate that many people are greedy. People officially announced “AX’s retirement” after almost ten years of attending the event, realizing that they have passed the ordeal.
ClaireMax, a famous cosplayer said: “When people ask me if I’m going to Anime Expo, my answer is always no unless I’m working or getting paid in some other way to be there. It’s a terrible scam. They don’t stop selling tickets, you’ll spend hours standing in line, outside, in Los Angeles, in July. Once you get in, you’re all sweaty inside because you’re so sweaty. The year the fire department ended up closing things down because it’s dangerous to overcrowd excessive, which means that people who pay for tickets can not get inside This year, which happened at 2:30 pm on Friday.
“This could easily be fixed by putting some money into ticket sales or moving to a bigger place, but they’re too hungry for money to sell, and there’s no bigger place to be found in LA.”
I hate to say I told you so, but the writing has been on the wall for years. Hopefully, management finally listens before AX 2027 becomes a real threat.
