VTuber Activities at Anime Los Angeles 18

Here are the highlights from the weekend event straight out of Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center!

Anime Los Angeles 18 was successfully held last week at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, attended by 16,600 visitors. The all-ages, fan-run anime event ran from January 5-8—and VTubers are also included in this year's lineup of guests.

Our correspondent Clawmaster, who was present at the convention floor for three days, reports.

What stood out to me is that even at an anime convention, VTubers are still rather niche, at least at ALA.

There were pretty big gatherings for the Hololive and Nijisanji on Saturday and somewhat Friday, but as I walked around the convention, I didn't see many VTuber cosplayers.

The VTuber panels were all filled up with the exception of FalseEyeD's panel (but I think that's partly because it was set at 10:30 AM, right after a lot of us had a party that night).

Still regardless of the size, it was still plenty of fun to see people be excited and do the VTuber memes for each gathering. They were all very nice, and welcoming and worked well with the videogrpaher/photographers.

The booths showcasing VTubers were a cool sight to see. Seeing VTuber merch, and not to mention the itasha cars with VShojo graphics, was very eye-appealing to pose a picture next to, or to take a video of.

Overall, it felt like VTubers were in their own club at the convention, having a blast. It reminded me of high school and how the Anime Club was in its own world and having fun.

It's great that ALA invited FalseEyeD and many other VTubers to the convention as special guests—and as you may have seen from other anime conventions, they are starting to invite more VTubers in the last year or two.

I think there are still ways to go when it comes to turnout for VTuber fans and cosplayers, but it's not a bad start to 2023.

Here are some of the best VTuber cosplays from the event:

More photos from Anime Los Angeles 18 are posted in this album:

[NewsDrop] Anime Los Angeles 18

We even asked some cosplayers why they cosplayed as their favorite VTubers:


More updates from our Anime Los Angeles 18 coverage are still to come on YouTube, and we invite everyone to subscribe to the NewsDrop channel and get notified.

We would like to thank the organizers for allowing our correspondent Clawmaster to report from the convention floor, as well as the cosplayers who agreed to be interviewed.

NewsDrop will cover more events this January, so stay tuned!