The biggest difference was the size. G-Fest has become so enormous that it rivals its namesake, while AMA had much less to offer. The entire event took place in one room with fewer vendors. They were, however, allowed to sell artwork (G-FEST has regrettably done away with their popular Artist Alley) and the “bootleg DVD guy” who’d been a G-FEST staple till he got the “boot,” himself, last year. I’m guessing this was to avoid striking the ire of the infamously litigious TOHO Studios.

One of the artists, CREACHER PREACHER, made some amazing handmade monsters, including one you could flip around and see a jack-o-lantern. Did I mention we’re halfway to Halloween?

If you’re an autograph seeker, AMA is the place to go. They brought in good guests in the Kaiju genre, and this year boasted two suit actors my son wanted to meet (Sean Sumagaysay, the Millennial Godzilla) and Mizuho Yoshia (Godzilla from Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack). Also attending was Shusuke Kaneko, who directed that film along with the Gamera Heisei series.

My son lives in the city and has an entire room dedicated to Godzilla (where does he get this from?). He was hoping to add some framed autographs to the walls for that something extra. In this, he was not disappointed

The third “Godzilla” Alex met was the charismatic T.J. Storm, who did the motion capture for Legendary’s Godzilla (2014). He was a phenomenal person to meet, should you ever get the chance; VERY interactive and showing a genuine interest in his fans.

We attended the Q&A for Sean Sumagaysay, but being in the same room as everything else made for poor acoustics. There was only a handful of us in the audience, and every once in a while, his interpreter would encourage us to “clap.” I don’t know what sort of financial arrangements these people make with AMA or G-FEST, but the latter would be infinitely better for their egos. At G-FEST, they’d have had a packed room of cheer-happy fans roaring with applause every two minutes. And that’s not to mention the kind of reaction their film performances would get at the Pickwick theater. I doubt even Martin Scorsese could generate as strong a reaction at a screening of Goodfellas.

It appeared the most popular guests were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Many of the voice actors for the animated “X-Men 97” series were also in attendance, but only Cal Dodd (Wolverine) and Lenore Zann (Rogue) seemed to attract much attention. I did bump into my friends, Dave and Brenda, who drove up from Peoria to meet George Buza (Beast) so he could sign their poster for A Christmas Horror Story (2015), which they’d just gotten autographed by William Shatner the week before at Nightmare Weekend.

Personally, I had no objectives other than spending a day with my son. Twenty years ago, I’d have fallen over myself to meet Angela Staines (one of the Tonnika sisters from the original STAR WARS 1977), but have since grown ambivalent of the franchise.

All-in-all, we had a good time, although I don’t know how anyone could spend a full day here, let alone a weekend. I will say, it did have an unintended effect on us – it made us both eager for G-FEST in a couple of weeks (and I wasn’t even planning on going this year!). 

~ Dave