LEICESTER, UK, 4th August 2007 - As AmeCon 2007 approaches, the organising committee are pleased to announce the presence of additional guests, and confirm a highlighted selection of the many events that will be taking place over the course of the weekend. The committee wish to thank the anime community for its continued and growing support for the event, which this year looks to break all previous attendance records for UK-based anime conventions.

Guests

Once again we are happy to announce that Akemi Solloway will be returning to AmeCon to provide a wide range of activities and educational talks. She will be joined by Maxwell Howells, who studied archaeology and anthropology at Oxford University, culminating in an anthropological study of gender in Japanese animation in 2005. Also joining Akemi will be Dawn Dean who was the winner of a trip to Japan at AmeCon ’06.

AmeCon is very pleased and proud to welcome Visual Kei group GOTHIKA, formerly EUTHANASIE. They will be treating us to a concert on Sunday afternoon, as a warm up to the evening’s later festivities. Noted for the self-professed “sexed up Electronica” nature of their music, we hope they will be warmly received by AmeCon’s traditionally vibrant and eclectic audience.

Events

This year we are boasting a variety of events that will cater for a huge range of interests, including gaming, J-culture and of course Anime and Manga!

AmeCon is pleased to announce the return of the Cosplay Triathlon to the event lineup, separating the three major elements of the traditional masquerade into separate events. The AmeCon Masquerade returns on the Saturday evening of the convention. Notable, this year’s catwalk ends on a more traditional stage with further seating for 500. The Masquerade will also contain its own photo shoot. For those members wishing to put their work before a panel of judges, the convention will be running a dedicated cosplay competition separate from the masquerade. The competition will take place Saturday daytime. The Omake show will take place on Sunday, including all the performance pieces that AmeCon members have put together over the past twelve months.

In terms of new and revised events, the convention is pleased to announce an expansion to the Manga Library of 2006. The purpose of the Library has been expanded with a view to giving attendees access to a wider range of materials related to their fandom, and a quieter location to commune with the convention Wish Trees. Also, AmeCon is pleased to announce, in association with Anime Network UK, an event in the style of an evening chat show, “Friday Night Live, with the Claw and Co.”.

A wide range of panel and Q&A-style events will be running throughout the weekend, including but not limited to educational panels hosted by Akemi Solloway, industry-related Q&As hosted by guests and corporate representatives, and fan-run panels highlighting the many ways anime and manga enthusiasts can become involved in the larger fandom. In addition, AmeCon is pleased to announce the return of a great many of the popular events that filled the 2006 line-up.

About AmeCon

AmeCon is a convention dedicated to the celebration of Japanese animation and comics. Following some successful one-day events, several committee members of the Leicester Anime and Manga Club (LANMA – http://www.lanma.org.uk) decided to run a small, residential event in 2004. This event, through no fault of their own, became the largest anime convention to be hosted in the British Isles to date. The follow-up event, AmeCon 2006, surpassed even that lofty claim and AmeCon 2007 promises to be a further improvement on its predecessors – as long as the weather holds up!