Anime Expo 2011
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Anime Expo 2011
Apparently I'm writing a report for both myself and gem2niki, so I'm going to make this ridiculously detailed, haha. XD; This can otherwise be known as gem2niki and lucathia's food diary, hahaha… I can't believe how much I ate. T___T;; Or it can be known as lucathia being too long-winded.
Day 0
Arrived in LA at 1:00 PM or so to check in at the Wilshire Grand hotel. I booked that one since we looked like we were going to have quite a number of people in the hotel room. The Wilshire has suites for a reasonable price with a large sitting area (room for people to sleep on the floor) and two bathrooms (since otherwise taking turns with the bathroom would take too long). I wanted to book an executive suite that would give us access to a VIP lounge with breakfast and afternoon snacks, but that one sold out fast. It was only $10 more than what I booked, yet it sounded so much more luxurious!
Checking in took a while...because somehow they had me checking in the day after. I was like, what, that can't be! Something must have messed up along the way. I called them the week before to add a third name to the guest list for Day 0... guess they ended up... canceling the day altogether instead of adding a name. Don't know what happened, but I at least got there early enough that they managed to find a room for me.
Here's what our hotel looks like from the outside!
The room itself!
It has two bathrooms, two beds (though quite small...), and a large sitting area. There was so much floor space! But it still felt kind of crowded after we squished 7 people in there. Don't know how people do it in normal rooms. XD;
We got put aaaaaaall the way at the end of the hallway. So far from the elevator.
View from our room. You can see the convention center from here! It's at the very end of the pic!
Waited with my friend gem2niki in the hotel room for roommate #1 (lady_black_cat) that I've never met before to arrive. Although she arrived at the airport around the same time as we arrived in LA, she didn't arrive in the hotel until quite a while later (she took the shuttle from the airport). After she arrived, we left together for the convention center to get our badges.
My line (the general attendee pre-registration line) was crazily long. gem2niki got to go elsewhere for a much shorter line for artist alley artists. I'm her helper, but I didn't get a special barcode, and the forums instructions said that I had to line up with the general attendees without a special barcode, so I did just that. -___-;; Our roommate #1 did at-con registration. She had a muuuuch shorter line than I did! (Seriously, maybe I should've just not registered at all until the day of the con!!) While waiting in line, I took out my scratch paper and started writing Entries #4 for Entries in a Holy Knight's Journal. I've written 400 words, yet it still hasn't gone anywhere. XD; I'm terribly bad at writing on paper...
After waiting for quite a long time, it turned out that I could line up at the artist alley line instead. Blargh!! I deserted my spot in the general line after that, but I waited until roommate #2, #3 (rady, #4, #5 managed to find us so that I could give them a hotel key. I barely knew any of them! In fact, I've only ever met one of them face-to-face, and I've never really spoken with her before. It was quite an experience trying to find each other (Where are you? I'm the one with the blue hat with food in my hands! I'm raising my hand in the air! I'm making circles with my hand [this one was rady]! Can you see me?) Roommate #3-5 were only there to pick up their badges and would return the next day.
The artist alley line was so short and sweet. It was awesome. I hope they do it again next year.
I took some pictures of the cars with the Miku art. Figured it'd be too crowded after the convention started properly, and we were sure right about that. There were lines for that on the other days!
These were there since this year it was all about Vocaloid what with the Miku concert on Sat!
After that, we met up and left with roommate #1 and left the convention center.
Banners on the side of the Figueroa hotel. Few years ago, it was FFXIII that was displayed!
We went to dinner at Wokcano, which was only a street away from our hotel. Our hotel was a 10 minute or so walk from the convention center (not close enough!!) but it was quite a convenient location for food. Mm, food!
Tempura vegetables!
Shrimp chow mein!
Crab fried rice! I felt kind of bad for lady_black_cat that we were both using chopsticks while she was finding her way around with her chopsticks. It meant I was a fast eater for once. :'D
We got back to the hotel just in time to see roommate #2 head for the elevators because her key didn't work. My key didn't work either! Only one key worked, and I had handed it off to roommate #1 (at least we all managed to get into the room). I went to the lobby to get our keys fixed.
After that, it was preparing for the next day and sleeping!
Day 1
Start of the con! We got up early to eat breakfast at Ihop.
My food! Crepe with egg, spinach, tomato, and mushrooms. I liked it a lot, though I'm surprised I manage to finish the whole thing!
gem2niki's food. :3
Went back to the hotel to get changed into cosplay (Keima and Elsee from Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai / The World God Only Knows). Both our roommates already left to go to opening ceremonies. Changing... took forever! Or actually, it didn't take very long to get into the costume, but it took forever to comb the ponytail extension. I had already combed it as much as I could before hand, but gem2niki still thought it looked like a dead animal and refused to give up. We ended up leaving a lot of hair in the trash can after brushing, haha.
People waiting for the shuttle. That bus over there wasn't the shuttle (it was a bus to SF or something like that since our hotel was part of Korean airlines, so a lot of airline people were also staying there).
Even though artist alley opened at 12 on day 1 (and I thought we had plenty of time), we still ended up late!
For gem2niki's table, we spraypainted the poles black and upgraded to a magenta tablecloth. Was hoping the booth itself would look prettier and more unique this away. |D I have pics of the table, but gem2niki is in all of them and she doesn't want her face shown. |D Will be posting that in a locked post later!
After we set up, I wandered the dealer's room by myself. That look forever since the room is pretty big. I couldn't see very well without my contacts or my glasses (since I couldn't wear them while in cosplay. It would be out of character!) so I didn't really know what I was looking at, haha. Took photos of stands I thought I might return to later to make purchases. Head back to our booth after that to switch off with gem2niki.
Some car that was in the dealer's.
I noticed this year that there are a lot of kids cosplaying!! I guess the fans have now all grown old enough to have kids who are old enough to be attending and cosplaying… kid cosplay = so cute.
Posters. Took this pic because of the Kami Nomi/World God Only Knows poster. |D I am sad there wasn't any Kami Nomi merchandise!! Kinokuniya was selling the manga, but that was about it.
Okami!
One of the displays.
Kaitou Kid. :D (When I showed pics to my dad, this was the only cosplay he recognized, haha)
A family! Very cute!
Another Elsee cosplayer~
Skip Beat!!
I noticed her digimon first. XD
Another Keima. I always seem to take pics of whatever series I cosplay that year. |D This guy had "god of conquest" on his badge as his nickname, haha.
King Slime! It was funny how the guy raised the costume so that the body met the crown… he has his face showing while he's walking around.
gem2niki shopped around (came back and told me someone called her "god!!!" so she hurried back to grab the PSP so that she'd be able to pose, hahaha. So many people called her god, kami-sama, divine one, etc, throughout the con! I was very amused by it all.)
After that, she then went to the food trucks outside of the convention center to buy some food for us~. The food trucks were organized by attendees! g2n called back to ask what I wanted since we couldn't both leave the table.
One of the food trucks.
I had chicken while she had a... rice dish? I think? I can't believe we don't have pics!
Hakuoki cosplayers.
After artist alley closed, we cleaned up and went outside to line up for the shuttle back to our hotel. The line was pretty long... since I think everyone was trying to head back after the artist alley and dealer's room closed.
When we got back to the hotel, all of our roommates were there, whoa! I took off my ponytail extension and my hagaromo prop since the ponytail was soooo heavy and I didn't think they would let us into the concert with my prop. Without my hagaromo, I felt like I was just some random ninja girl.
We were so late for the Nirgilis concert. Decided to walk there instead of taking the shuttle. Had a hard time finding where Club Nokia was (it wasn't the Nokia Theater like I had thought). When we got there, there was still a line outside, so I thought maaaybe the concert hadn't started yet, but it had. D: It was just that a lot of people were still waiting to get in because it took that long to check bags and such.
The Club Nokia...is very small. It is, like it's name, a place for clubs. Our tickets turned out to be standing tickets. Basically everyone was just standing around. Nirgirlis was already singing when we managed to get in at 7:30, half an hour after they were scheduled to start.
They finished singing their current song and then started Snow Kiss from D.Gray-Man! So glad I was in time for that! The singer was so cute (her singing voice was really cute too). They were all dressed in loose hoodies. After that, they sang Shiny Shiny from Deadman Wonderland (I listened to this before coming to the con and liked it a lot, but I haven't watched the anime). They had the audience dance with the chorus with their hands (right, right, left, right) whenever they sang “shiny shiny”. They also sang their Eureka seveN song during the night after another song and an interlude where they asked us if we knew certain anime (like Pokemon, DBZ, and One Piece), and then that was it!
It was only 8 PM or so when they said it was their last song! D: They came back for one encore song, and then it ended.
Very short concert. Place was very small too! It wasn't a very impressive stage...and it felt like the audience wasn't very responsive... hope Nirgilis had a good time anyway though. =x Felt sad that they came all this way for such a small audience! I wish they had a bigger stage.
We headed back to our hotel after that and took some pics of our cosplay, but the lighting was pretty bad by then.
Will post other pics in a separate post, maybe. |D
We changed out of the rest of our cosplay before heading for dinner. gem2niki was chatting with roommate #1 (lady_black_cat) about her day when roommate #1 asked, "where's gem2niki?" (using her real name). I promptly burst out laughing since gem2niki was standing right in front of her and chatting with her. XD; It turned out that lady_black_cat hadn't recognized g2n in her cosplay with her wig on and thought she was a completely different person! A new roommate, or something. XD;
After that, gem2niki and I went out for a very late dinner. Since it was so late, other restaurants we wanted to go to were already closed. We ended up at Ihop for the second time in the day. I wasn't hungry since we ate pretty late right before the concert... yet I managed to finish the food I ordered! :O (No wonder I gained three pounds after AX...). Saw yoshikochan at Ihop!
Lemonade to quench our thirst. ;D
Salad.
I wasn't hungry at all and yet I managed to finish my quesadilla... It was 12:30 AM or so by the time we finished dinner! |D
At the hotel, everyone was pretty much asleep already. gem2niki organized her prints on our bed... I don't remember what I was doing. Probably combing my wig or something like that. XD;
Day 2
Because gem2niki organized her prints on our bed, I woke up dreaming about series featured in her prints!!! It was so bizarre. In the dream, I was chatting with someone at some restaurant, and then I received a text from g2n about the Black Rider appearing, and that some kind of fight was breaking about because of the Red something something. (Not Blue Square or Yellow Scarves or anything, but something else called Red something something) In the dream, we were all going, "Red something something...?" Apparently my mind didn't supply what the rest of the gang was called after "Red." And then after that there was a bus with all the Red something something people, and somehow Nyanko-sensei appeared commenting about how they were all cat people. (I think I was thinking during the day that there was so much cat merchandise around, so anime fans seemed more into cats than dogs...). After that, the scene shifted to...the park, with Rin and Yukio playing pretty high up, and then Rin getting hurt with Yukio patching him up (with metal...chains), with Rin reassuring Yukio that he didn't mind getting hurt if it was what inspired Yukio to become a doctor (like what? Yukio's a doctor??). So yeah. I dreamt about Durarara!!, Natsume Yuujinchou, and Ao no Exorcist. When I woke up, I realized they were all series g2n drew for her prints, which were all laid out on the bed before I went to sleep...OTL
We went to Subway to buy a footlong breakfast sandwich. Returned to the hotel to change into cosplay (Maya Fey and Kay Faraday from Ace Attorney). We then headed to the convention center.
People coming off the shuttle. (The shuttles were mostly school buses)
While behind our table, someone commented, "Maya and Kay manning a booth together! How cute!" XD;
I barely have any pics of me as Maya, but here's one... this time, I have an actual wig! People commented on it a lot. <3 Though I actually got more comments about my cute purse, lol, which isn't part of the cosplay. You can't see all the accessories on the wig in this pic. ;__; The heels totally killed me and the wig started slipping off later in the day, so I kind of gave up. XD;
I wandered the Artist Alley a bit and took notes on which booths had stuff I was sort of interested in since they were series I only sort of cared about but the art was cute (I don't think I ended up returning though since I ran out of time!). I bought some Yu Yu Hakusho charms right away though because KURAMA. I cannot resist Kurama.
A Kusunoki cosplayer from Kami Nomi! She said I was pretty much the only person who recognized her. :'D She tried kicking, but I couldn't get my camera to focus for that.
Panty & Stocking cosplayers. They looked really good!
Managed to run into dumbimps and dyaoka in the AA since they were selling there!
This is how it looked behind the artist alley table. The space behind the tables was fairly large! While the walkways were narrow.
Another Keima cosplayer~
I ran into yoshikochan again. This time she was in her popular Kyuubei cosplay, eee! It turned out so well!
Beelzebub cosplayers!
I also ran into seta_suzume for the first time ever! She recognized me first! :D She was in her Kimblee cosplay, and she was so expressive in it. XD; We chatted quite a lot and blocked people's paths, haha.
So cute!!
Death Note.
Some cat thing?
Switched with g2n for a bit, and then I went to the food trucks to buy food for us.
When I left the Artist Alley/Dealer's Room, it was like, whoa, people!
I bought from this food truck~
And this one~
It was an interesting mix of Chinese and Latino food.
My heels were killing me by this time, and my wig was sliding backwards! I had to take it off and then I couldn't put it back on anymore. D: When I tried to put it back on, a lady immediately said, oh, that's a cute hairstyle! Can I take a pic? I was like, sure? Even though the wig wasn't completely on. XD; The hairstyle seriously makes the cosplay...after I took it off, no one knew who I was anymore. I was just a generic maid. XD;
One Piece cosplay.
My food! Chow mein + carne asada.
Chicken crepe.
We ate our food, finished selling, and took the shuttle back to our hotel.
Line for the shuttle. It was so long!
Had to skip Kalafina since we didn't have tickets for that, and standby tickets seemed pretty much impossible. We'd have had to pack up super early too since AA doesn't close until 6, but the concert started at 5. We took our time to get back to our hotel. After that, we headed to the Vocaloid concert with roommate #2 who was the only other of our roommates who was going. When we got there, there were several very long lines, but our line got led to a secret, shorter line, so we got in pretty early! :D
Photos weren't allowed during the concert, but I took a few of the concert area before and after! Sadly, with my cell phone since I didn't think cameras were allowed, though it seems a lot of people brought cameras anyway.
I was on the right side, fairly near the front. Had a good view, if only the guy a few rows ahead of me weren't so tall. ;___; Most of the time, I wasn't able to see since he was so into it and stood for almost the entire concert. I could only see between the space of his hand (he was always waving it) and his head. The guy two seats to my right was super into it too. He brought a bunch of glow sticks and even passed them out to people around him so that everyone was glowing. He and a bunch of others were all coordinated with their glow-stick waving. It was like a cult or something. XD;;
I was imagining the 3D imaging to be clearer and stand out more, but it felt like Miku was stuck behind some glass to me. XD; She was very clear and bright when she was on my side, but whenever she went to the middle or to the left side, she kind of faded and became transparent. She looked a lot better on the big screen on both sides of the stage, since there was less of a reflection from the panels there. The concert started off with World is Mine. That was the only song I knew the name of! XD; Rin, Len, and Luka came on too for a little bit. Luka's "Just be Friends" was the only other song I knew from the concert. XD; I really love Len's design though. So cute! Miku changed a lot of outfits during the show, and her dancing was pretty cool! The place was fairly packed, and almost everyone on my side was standing up. I kind of wished I had a balcony seat so I could sit down. XD I was so dead tired!
After the concert, we ate at a breakfast place that we had planned on eating at in the morning of Day 3, but everywhere else was closed...and we didn't want to eat at Ihop again. XD;
I didn't manage to finish my food!! It was just too rich (very rich breakfast food. I think it was an omelet with lots of ham and potatoes?). I can't believe we don't have a pic…what blasphemy!
One of our roommate's plushie!
Went to sleep after combing my wigs to make sure we didn't take too much time the next day.
Day 3
Trieeed to wake up early, but when I woke up, I was SO SORE. It was from wearing the heels...I guess I never use those leg muscles. I ended up staying in bed for another hour, and then we started getting ready. We changed into cosplay and didn't even get breakfast (just ate some cookies and bread that I brought with me), thinking that we'd get some food from the food trucks later. While in our hotel room, we had roommate #3 help us take photos of us, and we also took photos of her!
She has such deadly expressions! XD;
We left after our impromptu photo session to go to the Artist Alley once again. While there, g2n started making her rounds, and I just sat there and helped her sell stuff.
A high school friend of mine! He came by quite often to chat, so much that the table next to me asked if I knew him because if not, then they thought it was weird, ahaha.
I wanted to pose with the dagger too. XD;
While stuck at the table, I waved cosplayers over to take pics. Medicine seller!
Alice no Kuni!
Kuroneko from OreImo!
Later on, I went to the food trucks to buy us some food. We were taking turns, but my cosplay was comfortable enough for me to walk around in... I shouldn't have walked around so much in Maya in my heels. That was tough!
Spyro!
Another pic of the cars in the dealer's!
On the way to the food trucks. Suddenly, ninjas! (There were Bleach captains right next to them too)
Shaman King cosplayers~
I bought from this food truck on Day 3~ It was so not enough to fill my stomach. I was still hungry afterward!
Our Korean rolls that were not sushi! It was beef and tuna.
Two Yui cosplayers from Kami Nomi were at our table when I came back! We took a pic with them too~
After we ate, I wandered the Dealer's one last time and bought some stuff, mostly souvenirs for my family since cons never have stuff for series I'm interested in!
I took pics of Kami Nomi cosplayers. There were quite a lot that day since there was a gathering… that I didn't know about. :'( I wish I had gone! I wanted to see all of the Keima's lined up together with their PFPs!
Quite a number of us had skulls! XD; Some guy at the Miku concert even asked me what series I was from since he'd been seeing a lot of people wearing skulls around. Doro doro invasion!
And suddenly, Crayon Shin-chan.
An Elsee and Keima duo.
An Elsee (school uniform version) with "de"! XD
Keimas. XD
When the dealer's room and AA closed, we packed up. Since we didn't have a concert to go to, we took this time to take some photos of ourselves, finally! These, like the other photos of the two of us, will be posted in a separate, locked post. If that post happens. XD;
Here are a few pics that don't show g2n. XD; My silhouette.
g2n's silhouette!
We didn't have a third person, so we set the camera on timer for our duo pics. Didn't have a tripod either. XD;
Don't know what I was doing. I suck at posing. XD; And cannot act in character!
...ponytail was seriously long and very heavy to wear. XD; My hagaromo got an upgrade for this con! It stood up properly! XD; And it was the only hagoromo with a form! I think everyone else's was wrapped around their arms. Mine actually defied gravity. XD; But because it was wired, it only had one shape, haha, and I couldn't raise my arms without making it look weird... so I had very limited arm movement. XD
We wanted to go to the noitaminA panel at 8:30 (or was it 8:00) and were going to either drop our stuff at the hotel or just stay at the con. Since we took so long with taking photos, we ended up staying at the con.
It was my first and only panel this year! The panel itself was basically advertising for noitaminA shows. They just showed trailers and openings for some of their shows (though watching that did make me want to watch a bunch of them!). Some people won a box of goodies, though I'm not sure what the box contained. I didn't win one, boo.
We returned to our hotel after that and were once again very late, so a lot of food places had already closed. I thought maybe pizza would be good since it was right across from our street...but they were closed when we finished dropping off our stuff at the hotel. We went to Wokcano again in the end, hahaha...
Mmm, edamame!
Spinach fried rice. I love spinach.
Chicken salad.
Some steamed vegetables! Even though it was quite a lot of food, we managed to finish it unlike our dinner from the night before... I suppose our stomachs are used to Chinese food...
Started packing when we got back!
Day 4
Finished packing, checked out, and left my stuff at the bell desk, to be reclaimed later. We bought subway sandwiches and then left for the convention, this time by walking instead of by shuttle... since the shuttle wasn't all that convenient anyways. It makes another stop before taking us to the con.
It was g2n's turn to walk around, so I remained stuck at the table pretty much the entire time!
She wasn't going to take her camera with her, but then she returned and went, "There's a crossdressing version of Sanji!!"
She took a pic of the Al model that was in the dealer's.
This Sephiroth's sword didn't even fit in the frame of the photo!!
When g2n returned, she came back with 999, which came with a watch. I thought it was a pretty good price, and getting a watch was awesome too, so I went to the booth to buy myself a copy too. I snagged the last one! XD;
Back at the table, some Working!! cosplayers wandered by. Is that a guy cosplaying crossdressing Takanashi? :D? (I've noticed that there are quite a lot more guys cosplaying actual crossdressing guys from different series! Makes for some pretty cool cosplay since they look the part!)
Finally met revenus!!! I thought we were going to miss them this year!
Did not think they were attending, so it was a pleasant surprise! Didn't recognize darkenedwings and impure_impulse until they got closer.
Totoro cosplay. :D
And that was it! After the place closed, we packed up, went back to our hotel to retrieve our stuff, and then we took the bus to our friend's place in Santa Monica to spend a night there. That trip felt even more tiring than the entire con combined, haha, since we had to pull our luggage up hills!
Stuff I bought! And got for free. XD; The shirt came with our registration. It was quite funny since a lot of people started wearing them. It made for an amusing sight.
Here is why the shirt is awesome. XD; You can guess where my eyes went, right????
Anime Expo 2011
Apparently I'm writing a report for both myself and gem2niki, so I'm going to make this ridiculously detailed, haha. XD; This can otherwise be known as gem2niki and lucathia's food diary, hahaha… I can't believe how much I ate. T___T;; Or it can be known as lucathia being too long-winded.
Day 0
Arrived in LA at 1:00 PM or so to check in at the Wilshire Grand hotel. I booked that one since we looked like we were going to have quite a number of people in the hotel room. The Wilshire has suites for a reasonable price with a large sitting area (room for people to sleep on the floor) and two bathrooms (since otherwise taking turns with the bathroom would take too long). I wanted to book an executive suite that would give us access to a VIP lounge with breakfast and afternoon snacks, but that one sold out fast. It was only $10 more than what I booked, yet it sounded so much more luxurious!
Checking in took a while...because somehow they had me checking in the day after. I was like, what, that can't be! Something must have messed up along the way. I called them the week before to add a third name to the guest list for Day 0... guess they ended up... canceling the day altogether instead of adding a name. Don't know what happened, but I at least got there early enough that they managed to find a room for me.
Here's what our hotel looks like from the outside!
The room itself!
It has two bathrooms, two beds (though quite small...), and a large sitting area. There was so much floor space! But it still felt kind of crowded after we squished 7 people in there. Don't know how people do it in normal rooms. XD;
We got put aaaaaaall the way at the end of the hallway. So far from the elevator.
View from our room. You can see the convention center from here! It's at the very end of the pic!
Waited with my friend gem2niki in the hotel room for roommate #1 (lady_black_cat) that I've never met before to arrive. Although she arrived at the airport around the same time as we arrived in LA, she didn't arrive in the hotel until quite a while later (she took the shuttle from the airport). After she arrived, we left together for the convention center to get our badges.
My line (the general attendee pre-registration line) was crazily long. gem2niki got to go elsewhere for a much shorter line for artist alley artists. I'm her helper, but I didn't get a special barcode, and the forums instructions said that I had to line up with the general attendees without a special barcode, so I did just that. -___-;; Our roommate #1 did at-con registration. She had a muuuuch shorter line than I did! (Seriously, maybe I should've just not registered at all until the day of the con!!) While waiting in line, I took out my scratch paper and started writing Entries #4 for Entries in a Holy Knight's Journal. I've written 400 words, yet it still hasn't gone anywhere. XD; I'm terribly bad at writing on paper...
After waiting for quite a long time, it turned out that I could line up at the artist alley line instead. Blargh!! I deserted my spot in the general line after that, but I waited until roommate #2, #3 (rady, #4, #5 managed to find us so that I could give them a hotel key. I barely knew any of them! In fact, I've only ever met one of them face-to-face, and I've never really spoken with her before. It was quite an experience trying to find each other (Where are you? I'm the one with the blue hat with food in my hands! I'm raising my hand in the air! I'm making circles with my hand [this one was rady]! Can you see me?) Roommate #3-5 were only there to pick up their badges and would return the next day.
The artist alley line was so short and sweet. It was awesome. I hope they do it again next year.
I took some pictures of the cars with the Miku art. Figured it'd be too crowded after the convention started properly, and we were sure right about that. There were lines for that on the other days!
These were there since this year it was all about Vocaloid what with the Miku concert on Sat!
After that, we met up and left with roommate #1 and left the convention center.
Banners on the side of the Figueroa hotel. Few years ago, it was FFXIII that was displayed!
We went to dinner at Wokcano, which was only a street away from our hotel. Our hotel was a 10 minute or so walk from the convention center (not close enough!!) but it was quite a convenient location for food. Mm, food!
Tempura vegetables!
Shrimp chow mein!
Crab fried rice! I felt kind of bad for lady_black_cat that we were both using chopsticks while she was finding her way around with her chopsticks. It meant I was a fast eater for once. :'D
We got back to the hotel just in time to see roommate #2 head for the elevators because her key didn't work. My key didn't work either! Only one key worked, and I had handed it off to roommate #1 (at least we all managed to get into the room). I went to the lobby to get our keys fixed.
After that, it was preparing for the next day and sleeping!
Day 1
Start of the con! We got up early to eat breakfast at Ihop.
My food! Crepe with egg, spinach, tomato, and mushrooms. I liked it a lot, though I'm surprised I manage to finish the whole thing!
gem2niki's food. :3
Went back to the hotel to get changed into cosplay (Keima and Elsee from Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai / The World God Only Knows). Both our roommates already left to go to opening ceremonies. Changing... took forever! Or actually, it didn't take very long to get into the costume, but it took forever to comb the ponytail extension. I had already combed it as much as I could before hand, but gem2niki still thought it looked like a dead animal and refused to give up. We ended up leaving a lot of hair in the trash can after brushing, haha.
People waiting for the shuttle. That bus over there wasn't the shuttle (it was a bus to SF or something like that since our hotel was part of Korean airlines, so a lot of airline people were also staying there).
Even though artist alley opened at 12 on day 1 (and I thought we had plenty of time), we still ended up late!
For gem2niki's table, we spraypainted the poles black and upgraded to a magenta tablecloth. Was hoping the booth itself would look prettier and more unique this away. |D I have pics of the table, but gem2niki is in all of them and she doesn't want her face shown. |D Will be posting that in a locked post later!
After we set up, I wandered the dealer's room by myself. That look forever since the room is pretty big. I couldn't see very well without my contacts or my glasses (since I couldn't wear them while in cosplay. It would be out of character!) so I didn't really know what I was looking at, haha. Took photos of stands I thought I might return to later to make purchases. Head back to our booth after that to switch off with gem2niki.
Some car that was in the dealer's.
I noticed this year that there are a lot of kids cosplaying!! I guess the fans have now all grown old enough to have kids who are old enough to be attending and cosplaying… kid cosplay = so cute.
Posters. Took this pic because of the Kami Nomi/World God Only Knows poster. |D I am sad there wasn't any Kami Nomi merchandise!! Kinokuniya was selling the manga, but that was about it.
Okami!
One of the displays.
Kaitou Kid. :D (When I showed pics to my dad, this was the only cosplay he recognized, haha)
A family! Very cute!
Another Elsee cosplayer~
Skip Beat!!
I noticed her digimon first. XD
Another Keima. I always seem to take pics of whatever series I cosplay that year. |D This guy had "god of conquest" on his badge as his nickname, haha.
King Slime! It was funny how the guy raised the costume so that the body met the crown… he has his face showing while he's walking around.
gem2niki shopped around (came back and told me someone called her "god!!!" so she hurried back to grab the PSP so that she'd be able to pose, hahaha. So many people called her god, kami-sama, divine one, etc, throughout the con! I was very amused by it all.)
After that, she then went to the food trucks outside of the convention center to buy some food for us~. The food trucks were organized by attendees! g2n called back to ask what I wanted since we couldn't both leave the table.
One of the food trucks.
I had chicken while she had a... rice dish? I think? I can't believe we don't have pics!
Hakuoki cosplayers.
After artist alley closed, we cleaned up and went outside to line up for the shuttle back to our hotel. The line was pretty long... since I think everyone was trying to head back after the artist alley and dealer's room closed.
When we got back to the hotel, all of our roommates were there, whoa! I took off my ponytail extension and my hagaromo prop since the ponytail was soooo heavy and I didn't think they would let us into the concert with my prop. Without my hagaromo, I felt like I was just some random ninja girl.
We were so late for the Nirgilis concert. Decided to walk there instead of taking the shuttle. Had a hard time finding where Club Nokia was (it wasn't the Nokia Theater like I had thought). When we got there, there was still a line outside, so I thought maaaybe the concert hadn't started yet, but it had. D: It was just that a lot of people were still waiting to get in because it took that long to check bags and such.
The Club Nokia...is very small. It is, like it's name, a place for clubs. Our tickets turned out to be standing tickets. Basically everyone was just standing around. Nirgirlis was already singing when we managed to get in at 7:30, half an hour after they were scheduled to start.
They finished singing their current song and then started Snow Kiss from D.Gray-Man! So glad I was in time for that! The singer was so cute (her singing voice was really cute too). They were all dressed in loose hoodies. After that, they sang Shiny Shiny from Deadman Wonderland (I listened to this before coming to the con and liked it a lot, but I haven't watched the anime). They had the audience dance with the chorus with their hands (right, right, left, right) whenever they sang “shiny shiny”. They also sang their Eureka seveN song during the night after another song and an interlude where they asked us if we knew certain anime (like Pokemon, DBZ, and One Piece), and then that was it!
It was only 8 PM or so when they said it was their last song! D: They came back for one encore song, and then it ended.
Very short concert. Place was very small too! It wasn't a very impressive stage...and it felt like the audience wasn't very responsive... hope Nirgilis had a good time anyway though. =x Felt sad that they came all this way for such a small audience! I wish they had a bigger stage.
We headed back to our hotel after that and took some pics of our cosplay, but the lighting was pretty bad by then.
Will post other pics in a separate post, maybe. |D
We changed out of the rest of our cosplay before heading for dinner. gem2niki was chatting with roommate #1 (lady_black_cat) about her day when roommate #1 asked, "where's gem2niki?" (using her real name). I promptly burst out laughing since gem2niki was standing right in front of her and chatting with her. XD; It turned out that lady_black_cat hadn't recognized g2n in her cosplay with her wig on and thought she was a completely different person! A new roommate, or something. XD;
After that, gem2niki and I went out for a very late dinner. Since it was so late, other restaurants we wanted to go to were already closed. We ended up at Ihop for the second time in the day. I wasn't hungry since we ate pretty late right before the concert... yet I managed to finish the food I ordered! :O (No wonder I gained three pounds after AX...). Saw yoshikochan at Ihop!
Lemonade to quench our thirst. ;D
Salad.
I wasn't hungry at all and yet I managed to finish my quesadilla... It was 12:30 AM or so by the time we finished dinner! |D
At the hotel, everyone was pretty much asleep already. gem2niki organized her prints on our bed... I don't remember what I was doing. Probably combing my wig or something like that. XD;
Day 2
Because gem2niki organized her prints on our bed, I woke up dreaming about series featured in her prints!!! It was so bizarre. In the dream, I was chatting with someone at some restaurant, and then I received a text from g2n about the Black Rider appearing, and that some kind of fight was breaking about because of the Red something something. (Not Blue Square or Yellow Scarves or anything, but something else called Red something something) In the dream, we were all going, "Red something something...?" Apparently my mind didn't supply what the rest of the gang was called after "Red." And then after that there was a bus with all the Red something something people, and somehow Nyanko-sensei appeared commenting about how they were all cat people. (I think I was thinking during the day that there was so much cat merchandise around, so anime fans seemed more into cats than dogs...). After that, the scene shifted to...the park, with Rin and Yukio playing pretty high up, and then Rin getting hurt with Yukio patching him up (with metal...chains), with Rin reassuring Yukio that he didn't mind getting hurt if it was what inspired Yukio to become a doctor (like what? Yukio's a doctor??). So yeah. I dreamt about Durarara!!, Natsume Yuujinchou, and Ao no Exorcist. When I woke up, I realized they were all series g2n drew for her prints, which were all laid out on the bed before I went to sleep...OTL
We went to Subway to buy a footlong breakfast sandwich. Returned to the hotel to change into cosplay (Maya Fey and Kay Faraday from Ace Attorney). We then headed to the convention center.
People coming off the shuttle. (The shuttles were mostly school buses)
While behind our table, someone commented, "Maya and Kay manning a booth together! How cute!" XD;
I barely have any pics of me as Maya, but here's one... this time, I have an actual wig! People commented on it a lot. <3 Though I actually got more comments about my cute purse, lol, which isn't part of the cosplay. You can't see all the accessories on the wig in this pic. ;__; The heels totally killed me and the wig started slipping off later in the day, so I kind of gave up. XD;
I wandered the Artist Alley a bit and took notes on which booths had stuff I was sort of interested in since they were series I only sort of cared about but the art was cute (I don't think I ended up returning though since I ran out of time!). I bought some Yu Yu Hakusho charms right away though because KURAMA. I cannot resist Kurama.
A Kusunoki cosplayer from Kami Nomi! She said I was pretty much the only person who recognized her. :'D She tried kicking, but I couldn't get my camera to focus for that.
Panty & Stocking cosplayers. They looked really good!
Managed to run into dumbimps and dyaoka in the AA since they were selling there!
This is how it looked behind the artist alley table. The space behind the tables was fairly large! While the walkways were narrow.
Another Keima cosplayer~
I ran into yoshikochan again. This time she was in her popular Kyuubei cosplay, eee! It turned out so well!
Beelzebub cosplayers!
I also ran into seta_suzume for the first time ever! She recognized me first! :D She was in her Kimblee cosplay, and she was so expressive in it. XD; We chatted quite a lot and blocked people's paths, haha.
So cute!!
Death Note.
Some cat thing?
Switched with g2n for a bit, and then I went to the food trucks to buy food for us.
When I left the Artist Alley/Dealer's Room, it was like, whoa, people!
I bought from this food truck~
And this one~
It was an interesting mix of Chinese and Latino food.
My heels were killing me by this time, and my wig was sliding backwards! I had to take it off and then I couldn't put it back on anymore. D: When I tried to put it back on, a lady immediately said, oh, that's a cute hairstyle! Can I take a pic? I was like, sure? Even though the wig wasn't completely on. XD; The hairstyle seriously makes the cosplay...after I took it off, no one knew who I was anymore. I was just a generic maid. XD;
One Piece cosplay.
My food! Chow mein + carne asada.
Chicken crepe.
We ate our food, finished selling, and took the shuttle back to our hotel.
Line for the shuttle. It was so long!
Had to skip Kalafina since we didn't have tickets for that, and standby tickets seemed pretty much impossible. We'd have had to pack up super early too since AA doesn't close until 6, but the concert started at 5. We took our time to get back to our hotel. After that, we headed to the Vocaloid concert with roommate #2 who was the only other of our roommates who was going. When we got there, there were several very long lines, but our line got led to a secret, shorter line, so we got in pretty early! :D
Photos weren't allowed during the concert, but I took a few of the concert area before and after! Sadly, with my cell phone since I didn't think cameras were allowed, though it seems a lot of people brought cameras anyway.
I was on the right side, fairly near the front. Had a good view, if only the guy a few rows ahead of me weren't so tall. ;___; Most of the time, I wasn't able to see since he was so into it and stood for almost the entire concert. I could only see between the space of his hand (he was always waving it) and his head. The guy two seats to my right was super into it too. He brought a bunch of glow sticks and even passed them out to people around him so that everyone was glowing. He and a bunch of others were all coordinated with their glow-stick waving. It was like a cult or something. XD;;
I was imagining the 3D imaging to be clearer and stand out more, but it felt like Miku was stuck behind some glass to me. XD; She was very clear and bright when she was on my side, but whenever she went to the middle or to the left side, she kind of faded and became transparent. She looked a lot better on the big screen on both sides of the stage, since there was less of a reflection from the panels there. The concert started off with World is Mine. That was the only song I knew the name of! XD; Rin, Len, and Luka came on too for a little bit. Luka's "Just be Friends" was the only other song I knew from the concert. XD; I really love Len's design though. So cute! Miku changed a lot of outfits during the show, and her dancing was pretty cool! The place was fairly packed, and almost everyone on my side was standing up. I kind of wished I had a balcony seat so I could sit down. XD I was so dead tired!
After the concert, we ate at a breakfast place that we had planned on eating at in the morning of Day 3, but everywhere else was closed...and we didn't want to eat at Ihop again. XD;
I didn't manage to finish my food!! It was just too rich (very rich breakfast food. I think it was an omelet with lots of ham and potatoes?). I can't believe we don't have a pic…what blasphemy!
One of our roommate's plushie!
Went to sleep after combing my wigs to make sure we didn't take too much time the next day.
Day 3
Trieeed to wake up early, but when I woke up, I was SO SORE. It was from wearing the heels...I guess I never use those leg muscles. I ended up staying in bed for another hour, and then we started getting ready. We changed into cosplay and didn't even get breakfast (just ate some cookies and bread that I brought with me), thinking that we'd get some food from the food trucks later. While in our hotel room, we had roommate #3 help us take photos of us, and we also took photos of her!
She has such deadly expressions! XD;
We left after our impromptu photo session to go to the Artist Alley once again. While there, g2n started making her rounds, and I just sat there and helped her sell stuff.
A high school friend of mine! He came by quite often to chat, so much that the table next to me asked if I knew him because if not, then they thought it was weird, ahaha.
I wanted to pose with the dagger too. XD;
While stuck at the table, I waved cosplayers over to take pics. Medicine seller!
Alice no Kuni!
Kuroneko from OreImo!
Later on, I went to the food trucks to buy us some food. We were taking turns, but my cosplay was comfortable enough for me to walk around in... I shouldn't have walked around so much in Maya in my heels. That was tough!
Spyro!
Another pic of the cars in the dealer's!
On the way to the food trucks. Suddenly, ninjas! (There were Bleach captains right next to them too)
Shaman King cosplayers~
I bought from this food truck on Day 3~ It was so not enough to fill my stomach. I was still hungry afterward!
Our Korean rolls that were not sushi! It was beef and tuna.
Two Yui cosplayers from Kami Nomi were at our table when I came back! We took a pic with them too~
After we ate, I wandered the Dealer's one last time and bought some stuff, mostly souvenirs for my family since cons never have stuff for series I'm interested in!
I took pics of Kami Nomi cosplayers. There were quite a lot that day since there was a gathering… that I didn't know about. :'( I wish I had gone! I wanted to see all of the Keima's lined up together with their PFPs!
Quite a number of us had skulls! XD; Some guy at the Miku concert even asked me what series I was from since he'd been seeing a lot of people wearing skulls around. Doro doro invasion!
And suddenly, Crayon Shin-chan.
An Elsee and Keima duo.
An Elsee (school uniform version) with "de"! XD
Keimas. XD
When the dealer's room and AA closed, we packed up. Since we didn't have a concert to go to, we took this time to take some photos of ourselves, finally! These, like the other photos of the two of us, will be posted in a separate, locked post. If that post happens. XD;
Here are a few pics that don't show g2n. XD; My silhouette.
g2n's silhouette!
We didn't have a third person, so we set the camera on timer for our duo pics. Didn't have a tripod either. XD;
Don't know what I was doing. I suck at posing. XD; And cannot act in character!
...ponytail was seriously long and very heavy to wear. XD; My hagaromo got an upgrade for this con! It stood up properly! XD; And it was the only hagoromo with a form! I think everyone else's was wrapped around their arms. Mine actually defied gravity. XD; But because it was wired, it only had one shape, haha, and I couldn't raise my arms without making it look weird... so I had very limited arm movement. XD
We wanted to go to the noitaminA panel at 8:30 (or was it 8:00) and were going to either drop our stuff at the hotel or just stay at the con. Since we took so long with taking photos, we ended up staying at the con.
It was my first and only panel this year! The panel itself was basically advertising for noitaminA shows. They just showed trailers and openings for some of their shows (though watching that did make me want to watch a bunch of them!). Some people won a box of goodies, though I'm not sure what the box contained. I didn't win one, boo.
We returned to our hotel after that and were once again very late, so a lot of food places had already closed. I thought maybe pizza would be good since it was right across from our street...but they were closed when we finished dropping off our stuff at the hotel. We went to Wokcano again in the end, hahaha...
Mmm, edamame!
Spinach fried rice. I love spinach.
Chicken salad.
Some steamed vegetables! Even though it was quite a lot of food, we managed to finish it unlike our dinner from the night before... I suppose our stomachs are used to Chinese food...
Started packing when we got back!
Day 4
Finished packing, checked out, and left my stuff at the bell desk, to be reclaimed later. We bought subway sandwiches and then left for the convention, this time by walking instead of by shuttle... since the shuttle wasn't all that convenient anyways. It makes another stop before taking us to the con.
It was g2n's turn to walk around, so I remained stuck at the table pretty much the entire time!
She wasn't going to take her camera with her, but then she returned and went, "There's a crossdressing version of Sanji!!"
She took a pic of the Al model that was in the dealer's.
This Sephiroth's sword didn't even fit in the frame of the photo!!
When g2n returned, she came back with 999, which came with a watch. I thought it was a pretty good price, and getting a watch was awesome too, so I went to the booth to buy myself a copy too. I snagged the last one! XD;
Back at the table, some Working!! cosplayers wandered by. Is that a guy cosplaying crossdressing Takanashi? :D? (I've noticed that there are quite a lot more guys cosplaying actual crossdressing guys from different series! Makes for some pretty cool cosplay since they look the part!)
Finally met revenus!!! I thought we were going to miss them this year!
Did not think they were attending, so it was a pleasant surprise! Didn't recognize darkenedwings and impure_impulse until they got closer.
Totoro cosplay. :D
And that was it! After the place closed, we packed up, went back to our hotel to retrieve our stuff, and then we took the bus to our friend's place in Santa Monica to spend a night there. That trip felt even more tiring than the entire con combined, haha, since we had to pull our luggage up hills!
Stuff I bought! And got for free. XD; The shirt came with our registration. It was quite funny since a lot of people started wearing them. It made for an amusing sight.
Here is why the shirt is awesome. XD; You can guess where my eyes went, right????