Japan Expo

• 1. Introduction

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  Japan Expo opened its doors for the first time in 1999 at the ISC Paris Business School, welcoming 2,400 visitors curious about Japanese popular culture. Two decades later, that number had grown to more than 252,510 for the 2019 edition. How does a modest first gathering at a business school become the largest convention of its kind outside Japan? That is the question at the heart of this story.

• 2. From School Halls to Villepinte

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  The early years of Japan Expo were nomadic. The 2000 editions moved through EPITA and then the Espace Champerret, drawing 3,200 and then 8,000 visitors respectively. By 2001, the Espace Austerlitz hosted 12,000 attendees, and guests including Brigitte Lecordier and Jean-Pierre Savelli were already lending the event a professional scale. In 2002, the convention landed at the CNIT in La Défense, and attendance jumped to 21,000. By 2004 that figure had nearly doubled again to 41,000. The growth proved too fast. In 2005 the event was cancelled entirely out of security concerns, the venue simply unable to contain the crowds safely. That cancellation forced a decisive move: from 2006 onward, Japan Expo settled at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, the second-largest convention centre in France. The first year there brought 56,000 visitors, and the numbers never looked back.

• 3. A Guest List That Reads Like a Canon

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  Go Nagai appeared at the 2008 edition alongside Kazuo Koike and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, names central to the history of manga and anime. Shinichiro Watanabe returned twice, in 2009 and again in 2018. CLAMP and AKB48 shared the 2009 programme. Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, two figures inseparable from the history of Nintendo, attended in 2015. The 2013 roster included Final Fantasy figures Tetsuya Nomura, Yoshinori Kitase, and Naoki Yoshida alongside Moto Hagio and Naoki Urasawa. In 2019, Leiji Matsumoto, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and Go Nagai appeared together, representing decades of foundational Japanese animation. The breadth of these invitations tells its own story: Japan Expo was not built around a single fandom but around Japanese culture as a whole.

• 4. The Pandemic Interruption

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  Like the Olympic Games and many other large gatherings, Japan Expo did not take place in 2020 or 2021 because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 event, originally scheduled for the 2nd through the 5th of July, was postponed and eventually absorbed into 2022. When the convention returned in July 2022, attendance reached 254,084, surpassing the previous high of 252,510 set in 2019. The 2023 edition then pushed further still to 255,259. The 2024 attendance of 200,716 represented a notable dip, though the convention remained among the largest of its kind in Europe.

• 5. Beyond Paris

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  The convention's reach extended beyond the capital. Japan Expo established a presence at the Japan Expo Centre in Orléans, Japan Expo Sud in Marseille, and Chibi Japan Expo in Montreuil. Outside France, Japan Expo Belgium launched in Brussels, and Japan Expo USA opened in Santa Clara, California. The organisation also formed a partnership festival called Kultima, and gradually broadened its programming to include some European and American pop culture alongside its Japanese core. Four cities across three countries on two continents now carry the Japan Expo name.

• 6. A Convention on a Fixed Calendar

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  Japan Expo runs every year at the beginning of July, almost always from Thursday through Sunday, a schedule that has held firm across the decades at Villepinte. The 2025 edition is set to feature guests including Junji Ito, Yoko Takahashi, who also appeared in 2019, Kazuhiko Torishima, Toyotarou, Oh! Great, and Broken by the Scream. The 2026 edition is already dated for the 9th through the 12th of July at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, confirming that the first weekend of summer in northern Paris has become a fixed point on the calendar of Japanese popular culture outside Japan.