Anime Expo 2011
I'm back from my big Anime Expo adventure :3 First time traveling by myself, flying by myself, staying in a hotel by myself... and I didn't really run into any difficulties. Onnacounta how I are a grownup, I expect. I had a blast, and it was absolutely worth it, but it was an awful lot of doing crammed into very few hours XD
LONG POST IS LONG. I'm going to break this up by cut tags so that people can skip bits if they want.
I got up on Saturday, July 2 at 2:45 in the morning so that the ever-lovely caitirin could drive me down to Boston to be at the airport by five for a seven o'clock flight. I'm not gonna lie, that was really freaking early. But I got to see the sunrise! I was playing Animal Crossing on my DS in the airport terminal and I looked up and everything was orange with the sun, where it had been pre-dawn blue only moments before. The plane ride was something like 6 hours, and I dozed for a lot of it and read Christopher Moore for the rest. It a was generally uneventful flight. When I got to LAX, at 10:15 local time, I caught a shuttle to my hotel.
The west coast looks so different! It was very flat where I was, and there were palm trees everywhere, rising high up out of the neighborhoods of houses like balloons. It made me think of the fluffy trees from "The Lorax". Downtown LA reminded me of Tampa (the only other southern city I've been to within memory) and the outskirts looked like Denver and Colorado Springs, since all the houses are laid out in logical grids and not smooshed together wherever they could find room like they are in New England.
When I got to my hotel, it was about 11:00 and they told me I couldn't check in until 3 *headdesk* I had even e-mailed the hotel to ask when check-in was and they never e-mailed me back. Had I known, I would've had the shuttle from the airport take me straight to the con! But the people at the desk said they'd hold some of my luggage if I wanted, so I handed over my extra clothes and toiletries and my book (all I brought for the trip was in one backpack) and went out to wait for the Anime Expo shuttle.
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The shuttle to the con came 40 minutes later *laughs* And apparently that was a lot faster than the shuttle service had been the day before. But it was okay because I met cosplayers :3 A Tifa (FFVII) and a Rinoa (FFVIII) were there together, and there was a Yuna (FFX) there too by coincidence. They lamented no FFIX characters being there with us, but some got on the bus at a later stop XD I sat with another girl on the bus who had been at our hotel and who told me about the slowness of the shuttles and knew how to navigate LA pretty well herself.
There had apparently been some excitement at the con earlier that morning; an unmarked basket was left by the cafeteria, I think, and the police closed part of the building down to check it out. They didn't find anything suspicious, but when I got there, the hallways connecting the West and South wings of the convention center were closed. The Info Desk people (who were incredibly helpful and polite!) told me that they thought registration was probably back open, but the lines were reportedly horrendous and nobody was checking badges at the panels and theatres, so I might want to hang out for a while before getting in line. It was about 12:30 by that time, and registration closed at 6, but I was paranoid that I wouldn't get my badge and miss the Miku concert so I headed over to the other end of the complex to get in line.
And what a line it was. I read later that someone stood in line 6 hours on Day 0 to get their Miku ticket early (earlier ticket pickup = better seating) so I guess my couple of hours weren't so bad! I waited out in the blistering sun for what felt like eternity but was probably more like an hour, and then the line finally progressed enough so that I was standing in the shade in an open-air corridor at the front of the building. At that point, the line started really moving, and even though the area the line wound through was three or four times as long as the direct-sunlight area, it seemed much faster. I got in, got my badge, and had my Miku ticket by 2:45.
Here let me pause to tell you what is blatant common sense but does not seem to take hold when one is at an anime con: EAT FOOD AND DRINK WATER. I had consumed, since I got up 15 hours earlier, one mini-bagel, a half ziplock baggie of trail mix, a Lara bar, a package of fruit snacks, and one bottle of water. I wasn't hungry or thirsty, so I wasn't eating and drinking. I paid for it the next morning when I woke up at 5 a.m. with a splitting headache, but more sleep cured that.
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After I registered I was sure I'd missed the Vocaloid panel, which was at 1:30, but when I went to the room to wait for the next event it was still going on and I got to sit in on a good chunk of it. They talked about the English Miku voicebank that they're working on (the developer said, in response to a question asking if it was truly going to come out, that "he'd get yelled at" if it didn't, so it looks like a done deal!) and about the new Kaito append. They even played a sample of the Kaito append for us (a Shigotoshite-P song, whee!) and it sounded jaw-droppingly good. Kaito normally sounds, at best, like he's singing through a cardboard tube, and this sounded more like a real person than even Miku does half the time.
I attended another panel the next day (Sunday) on the Vocaloid fan phenomenon, and that was pretty awesome. It went over the history of Vocaloid and what's in the future, and it explained in some measure how it's gotten so popular. Kaito and Meiko, the first Japanese Vocaloids, were released before Nico Nico Douga (a popular Japanese video-sharing site) was created, so the fact that there was really nowhere online but YouTube to share songs people wrote using their voices contributed to their abysmal sales. Nico Nico Douga opened a very short time before Miku was released (and Miku is Vocaloid 2, an updated version of the software, so she was easier to use and sounded better). This meant that people producing Miku songs immediately had somewhere to share their work. There's also a Vocaloid art site, Piapro.com, and artwork shared there becomes sort of a creative commons and anyone can use it for whatever they want. Crypton Future Media, the company that produces Miku (and Kaito, Meiko, Luka, Rin, Len, Lily... all of the really popular Vocaloids aside from Gakupo and Gumi), endorses it. Crypton apparently approves of the whole giant creation/sharing/promoting Vocaloid phenomenon, which I think rocks. They also announced that the new character design for the English Miku voicebank would be decided in a contest where fans could submit designs. This was particularly exciting, because it means that the fans will be creating the new Miku image and not somebody who's merely in Crypton's employ. I hope that this also means that the English-speaking Miku will be stylistically similar to the Miku we all know and love; I'd be afraid that if corporate people who weren't fans were trying to redesign her for Western consumers, they'd try to give her less of a Japanese look.
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For the rest of Saturday evening before the concert, I stalked Artist Alley for people I knew from DeviantArt, ate some veggie stir fry and noodles, and attended a ridiculously awesome Puella Magi Madoka Magika cosplay photoshoot (not in that order). This was the right year for me to go to an anime con, guys - the two things you could count on people having art/merchandise for available at their booths was Madoka and Vocaloid. In my foolishness I hadn't hoped that Madoka would be so popular, since it's new and not even out yet in the U.S., but it was EVERYWHERE. My joy knew no bounds, and much squeeing with otherwise-strangers was to be had. I took a zillion pictures of the cosplayers, because they all looked fabulous. I also tried to explain Madoka to a professional-looking photographer, who I assumed was an Anime Expo employee until he said "Is this from a video game or something?" and when I said "No, it's an anime" he said "Is that like a comic book?" o_O I was able to get a point of reference with "Have you heard of Sailor Moon? Okay, well, this show takes all those normal magical girl elements and turns them upside down." There were a majority of Madokas and Homuras, and then about an equal amount of Sayakas, Mamis, and Kyoukos (and one civilian-dress Kyouko!). There were even two Kyubeys, guys dressed in white suits with white ties and white wigs XD One had kitty ears and one had red-tinted glasses, and one had a tie and one a stole decorated with Kyubey-ear patterns. They also carried contracts. They looked awesome and sexy and kind of terrifying. In addition, there was a whole team of orange-suited Morning Rescue guys (Morning Rescue is a Japanese orange juice drink that was advertised after the online Madoka episode broadcasts) XD
The cosplay at AX was, of course, absolutely epic all around. I didn't recognize some of the most impressive costumes, but they sure were elaborate, and all the cardboard/papier mache weapons were incredibly cool. As for things I did recognize, here's a list of some of the more common ones:
- Kingdom Hearts freaking everywhere, as usual (though not so much as in 2008).
- Final Fantasy had a big showing, as usual.
- Vocaloids, obv. Lots of Mikus and Rins and Lens, a bunch of Lukas and Kaitos (and a couple red Kaitos), a few Gumis and a Meiko or two, and I even saw a Miki. The Mikus, Rins, and Lens had different costumes from various songs/videos (lots of Aku no Musume Rins/Lens), and there was even a Just Be Friends Luka complete with emo soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend and red string of fate! There were quite a few Mikuos (Miku's fan-created male counterpart, made by lowering the pitch of her voice) as well.
- A fair smattering of the more enduring U.S.-mainstream series like Bleach and Naruto.
- Puella Magic Madoka Magika (I did attend a gathering, after all, so my results may be skewed XD)
- Nintendo characters, like Mario and Luigi, Princesses Toadstool and Peach, Yoshi, etc.
- Link and Zelda like whoa.
- I saw a few Sans from Princess Mononoke, and one amazing group with a San, a wolf, and a stilt-using Forest Guardian.
- I dunno if I saw a lot of Devil Hunter Yohkos or just one over and over ^^;;
- A couple of Suzumiya Haruhis were in attendance, but not nearly as many as the zillion we saw in 2008. Speaking of things we saw a zillion of at Otakon '08, I didn't see ANY Death Note cosplayers! There were some, judging from pictures I saw online when I got back home, but I didn't spot any myself.
- Lots of blood-splattered nurses and schoolgirls. I'm not sure what they were from. Silent Hill, maybe?
- A metric ton of Homestuck cosplayers, no joke. I need to read this webcomic already.
- Herds of Pikachu (no really), and lots of Pokemon trainers, both from the games/anime and people just dressed up with a hat and a Pokeball.
- A handful of Sailor Moon characters popped up here and there.
- Crossplay galore. I'm pretty sure most of the people playing Sora and Roxas were girls, as were a lot of the Kaitos and Mikuos, and there were a not insignificant number of guys dressed as Miku and Homura and Zelda and various others.
I saw a Xellos, a Cardcaptor Sakura, a Fai and a Chii or two, a couple of Kenshins, some Ouran people (including an actual chibi as Honey, with a little jacket and a great big stuffed bunny!), a Rose Bride Utena and a Dios, but not many others from my main hardcore anime years. As for people cosplaying characters from Western entertainment, I heard someone yell "River Song!" but didn't see her, and there were a couple of Jedis and a Boba Fett along with people who I think were cosplaying as internet memes. There were probably WoW characters that I didn't recognize. There were so many good costumes, and there were plenty of not so good costumes as well, but I didn't really feel any atmosphere of critique. When you're actually at the con, everyone thinks you're awesome, no matter what they may say about you on the internet later. At least, that was my impression :3
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The concert was at 8:30, so I hung around the convention center until about 7:45 looking at people and trying to get into anime screening rooms (harder than it sounds). Then I headed over to the Nokia Theater for Mikunopolis. The tickets were assigned seating (yay, no waiting for hours at the door!) and were, I have now gathered, arranged in order of ticket pickup. Since I got mine only that afternoon at 2:30ish, I was in the mezzanine (but center!). While I was waiting in line for the doors to open, there were a couple of groups from news stations recording and commentating, which was kind of cool. One was in Chinese, I think, and I couldn't hear the other one. By the time I got in the building and through security, Danny Choo was already starting to MC the concert, and from what I could hear he was pretty funny. I couldn't imagine how they expected to get all those thousands of people in the door and seated between 8:00 when they opened the doors and 8:30, and the concert definitely started a little late. Probably just a couple of minutes, but it felt longer because I was so excited :D
I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be in the orchestra level and that meant no standing and dancing (I had to lean to one side to see as it was, so if anyone stood up in front of me I'd be screwed), but it was closer to the stage than I've been for a lot of plays. I was right in the middle of the mezzanine, which had a good view. Something that I was miffed about in retrospect was that I heard they had, at first, only sold enough tickets for the orchestra, because they weren't sure if the holographic effects would work on the balconies. They must've figured out that they would, because then they sold the other tickets. I bought my ticket before the first batch were sold out, though, and still didn't get an orchestra seat (because I didn't pick my ticket up early enough). :\ It would've been more fair, I think, if we had been seated according to when we bought the tickets (but then you'd have a harder time getting seats with your friends, I guess, which I didn't have to worry about). Also I didn't realize until I got home that they were selling glow sticks at the AX booth in the dealer's room, so I didn't have a glow stick e_e I didn't mind either of those things at the time, though, only after.
The concert was phenomenal. The music was so loud it reverberated in my chest, and it was really cool to hear live orchestrations of the often heavily electronic songs I love. There was a guitarist and a drummer and a group of violinists, and possibly a pianist too but I can't remember seeing one (only hearing). Miku had a different costume for almost every song, and they were really adorable and moved gorgeously. Her design had been updated for Mikunopolis and, if I remember the original Giving Day concert this one was based on, the new model moved even more naturally. The fabric and her hair moved beautifully, and she danced just like a real person. She also had various hairstyles for the different costumes, which I really liked :3
I've read comments from people who were sitting in the orchestra, and many of them said that Miku's image was distorted and see-through as she moved left and right. From where I was sitting, she looked completely solid and real, except when she moved directly between the holographic projector and my line of sight, in which case the lights shined through her. I just watched the giant screens instead if she decided to stand there for too long :3 The screens were showing her from the perfect angle, so that was great. I really, really, REALLY hope they release the concert on DVD.
There were some really cool effects and things that the live band did, too. Right before she sang "Romeo and Cinderella", the string section started playing Bippidy Boppidy Boo XD And I was like "...?" but I caught on when they started into the song. There were also neat transitions between the songs. Miku would fade out into glow, or walk off the stage, or sink down into the stage. During one song, there were floaty lights like fireflies around her. There was also a cool roving-spotlight effect when the Kagamine twins were introduced, too. Holy crap, did the crowd ever go NUTS. We went nuts a lot, actually XD There was so much screaming and whistling. People were worried before the concert that there wouldn't be enough energy, and nobody would stand up and dance (the seats made it kind of hard to do that if you had any courtesy at all for the person behind you), but we were all yelling and cheering and singing so loud that I don't think anyone could've complained.
I knew all of the songs, I think, at least passingly, and most of them were ones I really liked. A quick rundown of the Miku songs: World is Mine, Electric Angel, Koisuru Vocaloid, Clover Club, PoPiPo (XD complete with the silly dance from the video!), Romeo and Cinderella, Two-Faced Lovers, Puzzle, Voice, 1/6, moon, The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku (spectacular, holy cow, with her actually blipping out into static at the end like you'd expect - this, for the uninitiated, is a surprisingly heartbreaking "I know I'm just a program but all I want to do is sing, please please don't uninstall me" song), From Y to Y, Saihate, Finder, SPiCa (HGNNNNGHHILOVESPICA and she had a new outfit with WINGS and her HAIR DOWN and OMFG), Ai Kotoba, StargazeR, and as an encore they did a violin-filled, reorchestrated Hajimete no Oto, which is one of the really early seminal Miku songs. Luka did Just Be Friends (THANK YOU GOD) and she and Miku did World's End Dancehall together, which I didn't expect in a million years but which was totally badass. I thought Luka sounded a little weird - higher than usual - but it could've just been where I was sitting. I hear rumors that Luka's portion was in English, but if it was I didn't notice ^^;; Rin and Len did something together, Migikata no Cho, maybe? And Rin did Meltdown in an outfit inspired by the video.
IT WAS OVER WAY TOO SOON XD The concert was under an hour and a half, and I think the original was two hours, which is kind of a bummer. But it was still amazing and worth every minute. I was surprised that Miku didn't sing Melt and that Luka didn't do Double Lariat (I was surprised in general that Luka and the twins didn't do more songs) but that's just "in a perfect world..." sort of thinking.
After the concert, I caught the shuttle back to my hotel, checked in, and collapsed in bed. The hotel was average, but nice enough. And it had been cheap. Score!
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On Sunday I slept until about 9:30 (after a brief adventure of waking up just before 5 feeling like death on a cracker, calling caitirin, taking drugs, and going back to sleep). There's nothing like consecutive camping/traveling/con-going to make one really appreciate a good shower. I was going to get breakfast at a little bakery next door to the hotel, but while I was waiting for somebody to notice the couple of us standing around the counter hoping to order, the con shuttle came and I skedaddled out to it. I ate a Lara bar instead, sometime around 11:00.
At noon I went to the Copic Markers workshop, which was pretty cool but not entirely what I had been hoping for. They gave us line art to color and there were lots of sets of markers going around, but the girl next to me hogged an entire set for almost the whole hour and a half and I managed to get hold of some markers only when they left about 20 minutes before it ended e_e (Aside: If you ever go to a con and can't get into a panel or workshop at the beginning, just wait a little while, because people always leave partway through.) Anyway, the first speaker was a creature designer who had worked at ILM and various other places. She designed Jar Jar Binks and most of the other background critters for The Phantom Menace (and I think she designed ET, too). She was cool, but she had no idea what she was talking about when it came to anime. She said "Miyazaka" meaning Miyazaki, and "Spirit in the Shell" meaning Ghost in the Shell. The Copic representative also said that CLAMP did Sailor Moon, at which point the entire audience went silent, so I didn't find either of them particularly credible in that area. Oh well.
The creature designer told us a lot about the industry and the skills you need to get into it, which while useful, isn't anything I wanted to know. I'm aware that the con was filled with enough beginner artists that her spiel about how you have to learn anatomy and draw from life before you can draw well in anime-style was necessary, but I still felt talked-down-to. She also said that it's possible to transition from traditional mediums to digital mediums but it's impossible to learn the other way around (that is, if you learn to color digitally first, you can't use that knowledge to learn how to paint/marker/etc.) and I just don't agree. The part of the workshop led by the Copic representative was quite useful, though (not to mention hilarious) and I took a lot of marker coloring notes, although I don't know how applicable they'll be to my Prismacolors. I wish I had some Copics, because they're gorgeous and have lovely brush tips that are much more flexible than my Prismas, but I went to the Copic booth in the dealers' hall and they were, at a significantly reduced price from usual, $25 for six markers. I couldn't justify spending that when I already have a 24-set of Prismas and I'm not planning to get into markering seriously. I did at least learn that I'm using entirely the wrong kind of paper (I'd been using watercolor paper to cut down on the bleeding, which the Copic rep said "sucks your markers dry faster than those sparkly vampires up in Washington" XD). I tried out my Prismas on the sample paper they gave us when I got home, and it works much better (which is not to say my markering didn't come out abysmally, but I think that's a combination of lack of technique understanding and lack of practice).
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After the Copics workshop, I ate some lunch and went to the Vocaloid fan phenomenon panel I talked about earlier. By this time, I was reaching my crowd tolerance limit, but I still had several hours before my shuttle would pick me up and take me to catch my plane. I went back into the dealers' hall and wandered Artist Alley for a while, which is always my favorite part of a con. I tried to save some cash in case I needed it on the way home, but it was hard XD The commercial dealers were wicked expensive, but I ended up buying two volumes of the Madoka manga and a Miku t-shirt. The Nico Nico shirt was free with my registration :D The rest of my loot I got from Artist Alley.
You may notice a slight Madoka/Homura bias here ¬_¬ I met a bunch of super cool artists, as well! Zambi did the large print of Madoka and glasses!Homura, Tomoji did the one of Madoka and Homura hugging in space, Jo (CartoonGirl7) did the Melt and girl with birds prints, and Belindahhh did the Magnet and Happy Synthesizer postcards and the Miku decal (for my laptop WHEE!). Divine Munguia did the amazing Utena rose crest shirt with fabric markers. I nabbed the last one! :3 I didn't get the name of the artist who did the papercraft Konata and Kagami, sadly, as well as the artist who did some Madoka pins that don't appear in this picture (they're already in the car :3) Note to self: always grab business cards at Artist Alley.
The dealers' hall was super crowded (as one would expect) and there was a group of K-ON! cosplayers up on a stage, at the Crunchyroll booth, I think, singing Fuwa Fuwa Time and Don't Say Lazy. They were really good! They took a crowd-poll to see which characters were most popular, and I think I was the only one who shouted for Yui ^^;; Aww. Mio's the fan favorite, I think.
I then had the exciting pleasure of almost being crushed in a crowd. The jam-packed escalator I was riding up deposited us at the back of a rapidly growing crowd at the top that had, apparently, nowhere to go to let us through. That was fun. With more and more people coming up the escalator, some idiot behind me was all "Move, move, I have to go this way!" and made things worse by shoving people over into each other. I eventually got through and I don't think anybody was hurt, but it could've gotten bad very quickly.
I hung around taking pictures of people and trying to sit through random episodes of anime. Here are my thoughts on the 1.75 shows I saw:
Freedom: Apparently by the same people who did Akira, judging by the character designs. Interesting plot, mind-numbingly boring characters, horrible rotoscoped CG animation that made my skin crawl. I sat through an episode because I wanted to know what would happen, nothing more. In short, humans lived on a space station on the other side of the moon and the government was lying to them about the supposedly blasted and uninhabitable state of Earth. Your Standard Earnest and Headstrong Main Dude found a photograph, apparently part of a time capsule of sorts, sent from Earth to go "hey, guys, we're all okay down here... feel free to come back anytime..."
Black Lagoon: They checked my ID when I went into this one. The episode I watched featured a bunch of tough adult characters who were probably not exactly law-abiding, diving in the ocean for something aboard a sunken submarine. A very Nazi-like antagonist group was trying to intercept them. It wasn't really my genre, but I enjoyed watching it (and, from the half-episode I watched, I have no clue why it was rated M). The animation was pretty good, and there was a Cool Gun Chick and an actual black anime character and a blond scruffy Kaji sort of fellow. It reminded me a teeny bit of Cowboy Bebop in it's level of cool.
Tsukiyomi Moon Phase: Wh...? The first few minutes showed very Hellsing-ish vampirey imagery, you know, bats, high arched windows against the moonlight, a black silhouette of a boat with a cross in it sinking into a red lake. And then the opening sequence started. The song went, and I quote: "Kitty! ... Kitty ears! ... Kitty ears mode!" and continued thusly, with many a nyan. I heard people say "Oh god, what have you gotten me into?" to their companions. I totally would've watched more just out of morbid curiosity, but the people beside me left and the AX staff made me move into the center, at which point I was right behind a guy with an afro and I couldn't see the screen even a little. So I left.
One of the most amusing conversations I overheard was when I was waiting for the airport shuttle out in front of the convention center. There were two guys sitting next to me, not in costume but in regular street clothes, very cool-looking badass sorts. They certainly didn't have "con-goer" written all over them. And one of them says to the other, "No, man, it can't be. She hasn't got the pendant. She's got the Millennium Rod or some shit."
XD I don't know what kind of cosplayer they were discussing, but it was obviously a magical girl of some sort, and they recognized her based on her accessories. This is the kind of thing that makes attending cons great.
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I got to the airport at 6:45ish, with plenty of time to make my 9:05 p.m. flight. There weren't a ton of food options, but at least there were more than at the little pastry stand at my terminal in Boston. I wanted a bagel but they didn't have the ability to toast it (why even sell bagels if you can't toast them?) so I got a pre-wrapped sandwich and chips. The lady sitting across from me in the terminal had a Moosehead Lake t-shirt on - Moosehead Lake is up in Maine, near where my family used to have our camp. It was really cool to see that, and a bunch of other New England-specific shirts and luggage and things, all the way out in California.
The plane ride home was long and tedious. I didn't sleep, but I was too tired to read or play DS or do anything else constructive, so I listened to Sherlock Holmes radio plays and was generally uncomfortable. I couldn't wait to get off the plane. I caught the 6:10 a.m. bus from Logan back to Portsmouth, where I ran into the waiting arms of caitirin and then we went to breakfast :3 After which I showed her my loot and collapsed into bed until the afternoon. We had a pretty low-key 4th of July, but it was so good to rest XD
In short, it was a fun-packed two and a half days, though somewhat surreal since I'm not used to such back-to-back activity, especially not all by myself. I'm really glad I went. I think it was an experience not to be missed :)
LONG POST IS LONG. I'm going to break this up by cut tags so that people can skip bits if they want.
I got up on Saturday, July 2 at 2:45 in the morning so that the ever-lovely caitirin could drive me down to Boston to be at the airport by five for a seven o'clock flight. I'm not gonna lie, that was really freaking early. But I got to see the sunrise! I was playing Animal Crossing on my DS in the airport terminal and I looked up and everything was orange with the sun, where it had been pre-dawn blue only moments before. The plane ride was something like 6 hours, and I dozed for a lot of it and read Christopher Moore for the rest. It a was generally uneventful flight. When I got to LAX, at 10:15 local time, I caught a shuttle to my hotel.
The west coast looks so different! It was very flat where I was, and there were palm trees everywhere, rising high up out of the neighborhoods of houses like balloons. It made me think of the fluffy trees from "The Lorax". Downtown LA reminded me of Tampa (the only other southern city I've been to within memory) and the outskirts looked like Denver and Colorado Springs, since all the houses are laid out in logical grids and not smooshed together wherever they could find room like they are in New England.
When I got to my hotel, it was about 11:00 and they told me I couldn't check in until 3 *headdesk* I had even e-mailed the hotel to ask when check-in was and they never e-mailed me back. Had I known, I would've had the shuttle from the airport take me straight to the con! But the people at the desk said they'd hold some of my luggage if I wanted, so I handed over my extra clothes and toiletries and my book (all I brought for the trip was in one backpack) and went out to wait for the Anime Expo shuttle.
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The shuttle to the con came 40 minutes later *laughs* And apparently that was a lot faster than the shuttle service had been the day before. But it was okay because I met cosplayers :3 A Tifa (FFVII) and a Rinoa (FFVIII) were there together, and there was a Yuna (FFX) there too by coincidence. They lamented no FFIX characters being there with us, but some got on the bus at a later stop XD I sat with another girl on the bus who had been at our hotel and who told me about the slowness of the shuttles and knew how to navigate LA pretty well herself.
There had apparently been some excitement at the con earlier that morning; an unmarked basket was left by the cafeteria, I think, and the police closed part of the building down to check it out. They didn't find anything suspicious, but when I got there, the hallways connecting the West and South wings of the convention center were closed. The Info Desk people (who were incredibly helpful and polite!) told me that they thought registration was probably back open, but the lines were reportedly horrendous and nobody was checking badges at the panels and theatres, so I might want to hang out for a while before getting in line. It was about 12:30 by that time, and registration closed at 6, but I was paranoid that I wouldn't get my badge and miss the Miku concert so I headed over to the other end of the complex to get in line.
And what a line it was. I read later that someone stood in line 6 hours on Day 0 to get their Miku ticket early (earlier ticket pickup = better seating) so I guess my couple of hours weren't so bad! I waited out in the blistering sun for what felt like eternity but was probably more like an hour, and then the line finally progressed enough so that I was standing in the shade in an open-air corridor at the front of the building. At that point, the line started really moving, and even though the area the line wound through was three or four times as long as the direct-sunlight area, it seemed much faster. I got in, got my badge, and had my Miku ticket by 2:45.
Here let me pause to tell you what is blatant common sense but does not seem to take hold when one is at an anime con: EAT FOOD AND DRINK WATER. I had consumed, since I got up 15 hours earlier, one mini-bagel, a half ziplock baggie of trail mix, a Lara bar, a package of fruit snacks, and one bottle of water. I wasn't hungry or thirsty, so I wasn't eating and drinking. I paid for it the next morning when I woke up at 5 a.m. with a splitting headache, but more sleep cured that.
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After I registered I was sure I'd missed the Vocaloid panel, which was at 1:30, but when I went to the room to wait for the next event it was still going on and I got to sit in on a good chunk of it. They talked about the English Miku voicebank that they're working on (the developer said, in response to a question asking if it was truly going to come out, that "he'd get yelled at" if it didn't, so it looks like a done deal!) and about the new Kaito append. They even played a sample of the Kaito append for us (a Shigotoshite-P song, whee!) and it sounded jaw-droppingly good. Kaito normally sounds, at best, like he's singing through a cardboard tube, and this sounded more like a real person than even Miku does half the time.
I attended another panel the next day (Sunday) on the Vocaloid fan phenomenon, and that was pretty awesome. It went over the history of Vocaloid and what's in the future, and it explained in some measure how it's gotten so popular. Kaito and Meiko, the first Japanese Vocaloids, were released before Nico Nico Douga (a popular Japanese video-sharing site) was created, so the fact that there was really nowhere online but YouTube to share songs people wrote using their voices contributed to their abysmal sales. Nico Nico Douga opened a very short time before Miku was released (and Miku is Vocaloid 2, an updated version of the software, so she was easier to use and sounded better). This meant that people producing Miku songs immediately had somewhere to share their work. There's also a Vocaloid art site, Piapro.com, and artwork shared there becomes sort of a creative commons and anyone can use it for whatever they want. Crypton Future Media, the company that produces Miku (and Kaito, Meiko, Luka, Rin, Len, Lily... all of the really popular Vocaloids aside from Gakupo and Gumi), endorses it. Crypton apparently approves of the whole giant creation/sharing/promoting Vocaloid phenomenon, which I think rocks. They also announced that the new character design for the English Miku voicebank would be decided in a contest where fans could submit designs. This was particularly exciting, because it means that the fans will be creating the new Miku image and not somebody who's merely in Crypton's employ. I hope that this also means that the English-speaking Miku will be stylistically similar to the Miku we all know and love; I'd be afraid that if corporate people who weren't fans were trying to redesign her for Western consumers, they'd try to give her less of a Japanese look.
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For the rest of Saturday evening before the concert, I stalked Artist Alley for people I knew from DeviantArt, ate some veggie stir fry and noodles, and attended a ridiculously awesome Puella Magi Madoka Magika cosplay photoshoot (not in that order). This was the right year for me to go to an anime con, guys - the two things you could count on people having art/merchandise for available at their booths was Madoka and Vocaloid. In my foolishness I hadn't hoped that Madoka would be so popular, since it's new and not even out yet in the U.S., but it was EVERYWHERE. My joy knew no bounds, and much squeeing with otherwise-strangers was to be had. I took a zillion pictures of the cosplayers, because they all looked fabulous. I also tried to explain Madoka to a professional-looking photographer, who I assumed was an Anime Expo employee until he said "Is this from a video game or something?" and when I said "No, it's an anime" he said "Is that like a comic book?" o_O I was able to get a point of reference with "Have you heard of Sailor Moon? Okay, well, this show takes all those normal magical girl elements and turns them upside down." There were a majority of Madokas and Homuras, and then about an equal amount of Sayakas, Mamis, and Kyoukos (and one civilian-dress Kyouko!). There were even two Kyubeys, guys dressed in white suits with white ties and white wigs XD One had kitty ears and one had red-tinted glasses, and one had a tie and one a stole decorated with Kyubey-ear patterns. They also carried contracts. They looked awesome and sexy and kind of terrifying. In addition, there was a whole team of orange-suited Morning Rescue guys (Morning Rescue is a Japanese orange juice drink that was advertised after the online Madoka episode broadcasts) XD
The cosplay at AX was, of course, absolutely epic all around. I didn't recognize some of the most impressive costumes, but they sure were elaborate, and all the cardboard/papier mache weapons were incredibly cool. As for things I did recognize, here's a list of some of the more common ones:
- Kingdom Hearts freaking everywhere, as usual (though not so much as in 2008).
- Final Fantasy had a big showing, as usual.
- Vocaloids, obv. Lots of Mikus and Rins and Lens, a bunch of Lukas and Kaitos (and a couple red Kaitos), a few Gumis and a Meiko or two, and I even saw a Miki. The Mikus, Rins, and Lens had different costumes from various songs/videos (lots of Aku no Musume Rins/Lens), and there was even a Just Be Friends Luka complete with emo soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend and red string of fate! There were quite a few Mikuos (Miku's fan-created male counterpart, made by lowering the pitch of her voice) as well.
- A fair smattering of the more enduring U.S.-mainstream series like Bleach and Naruto.
- Puella Magic Madoka Magika (I did attend a gathering, after all, so my results may be skewed XD)
- Nintendo characters, like Mario and Luigi, Princesses Toadstool and Peach, Yoshi, etc.
- Link and Zelda like whoa.
- I saw a few Sans from Princess Mononoke, and one amazing group with a San, a wolf, and a stilt-using Forest Guardian.
- I dunno if I saw a lot of Devil Hunter Yohkos or just one over and over ^^;;
- A couple of Suzumiya Haruhis were in attendance, but not nearly as many as the zillion we saw in 2008. Speaking of things we saw a zillion of at Otakon '08, I didn't see ANY Death Note cosplayers! There were some, judging from pictures I saw online when I got back home, but I didn't spot any myself.
- Lots of blood-splattered nurses and schoolgirls. I'm not sure what they were from. Silent Hill, maybe?
- A metric ton of Homestuck cosplayers, no joke. I need to read this webcomic already.
- Herds of Pikachu (no really), and lots of Pokemon trainers, both from the games/anime and people just dressed up with a hat and a Pokeball.
- A handful of Sailor Moon characters popped up here and there.
- Crossplay galore. I'm pretty sure most of the people playing Sora and Roxas were girls, as were a lot of the Kaitos and Mikuos, and there were a not insignificant number of guys dressed as Miku and Homura and Zelda and various others.
I saw a Xellos, a Cardcaptor Sakura, a Fai and a Chii or two, a couple of Kenshins, some Ouran people (including an actual chibi as Honey, with a little jacket and a great big stuffed bunny!), a Rose Bride Utena and a Dios, but not many others from my main hardcore anime years. As for people cosplaying characters from Western entertainment, I heard someone yell "River Song!" but didn't see her, and there were a couple of Jedis and a Boba Fett along with people who I think were cosplaying as internet memes. There were probably WoW characters that I didn't recognize. There were so many good costumes, and there were plenty of not so good costumes as well, but I didn't really feel any atmosphere of critique. When you're actually at the con, everyone thinks you're awesome, no matter what they may say about you on the internet later. At least, that was my impression :3
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The concert was at 8:30, so I hung around the convention center until about 7:45 looking at people and trying to get into anime screening rooms (harder than it sounds). Then I headed over to the Nokia Theater for Mikunopolis. The tickets were assigned seating (yay, no waiting for hours at the door!) and were, I have now gathered, arranged in order of ticket pickup. Since I got mine only that afternoon at 2:30ish, I was in the mezzanine (but center!). While I was waiting in line for the doors to open, there were a couple of groups from news stations recording and commentating, which was kind of cool. One was in Chinese, I think, and I couldn't hear the other one. By the time I got in the building and through security, Danny Choo was already starting to MC the concert, and from what I could hear he was pretty funny. I couldn't imagine how they expected to get all those thousands of people in the door and seated between 8:00 when they opened the doors and 8:30, and the concert definitely started a little late. Probably just a couple of minutes, but it felt longer because I was so excited :D
I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be in the orchestra level and that meant no standing and dancing (I had to lean to one side to see as it was, so if anyone stood up in front of me I'd be screwed), but it was closer to the stage than I've been for a lot of plays. I was right in the middle of the mezzanine, which had a good view. Something that I was miffed about in retrospect was that I heard they had, at first, only sold enough tickets for the orchestra, because they weren't sure if the holographic effects would work on the balconies. They must've figured out that they would, because then they sold the other tickets. I bought my ticket before the first batch were sold out, though, and still didn't get an orchestra seat (because I didn't pick my ticket up early enough). :\ It would've been more fair, I think, if we had been seated according to when we bought the tickets (but then you'd have a harder time getting seats with your friends, I guess, which I didn't have to worry about). Also I didn't realize until I got home that they were selling glow sticks at the AX booth in the dealer's room, so I didn't have a glow stick e_e I didn't mind either of those things at the time, though, only after.
The concert was phenomenal. The music was so loud it reverberated in my chest, and it was really cool to hear live orchestrations of the often heavily electronic songs I love. There was a guitarist and a drummer and a group of violinists, and possibly a pianist too but I can't remember seeing one (only hearing). Miku had a different costume for almost every song, and they were really adorable and moved gorgeously. Her design had been updated for Mikunopolis and, if I remember the original Giving Day concert this one was based on, the new model moved even more naturally. The fabric and her hair moved beautifully, and she danced just like a real person. She also had various hairstyles for the different costumes, which I really liked :3
I've read comments from people who were sitting in the orchestra, and many of them said that Miku's image was distorted and see-through as she moved left and right. From where I was sitting, she looked completely solid and real, except when she moved directly between the holographic projector and my line of sight, in which case the lights shined through her. I just watched the giant screens instead if she decided to stand there for too long :3 The screens were showing her from the perfect angle, so that was great. I really, really, REALLY hope they release the concert on DVD.
There were some really cool effects and things that the live band did, too. Right before she sang "Romeo and Cinderella", the string section started playing Bippidy Boppidy Boo XD And I was like "...?" but I caught on when they started into the song. There were also neat transitions between the songs. Miku would fade out into glow, or walk off the stage, or sink down into the stage. During one song, there were floaty lights like fireflies around her. There was also a cool roving-spotlight effect when the Kagamine twins were introduced, too. Holy crap, did the crowd ever go NUTS. We went nuts a lot, actually XD There was so much screaming and whistling. People were worried before the concert that there wouldn't be enough energy, and nobody would stand up and dance (the seats made it kind of hard to do that if you had any courtesy at all for the person behind you), but we were all yelling and cheering and singing so loud that I don't think anyone could've complained.
I knew all of the songs, I think, at least passingly, and most of them were ones I really liked. A quick rundown of the Miku songs: World is Mine, Electric Angel, Koisuru Vocaloid, Clover Club, PoPiPo (XD complete with the silly dance from the video!), Romeo and Cinderella, Two-Faced Lovers, Puzzle, Voice, 1/6, moon, The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku (spectacular, holy cow, with her actually blipping out into static at the end like you'd expect - this, for the uninitiated, is a surprisingly heartbreaking "I know I'm just a program but all I want to do is sing, please please don't uninstall me" song), From Y to Y, Saihate, Finder, SPiCa (HGNNNNGHHILOVESPICA and she had a new outfit with WINGS and her HAIR DOWN and OMFG), Ai Kotoba, StargazeR, and as an encore they did a violin-filled, reorchestrated Hajimete no Oto, which is one of the really early seminal Miku songs. Luka did Just Be Friends (THANK YOU GOD) and she and Miku did World's End Dancehall together, which I didn't expect in a million years but which was totally badass. I thought Luka sounded a little weird - higher than usual - but it could've just been where I was sitting. I hear rumors that Luka's portion was in English, but if it was I didn't notice ^^;; Rin and Len did something together, Migikata no Cho, maybe? And Rin did Meltdown in an outfit inspired by the video.
IT WAS OVER WAY TOO SOON XD The concert was under an hour and a half, and I think the original was two hours, which is kind of a bummer. But it was still amazing and worth every minute. I was surprised that Miku didn't sing Melt and that Luka didn't do Double Lariat (I was surprised in general that Luka and the twins didn't do more songs) but that's just "in a perfect world..." sort of thinking.
After the concert, I caught the shuttle back to my hotel, checked in, and collapsed in bed. The hotel was average, but nice enough. And it had been cheap. Score!
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On Sunday I slept until about 9:30 (after a brief adventure of waking up just before 5 feeling like death on a cracker, calling caitirin, taking drugs, and going back to sleep). There's nothing like consecutive camping/traveling/con-going to make one really appreciate a good shower. I was going to get breakfast at a little bakery next door to the hotel, but while I was waiting for somebody to notice the couple of us standing around the counter hoping to order, the con shuttle came and I skedaddled out to it. I ate a Lara bar instead, sometime around 11:00.
At noon I went to the Copic Markers workshop, which was pretty cool but not entirely what I had been hoping for. They gave us line art to color and there were lots of sets of markers going around, but the girl next to me hogged an entire set for almost the whole hour and a half and I managed to get hold of some markers only when they left about 20 minutes before it ended e_e (Aside: If you ever go to a con and can't get into a panel or workshop at the beginning, just wait a little while, because people always leave partway through.) Anyway, the first speaker was a creature designer who had worked at ILM and various other places. She designed Jar Jar Binks and most of the other background critters for The Phantom Menace (and I think she designed ET, too). She was cool, but she had no idea what she was talking about when it came to anime. She said "Miyazaka" meaning Miyazaki, and "Spirit in the Shell" meaning Ghost in the Shell. The Copic representative also said that CLAMP did Sailor Moon, at which point the entire audience went silent, so I didn't find either of them particularly credible in that area. Oh well.
The creature designer told us a lot about the industry and the skills you need to get into it, which while useful, isn't anything I wanted to know. I'm aware that the con was filled with enough beginner artists that her spiel about how you have to learn anatomy and draw from life before you can draw well in anime-style was necessary, but I still felt talked-down-to. She also said that it's possible to transition from traditional mediums to digital mediums but it's impossible to learn the other way around (that is, if you learn to color digitally first, you can't use that knowledge to learn how to paint/marker/etc.) and I just don't agree. The part of the workshop led by the Copic representative was quite useful, though (not to mention hilarious) and I took a lot of marker coloring notes, although I don't know how applicable they'll be to my Prismacolors. I wish I had some Copics, because they're gorgeous and have lovely brush tips that are much more flexible than my Prismas, but I went to the Copic booth in the dealers' hall and they were, at a significantly reduced price from usual, $25 for six markers. I couldn't justify spending that when I already have a 24-set of Prismas and I'm not planning to get into markering seriously. I did at least learn that I'm using entirely the wrong kind of paper (I'd been using watercolor paper to cut down on the bleeding, which the Copic rep said "sucks your markers dry faster than those sparkly vampires up in Washington" XD). I tried out my Prismas on the sample paper they gave us when I got home, and it works much better (which is not to say my markering didn't come out abysmally, but I think that's a combination of lack of technique understanding and lack of practice).
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After the Copics workshop, I ate some lunch and went to the Vocaloid fan phenomenon panel I talked about earlier. By this time, I was reaching my crowd tolerance limit, but I still had several hours before my shuttle would pick me up and take me to catch my plane. I went back into the dealers' hall and wandered Artist Alley for a while, which is always my favorite part of a con. I tried to save some cash in case I needed it on the way home, but it was hard XD The commercial dealers were wicked expensive, but I ended up buying two volumes of the Madoka manga and a Miku t-shirt. The Nico Nico shirt was free with my registration :D The rest of my loot I got from Artist Alley.
You may notice a slight Madoka/Homura bias here ¬_¬ I met a bunch of super cool artists, as well! Zambi did the large print of Madoka and glasses!Homura, Tomoji did the one of Madoka and Homura hugging in space, Jo (CartoonGirl7) did the Melt and girl with birds prints, and Belindahhh did the Magnet and Happy Synthesizer postcards and the Miku decal (for my laptop WHEE!). Divine Munguia did the amazing Utena rose crest shirt with fabric markers. I nabbed the last one! :3 I didn't get the name of the artist who did the papercraft Konata and Kagami, sadly, as well as the artist who did some Madoka pins that don't appear in this picture (they're already in the car :3) Note to self: always grab business cards at Artist Alley.
The dealers' hall was super crowded (as one would expect) and there was a group of K-ON! cosplayers up on a stage, at the Crunchyroll booth, I think, singing Fuwa Fuwa Time and Don't Say Lazy. They were really good! They took a crowd-poll to see which characters were most popular, and I think I was the only one who shouted for Yui ^^;; Aww. Mio's the fan favorite, I think.
I then had the exciting pleasure of almost being crushed in a crowd. The jam-packed escalator I was riding up deposited us at the back of a rapidly growing crowd at the top that had, apparently, nowhere to go to let us through. That was fun. With more and more people coming up the escalator, some idiot behind me was all "Move, move, I have to go this way!" and made things worse by shoving people over into each other. I eventually got through and I don't think anybody was hurt, but it could've gotten bad very quickly.
I hung around taking pictures of people and trying to sit through random episodes of anime. Here are my thoughts on the 1.75 shows I saw:
Freedom: Apparently by the same people who did Akira, judging by the character designs. Interesting plot, mind-numbingly boring characters, horrible rotoscoped CG animation that made my skin crawl. I sat through an episode because I wanted to know what would happen, nothing more. In short, humans lived on a space station on the other side of the moon and the government was lying to them about the supposedly blasted and uninhabitable state of Earth. Your Standard Earnest and Headstrong Main Dude found a photograph, apparently part of a time capsule of sorts, sent from Earth to go "hey, guys, we're all okay down here... feel free to come back anytime..."
Black Lagoon: They checked my ID when I went into this one. The episode I watched featured a bunch of tough adult characters who were probably not exactly law-abiding, diving in the ocean for something aboard a sunken submarine. A very Nazi-like antagonist group was trying to intercept them. It wasn't really my genre, but I enjoyed watching it (and, from the half-episode I watched, I have no clue why it was rated M). The animation was pretty good, and there was a Cool Gun Chick and an actual black anime character and a blond scruffy Kaji sort of fellow. It reminded me a teeny bit of Cowboy Bebop in it's level of cool.
Tsukiyomi Moon Phase: Wh...? The first few minutes showed very Hellsing-ish vampirey imagery, you know, bats, high arched windows against the moonlight, a black silhouette of a boat with a cross in it sinking into a red lake. And then the opening sequence started. The song went, and I quote: "Kitty! ... Kitty ears! ... Kitty ears mode!" and continued thusly, with many a nyan. I heard people say "Oh god, what have you gotten me into?" to their companions. I totally would've watched more just out of morbid curiosity, but the people beside me left and the AX staff made me move into the center, at which point I was right behind a guy with an afro and I couldn't see the screen even a little. So I left.
One of the most amusing conversations I overheard was when I was waiting for the airport shuttle out in front of the convention center. There were two guys sitting next to me, not in costume but in regular street clothes, very cool-looking badass sorts. They certainly didn't have "con-goer" written all over them. And one of them says to the other, "No, man, it can't be. She hasn't got the pendant. She's got the Millennium Rod or some shit."
XD I don't know what kind of cosplayer they were discussing, but it was obviously a magical girl of some sort, and they recognized her based on her accessories. This is the kind of thing that makes attending cons great.
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I got to the airport at 6:45ish, with plenty of time to make my 9:05 p.m. flight. There weren't a ton of food options, but at least there were more than at the little pastry stand at my terminal in Boston. I wanted a bagel but they didn't have the ability to toast it (why even sell bagels if you can't toast them?) so I got a pre-wrapped sandwich and chips. The lady sitting across from me in the terminal had a Moosehead Lake t-shirt on - Moosehead Lake is up in Maine, near where my family used to have our camp. It was really cool to see that, and a bunch of other New England-specific shirts and luggage and things, all the way out in California.
The plane ride home was long and tedious. I didn't sleep, but I was too tired to read or play DS or do anything else constructive, so I listened to Sherlock Holmes radio plays and was generally uncomfortable. I couldn't wait to get off the plane. I caught the 6:10 a.m. bus from Logan back to Portsmouth, where I ran into the waiting arms of caitirin and then we went to breakfast :3 After which I showed her my loot and collapsed into bed until the afternoon. We had a pretty low-key 4th of July, but it was so good to rest XD
In short, it was a fun-packed two and a half days, though somewhat surreal since I'm not used to such back-to-back activity, especially not all by myself. I'm really glad I went. I think it was an experience not to be missed :)