To be honest, when we first heard of a small anime convention in Mesa, Arizona would play host to America's first Persona concert, we were stunned in disbelief. It wasn't that it was the fact that it took place in the nation's 48th state, but rather that Taiyou Con was able to invite some of the guests that we were thinking would select a larger con like Anime Expo, Sakura-con or Otakon for their American debut; especially given how popular the Atlus video game series has become in America. However, being huge Persona fans, we didn't hesitate at all to book a plane, car and hotel from California and before we knew it we were in Mesa.

I attended Anime Los Angeles 10 (ALA) Jan 10-12, 2014 for the first time, so I didn't know what to expect. As someone who has attended other anime and science-fiction conventions before, I was interested in seeing how ALA would be; especially since they had a chairman who came from a sci-fi background. All I can say it was a very unique experience. The convention was well organized and had the normal things maid café, artist alley, dealer's room, masquerade, etc. In addition, one interesting thing was that the game room had panchiko machines in addition to the normal consoles for gaming tournaments.