Anime cons have more to do with comic conventions and science fiction conventions that predate anime conventions in the US than Comiket in Japan. Those Comic Conventions of yore, do you think anyone would have thought producing comics of say, Superman, and selling it for profit in a public, advertised venue, was a safe and good idea to pursue? Not unless you enjoyed getting sued, anyhow.

Not to mention, Japan does have the Nihon SF Taikai. Not anime, but for sci-fi. So there’s clearly more behind the lack of an “anime taikai” than just offkai being more natural to the Japanese than a taikai, since they’re holding it on other things, that’s for sure!

That said, anime cons are definitely pretty obsolete at this point. American-style fan conventions were conceived when the internet did not exist in the same way it does now. Now it seems to be more of a ritual than of any real use. Whereas in the past news of your favourite niche hobby would be hard sought (it’s not like you could google it), it’s now trivial. And once upon a time, the screenings of anime you’d watch at an anime con? Probably tedious-to-get VHS fansubs, or untranslated video of a cutting edge series that you couldn’t download from the internet, because, well, the internet didn’t exist. Or because trying to download a picture was already tedious enough.

It’s not that the shoe was ill conceived, but rather technology has outgrown it.

That said, doujin fair in North America? More likely than you’d think.
http://minicomi.orangesanctuary.com/MiniComiInfo.html

I mean, ignoring the part where the gaijin still don’t really understand the place of cosplaying, but whatever ww