Anime Weekend Atlanta 2025

It seems like just yesterday that a bunch of us anime nerds were sitting in some parents' basement somewhere in the Atlanta metro area, saying to ourselves, by golly, if we don't start an anime convention in Atlanta soon, then somebody else is going to, and that anime con we don't run will invariably suck. So we'd better get to work. It wasn't just yesterday, in fact it was more than three decades ago. Three decades where we went from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray to streaming, three decades of moving from small hotel to larger hotel to larger hotel to small convention center to larger convention center to the largest convention center we could find, three decades of arranging flights and finding hotel rooms and programming panels, three decades of assembling audio and video equipment and wrangling vendors and cosplayers and entertainers and voice actors and cartoonists. 

Costume Contest at the first AWA

  

That convention, of course, was and is Anime Weekend Atlanta, the premier (not "premiere", thank you) Japanese animation festival in the Southeast of the United States. Since 1995 a crew of anime fans has been working hard to make this three and now four day gathering a unique and lively weekend celebrating Japanese cartoons, Asian culture, the art of animation, and all the accompanying cultural artifacts and practices that have grown up around the fandom. AWA has survived pandemics, 9/11s, staff changes, location challenges, date relocations, and has constantly dealt with the changing tastes of an ever-evolving pool of attendees, a rotating cast ranging in age from five to seventy-five, interested in everything from karate to Kinikuman, from Demon Slayers to Devilmen, and as always engaged in a bitter struggle over whether or not the abbreviated name of the convention is pronounced "ei-wah" or "ei-doubleyou-ei." 

This year AWA is happening December 18-21 at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta, and I will, as I have been for the past thirty years, be presenting a wide, wild variety of panels and entertainments for the attendees. Will you be one of them? I hope so, and if so please take a minute and say hello! So, what exactly am I up to?

Thursday afternoon at 4 we'll jam a room full of preloved anime and manga merchandise and let capitalism run rampant. This is your chance to peek inside the crawl spaces and attics and closets and storage units of some of the Atlanta area's most notorious nerd merch hoarders, desperate to make space for more stuff. Let the bargains commence! 

Friday at 11am, Neil "I Translated Chargeman Ken" Nadelman and myself will be taking a tour through the wacky world of Knack, the studio that Ninja'd our Wonder Boys and Sued our Cats while Astroing our Gangers. 

 Friday night at 8 Reverend Neil will be once again delivering his popular sermon on the topic of "Totally Lame Anime" and how it affects your daily life. Don't miss it!

Dave Merrill's Anime Hell returns Friday night at 10pm for a guaranteed almost two hours of cartoon madness, live-action kookery, commercial ineptitude, and the sort of amateur animation buffoonery that is neither sanctioned nor supported by any official organization.

Ryan Gavigan's Midnight Madness returns at exactly 12:02am to pummel you senseless with a barrage of anime parody dubs produced by anime fans just like you, only funnier and with more free time and some technical equipment you may or may not have access to. 

What was anime like exactly forty, fifty, and sixty years ago? What influences are still with us today and what has vanished in the mists of time? And why does everything have a robot in it? The answers to these and more questions will be fiercely debated in this event Saturday at 10:45am. 

Sunday at 10am, some of the surviving founders of Anime Weekend Atlanta will assemble to dredge up old memories, rekindle old feuds, and generally talk about what things were like before everybody had their damn phone in their damn face all the time. If you have memories of the first AWA, you should definitely attend this panel, and you should also schedule a colonoscopy. 

Sunday at 3:30, Neil and Dave will put on their radiation suits, take their iodine pills, and lead us all into the coming End Of The World as seen in various Japanese films from the 1960s and 1970s and 80s. Space vampires, earthquakes, deadly diseases and nuclear war all struggle to see who can kill us off first - and no matter who wins, we all lose! It's a great way to send everyone home from the 30th anniversary of Anime Weekend Atlanta. 

Around the South and across the world people are getting ready for AWA. I'm putting these panels together right now even as you read this! So, don't be left out, make your plans now to be in Atlanta for AWA 2025! 

-Dave M