Expo
Just got back from the Anime Expo '05, and everybody's been asking me how it was, so I'm gonna write down the whole story. I'll start from the beginning...
Day 1: Woke up at 4, slept through the flight, yadda yadda... Checked in to the Hilton, and walked to the convention center right next door. Waited on line for 3 hours, got my badge for $40, and went in to the shopping area. I stopped at various Manga stands, and bought a KoF '03 comic book and an SVC manga that was all in Japanese. It had really random situations that had nothing to do with fighting... For example, in chapter 1, Sakura, Athena, and Kensou go shopping, then go to the park, where they have a picnic with Terry, Ryu, and Chun Li. In another chapter, Geese and Sagat try to teach Sakura and Yuri their fighting styles, but the girls keep 1-upping them. The entire book's chibi-fied, too, so it's really strange. I also checked out the In the Groove kiosk, and I gotta say, RedOctane makes the best home pad I've ever used. Later, I went to the showing of Getbackers... The people running it accidentally showed Cromartie High School, but didn't realize until 15 minutes in. They switched it, and Getbackers turned out to be better than I expected. I'll definitely be renting that one for Anime Club next year. After that, I went to the arcade for a couple of hours and went to bed.
Day 2: Woke up, ate breakfast, and went over to the Mariott across the street for the Console Gaming tournaments. I didn't have to wait long for the Tekken 5 one to start, but I accidentally picked Law instead of Lee, and got eliminated in round 1 by a Bruce. Ah, well...
After that, I was in one of the early rounds of the 250-man Smash Bros. tournament (3 stock, no items, Final Destination), and I was the favorite to win in my game. Before I went up, people were cheering loudly for obscure characters... The entire room was filled with booming chants of "Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff!", "Goooo, Ness!" etc. People were mimicking the chants from the game, it was pretty amusing. In my game, the fourth man didn't show up, so the game was me as Roy, versus a Link and a Samus. It was about even, but Link was the first to fall, leaving me with 1 stock and 0%, and Samus with 1 stock and 40%. By this time, the entire crowd was yelling, "Roy's our boy! Roy's our boy!" After a short fight, I dodged Samus's ranged throw and hit a smash attack for the win. Since there were so many other matches, I sat down next to the Smash Bros. booth to play Naruto 2 for PS2. I got pwned early on, using Rock Lee, so I tried some other characters. After a while, since I can't button mash to save my life, I tried some of the power-up characters, and by the time it was time for my next SSBM match, I was a decent Anbu Kakashi and a nearly unstoppable Kabuto. I was probably the third-best player at that game, next to the tournament winner from the previous night (Neji) and a disgustingly cheap Shino. I made it to the quarterfinals of the tournament, and in my last match, there was another no-show, so it was me against a Marth and a Fox. The Marth was a n00b, I had no idea how he got that far in the tournament, but he was gone in a minute. He'd never even seen anyone do all 7 hits of the Blade Dance. He did get a kill on Fox, though, by spiking him straight down. I lost that match, getting Fox to about 60% on his last stock. Ah, well. Played some more Naruto, went into the arcade, played some Beatmania, did Abyss on stealth on DDR, racked up a massive winning streak on Capcom Fighting Jam, went to bed.
Day 3:Parents wanted to go to Disneyland, so we did... Then promptly left because the line to get in was too long. We went to see Mr. and Mrs Smith instead... My dad and I liked it, Mom didn't. We headed back to L.A., and took the plane home. Strangely enough, my cousins/uncle were on the same flight that we were. What a coincidence.
So, that's my trip summed up into a couple of paragraphs. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, the Cosplayers. I'll list a few that stood out:
The Jedis: Okay, so they're not Anime characters... but a couple of guys had really expensive, really cool Lightsaber props, and were duking it out outside the convention center at night. It was pretty cool looking.
Haruno Sakura/Inner Sakura: These two were definitely eye-catching. There was a person with a giant, papier mache, pissed-off Inner Sakura mask, who stood behind a girl dressed up as Sakura, minus the pink hair. However, the girl dressed up as Sakura was really good-looking. I didn't make any move to meet her, though... what a lost-opportunity. Instead, I'm left with a really blurry, cell-phone picture...
Johnny Sasaki: This was, hands down, the coolest costume I've ever seen. One guy dressed up as a basic guard from Metal Gear Solid 2, complete with a ! above his head. (For the record, Yes, Jake, it was red. You win this round...) I got a picture of him on my phone.
Ginji Amano: There was only one person dressed up as a Getbackers character, and he even had the exact sign from the manga. ("Your goods been ganked? Yeah? Call us!")
The 5 Terry Bogards: I thought my idea was original...
So, that's my trip.
Day 1: Woke up at 4, slept through the flight, yadda yadda... Checked in to the Hilton, and walked to the convention center right next door. Waited on line for 3 hours, got my badge for $40, and went in to the shopping area. I stopped at various Manga stands, and bought a KoF '03 comic book and an SVC manga that was all in Japanese. It had really random situations that had nothing to do with fighting... For example, in chapter 1, Sakura, Athena, and Kensou go shopping, then go to the park, where they have a picnic with Terry, Ryu, and Chun Li. In another chapter, Geese and Sagat try to teach Sakura and Yuri their fighting styles, but the girls keep 1-upping them. The entire book's chibi-fied, too, so it's really strange. I also checked out the In the Groove kiosk, and I gotta say, RedOctane makes the best home pad I've ever used. Later, I went to the showing of Getbackers... The people running it accidentally showed Cromartie High School, but didn't realize until 15 minutes in. They switched it, and Getbackers turned out to be better than I expected. I'll definitely be renting that one for Anime Club next year. After that, I went to the arcade for a couple of hours and went to bed.
Day 2: Woke up, ate breakfast, and went over to the Mariott across the street for the Console Gaming tournaments. I didn't have to wait long for the Tekken 5 one to start, but I accidentally picked Law instead of Lee, and got eliminated in round 1 by a Bruce. Ah, well...
After that, I was in one of the early rounds of the 250-man Smash Bros. tournament (3 stock, no items, Final Destination), and I was the favorite to win in my game. Before I went up, people were cheering loudly for obscure characters... The entire room was filled with booming chants of "Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff!", "Goooo, Ness!" etc. People were mimicking the chants from the game, it was pretty amusing. In my game, the fourth man didn't show up, so the game was me as Roy, versus a Link and a Samus. It was about even, but Link was the first to fall, leaving me with 1 stock and 0%, and Samus with 1 stock and 40%. By this time, the entire crowd was yelling, "Roy's our boy! Roy's our boy!" After a short fight, I dodged Samus's ranged throw and hit a smash attack for the win. Since there were so many other matches, I sat down next to the Smash Bros. booth to play Naruto 2 for PS2. I got pwned early on, using Rock Lee, so I tried some other characters. After a while, since I can't button mash to save my life, I tried some of the power-up characters, and by the time it was time for my next SSBM match, I was a decent Anbu Kakashi and a nearly unstoppable Kabuto. I was probably the third-best player at that game, next to the tournament winner from the previous night (Neji) and a disgustingly cheap Shino. I made it to the quarterfinals of the tournament, and in my last match, there was another no-show, so it was me against a Marth and a Fox. The Marth was a n00b, I had no idea how he got that far in the tournament, but he was gone in a minute. He'd never even seen anyone do all 7 hits of the Blade Dance. He did get a kill on Fox, though, by spiking him straight down. I lost that match, getting Fox to about 60% on his last stock. Ah, well. Played some more Naruto, went into the arcade, played some Beatmania, did Abyss on stealth on DDR, racked up a massive winning streak on Capcom Fighting Jam, went to bed.
Day 3:Parents wanted to go to Disneyland, so we did... Then promptly left because the line to get in was too long. We went to see Mr. and Mrs Smith instead... My dad and I liked it, Mom didn't. We headed back to L.A., and took the plane home. Strangely enough, my cousins/uncle were on the same flight that we were. What a coincidence.
So, that's my trip summed up into a couple of paragraphs. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, the Cosplayers. I'll list a few that stood out:
The Jedis: Okay, so they're not Anime characters... but a couple of guys had really expensive, really cool Lightsaber props, and were duking it out outside the convention center at night. It was pretty cool looking.
Haruno Sakura/Inner Sakura: These two were definitely eye-catching. There was a person with a giant, papier mache, pissed-off Inner Sakura mask, who stood behind a girl dressed up as Sakura, minus the pink hair. However, the girl dressed up as Sakura was really good-looking. I didn't make any move to meet her, though... what a lost-opportunity. Instead, I'm left with a really blurry, cell-phone picture...
Johnny Sasaki: This was, hands down, the coolest costume I've ever seen. One guy dressed up as a basic guard from Metal Gear Solid 2, complete with a ! above his head. (For the record, Yes, Jake, it was red. You win this round...) I got a picture of him on my phone.
Ginji Amano: There was only one person dressed up as a Getbackers character, and he even had the exact sign from the manga. ("Your goods been ganked? Yeah? Call us!")
The 5 Terry Bogards: I thought my idea was original...
So, that's my trip.