Trip to the 2012 MCM Birmingham Expo
In recent years, we have seen an expansion of MCM Expo’s in the UK. Last year we had the newly opened Manchester Comic Con and this year, we have the first Birmingham Comic Con. This benefited me greatly, since it will now be my local MCM Expo from now on, and so I decided to check the convention out for the day.
The location is at the National Exhibition Centre and (much like the London Expo) is not near the city centre; fortunately it’s a quick train journey from Birmingham train station to the NEC. I quickly walked to the correct hall and got there just as the gates were opening.
The Expo was split into two. If you didn’t already know, before this convention, Birmingham was known as a Memorabilia Expo and that part was still there, so it was great that, even if you bought a ticket to the Comic Con part of the Expo, that you could still look around the Memorabilia part as well with no charge.
At the start, I felt that the Birmingham Comic Con was a bit smaller than I thought it would be. There was no gaming presence like regular attendants Nintendo or Tecmo Koei (although there were a few random Xbox 360 stands with playable games, that were already released) and a lack of anime representative stands like MVM. Thankfully, MangaUK had their sales stand, so I managed to get an early Blu-ray copy of one of the films I saw at Scotland Loves Anime last year and that was Mardock Scramble: The First Compression, as well as the full box set of Negima!?
Another stall I noticed was the one from MyM, a new anime magazine that had its first release on May 3rd; they were giving out free mini magazines of anime/gaming reviews, something to look out for in the near future.
As time passed, I managed to meet with a few new and old friends while walking around the Expo, and I also decided to watch the Vic Mignogna and Aaron Dismuke panel (both best known for their VA roles as the Elric Brothers in Full Metal Alchemist) which was an entertaining 30 minutes.
It was then that Jerome came on the stage to announce a bunch of new UK licenses, as well as give out release dates for existing ones, just in case you missed them, here are the announcements:
- Baka To Test: Summon The Beast
- Two Full Metal Alchemist movies (The Conquerer of Shamballa and The Sacred Star of Milos) in a DVD or Blu-ray double pack
- Blue Exorcist (sub-only release)
- Dragonball Z
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica
- Okami-San and Her Seven Companions
- Panty and Stocking
- Princess Resurrection
- The World God Only Knows
- Squid Girl
- Chaos;Head (Late confirmation, announced on twitter)
I was very pleased to see a Puella Magi Madoka Magica release in the UK, considering it was my favourite anime series last year, and looking at the rest of the announcements, there will be a lot of anime releases from MangaUK in 2012 to keep anime fans interested for the majority of this year.
After a final look around, I decided to leave the Expo. There were a lot of anime fans enjoying themselves, and I can see that in the future, the new Birmingham MCM Expo may well become one of the big Expos alongside the London MCM Expo; only time will tell.
I shall now leave you now with a random picture of an Alien visiting a Subway, playing around with leftover rubbish.
Hope to see you at the London MCM Expo next month!
