Anime Expo 2014
Belated post on AX! (...I still might one day post about AX 2013 haha... retrospective post...I've already forgotten most of what happened). Tried to tweak my livejournal layout a bit today, but I think I might have broken it. Or, LJ just updated at the same time I was tweaking it, because reverting back didn't help. Why does it look so funky now... /can't figure it out (It's going to keep bugging me ahhhhh) Anyway, at least it's still functional. =x I also want to update my layout for Fishboned.net so that it works on mobile better...but what is layouting! *flips table* So, I didn't update the layout at all, but I did finally update the content after many, many years. XD;;
So yeah! Here's my write up about Anime Expo 2014. It is probably 60% photos of food. :'D I don't even like eating all that much, but I do care a lot about eating and drinking enough so I don't fall sick during the con. |D;; I cosplayed Tsukito from Kamigami no Asobi on Thursday and Friday, and I cosplayed Sugawara from Haikyuu!! on Saturday and Sunday. Pics, pics, and more pics! This is a super long post. :'D
Day 0: Wednesday, July 2
gem2niki and I set out bright and early on Wednesday, both with very little sleep. We watched episode 1 of Free! Eternal Summer at the airport. |D;; (Bad idea. I wanted to giggle out loud)
We took the plane to the Burbank airport along with a bunch of g2n's coworkers. I've never flown there before. We usually go to the LA airport. I was super surprised that the airport was really tiny. You just walk directly off the plane to the outside via a ramp or stairs. There's also a rear exit on the plane. Our local airport used to be this small too, but now it's expanded quite a lot. This airport was pretty convenient though. Really short walk to reach the luggage carousel!
Except for me, everyone else with us was an artist selling in the Artist Alley, so they had so. much. luggage. Me, I just had one. A very light one. g2n even stuffed some of her boxes in my luggage, haha... I'm still surprised we managed to fit everything (and everyone) into three taxis. We had to hold some of our luggage in our laps. One luggage had the luxury of sitting in the front seat. There was some traffic during our ride to the hotel from the airport. Taxi driver was really friendly and told us stories about how someone fell asleep in the taxi of a taxi driver he knew and was driven to the home of the taxi driver... Just how asleep was that passenger... Our taxi arrived last out of the three taxis!! The other people already checked in by the time we got there! (What)
Our hotel room! We've been rooming at the Sheraton for... 3 years straight now, I think? Room looks just the same as usual, but there was construction going on in the lobby. Here's our food/snacks corner. XD The area around the Sheraton is being developed. Seems like it'll get more and more convenient to room here.
After we all settled down in our hotel, with some rearranging of roommates, we headed out to lunch. g2n's coworker had some restaurants she wanted to check out. We all ate together in one large group of eight. For lunch, we dined at this fancy place where water was poured out of this bottle. It was a very difficult feat pouring water out of that bottle. :'D
Here was my fish sandwich! Totally wasted on me. I don't eat spicy food, so I had them take out all of the jalapenos...
g2n's food.
And now some food from the others. |D;;
Needless to say, it was quite filling.
I'm proud to say I finished my food (while many others didn't) but maybe it was because I didn't have the jalapenos, haha.
The plates were rectangular, which was quite cool looking... but very very hard to pick up!
My wallet cried after the meal.
After lunch, we walked to the convention center. It was the only time I actually walked to the convention center this year. I took the metro back and forth between my hotel and the convention center after this. On our way to the convention center, there were posters of Edge of Tomorrow (Nowhere was the name posted though! Spent some time thinking "Is that? Wait, is it? Oh, it is for Edge of Tomorrow") The posters were changed later.
Here's the convention center!
A food truck that was giving out free ice desserts!
Here was the free menu. We went inside the convention center to pick up our badges. As part of the Artist Alley, we had a special Artist Alley line that was indoors. It was much shorter than the general attendee line for pre-registration badge pick up... but even then, it was useless. Even though we were pretty much at the start of the line, having gotten there before registration opened, the line did not move at all for 2+ hours because the registration system was completely down. Something with the printers, I think? We ended up sitting down in line and waiting in the same spot for two hours, but at least we were indoors and not out in the sun like the general attendee line and artists who came later. Since we were part of a large group, we took turns doing other stuff. G2n and I even got in line for the free ice dessert outside. We came back in after that line and the registration line still hadn't moved. Later, at night, I was checking twitter and it said something like they would process everyone who got in line before midnight... Midnight, and they're still doing badge pick up?? Just how backed up was everything!! What happened, AX... In previous years, registration usually always went pretty smoothly. This year, it was a nightmare.
Green tea fluff! I liked the ice part but not the red beans and the white fluffy whatever it was. My red beans were trying to escape. T___T;;
g2n's strawberry fluff.
We were pretty much dying of thirst and running out of water. Only had one bottle of water between g2n and me. We definitely had to go buy water after this.
In line playing streetpass since the line wasn't moving. I met a lot of funny miis. Here's a Midousuji... In the very next screen, he said "Gross!" :'D
After we finally got our badges, we took the metro back to our hotel. We walked to Target to stock up on water and snacks. Rested for a bit, and then we headed out to dinner.
The area around our hotel has changed a lot in one year. There are tons of different restaurants now! G2n and I used to keep eating at the same two restaurants each year (IHOP, Wokcano, oh, and Subway), but wow, we didn't even go to those restaurants a single time this year. (Blasphemy!) Here's the place we went to for dinner on our first night. Went with the same group as our lunch group +1, our roommate who drove herself down. This place is seemingly famous for having handsome waiters, but it was all lost on me because I wasn't wearing my glasses and it was super dark in there. I couldn't make out a single face, hahaha.
Their dessert section at the front of the shop~~~. They had lots of macaroons too.
Reaaaaally hard bread. Sharp enough to poke your eyes out!
Beverage one of the others ordered.
Some of our dishes!
Here was mine. Because I really didn't know much about the other food on the menu outside of spaghetti. |D;;; I tried to google some of the other food on the menu to no avail, ahahahaha. The food didn't look like too much, but I had a difficult time finishing! (Then again, I was still digesting my lunch...) Two heavy meals in a single day... within hours of each other... But I did eventually finish!
G2n's salad. It was very large.
Dessert! I couldn't bring myself to eat more than a bite. We ordered two for the group. Thankfully, the rest of them finished it.
My wallet cried some more after this. :'D (Too high class for me!)
Slept nice and early to get ready for Day 1!
Day 1: Thursday, July 3
Day 1, I decided to cosplay Tsukito. My gods was I in pain the entire day because of my boots! T___T; I should've bought new boots, ones that don't have high heels and that fit better. Tsukito's aren't high heeled anyway, but it was the only pair of black boots I had.
g2n and I took the metro/subway to the convention center. Saw a trio of Emas from Ace Attorney right outside the con~~. Ema from three different ages! XD
We headed straight for the Artist Alley before opening time to set up g2n's table. It took some figuring out how to get the poles set up and to hang all of the art up. (We had help. We're both short. You can see half of our help pictured to the right. He was very helpful) By the time we finished setting everything up, it was just about time for the doors to be open to premier badge holders.
g2n and I went around the Dealer's Room during the premier hour. It was nice and empty, pretty much the only time for easy shopping, where we could actually chat with the shop workers. (We ended up filling out a lot of surveys and got a bunch of random free stuff. g2n got her wish and visited the Kyoani booth. They weren't there to sell anything. Just...testing the waters?). We didn't get very far before the hour was up and general attendees came pouring in in a stampede. Staff kept having to say, "Please do not run!" Free posters flew off the tables...
A Log Horizon display!
We went back to g2n's table after doors opened to the general public. She already had a lot of customers in the hour and a half we were away! Thankfully we had helpers because of her friends who were manning the table next to hers. They had two artists and two helpers behind that table, plus me and g2n behind ours, making it six people behind two tables.. (We're only allowed two people behind a table at a time). So we had to take turns. This was our lunch for the day! Not Subway for once! \o\ (We ate Subway four days straight in 2013... For breakfast and lunch every single day...) I really liked this new store we tried out because the bread wasn't soggy at all, unlike our Subway fare from last year.
A Midorima passed by the table. So genki!
Natsume~~
Our friend Lavrentty in her awesome cosplay ahhhhhhhhhhhh. :DDDDDDD Didn't get to see her after Day 1... OTL After lunch, I made my rounds around the AA, but I totally missed Lavrentty's table until g2n came back and told me where it was... I guess I did walk around half blind. -___-;
Ran into seta_suzume in the AA! Yay! Got to see a different cosplay of hers outside of Kimblee. XD Somehow, I always only see her when she's dressed as Kimblee. XDDD
I went to NIS America's panel, but I got the panel rooms mixed up. |D; Waited a bit outside of the wrong panel room before I realized things weren't quite right. I left and made it to the NIS panel just fine. They announced some new titles and had a Q&A session. Sounds like Dangan Ronpa is doing fairly well for them. I wonder if they'll ever localize Kamigami no Asobi... I would love it if they did. :3;;
Tried going to the VIZ panel afterward, but the line for that panel was crazy! The panel room was smaller than the NIS one. People had to wait in waiting rooms. Very stuffy. Too many people breathing the same air. T___T;; Anyway, the panel was full, so I left.
Since I was in the area, I went to check out the arcade/cosplay area. Ran into oriaon and absolutehymn007 again there. :D
I returned to the AA and helped g2n sell for the rest of the afternoon. My feet were dead, so I didn't want to do anymore walking. T__T;; But after the AA closed, I wanted to check out Gen Urobuchi's panel, which was in LP1 all the way back on the other side of the convention center. We walked over. G2n with her luggage with all her art was still eons faster than me. (Waaaait up g2n I caaaan't walk anymore)
The line for Gen Urobuchi's panel was ridiculous. It was nearing dinner time, and my feet were killing me, so I wasn't in the mood for waiting, and neither was g2n. (Thankfully, Gen Urobuchi is coming to Japan Expo! \o\) We decided to head to the cosplay area instead to take pics. Good thing too, since I was too dead to take pics another day. |D;;
This was the new autograph area. It was in the same place as the cosplay/arcade/gaming area. It was very far from the AA/Dealer's Room, so g2n and I didn't get any autographs this year. Too much of a walk... We got a lot of autographs last year since it was in the same room as the AA/Dealer's Room.
A Tales of Symphonia group~~~ (Haha, I love how Zelos is hiding in the back)
There was a bit of a wait at each cosplay area. Here were two cool cosplayers before me. |D;;
I don't actually know where they're from. Learned from g2n that it's Kill La Kill. There were lots of other KLK cosplayers around, including guys with glowing nipples...
Here's me. |D;; I do not know how to pose. And Tsukito does nothing but stand there expressionless. And write. So that's what I did, ahahahaha. |D;;;;
Watch me write everyyyyywhere.
And fail at trying to look contemplative.
What is this weird backdrop.
Ooo, classroom. (I do not actually have chalk)
My wrist is kinda tiny.
There were other cosplayers talking pics in the other part of the classroom set, so I just snuck into the corner and used one of the desks. (*sigh* I totally didn't cut my wig right!!!)
Several people who took pics of me as Tsukito were also cosplaying otome games. |D;;; I saw a Yui but she walked too quickly for me to stop her. Even though I tried calling out to her, she never turned around (Is my voice that small)
And so continues g2n's photo taking of a bunch of guys. I will disclaim here that if the picture is of a guy cosplayer (especially one with nice abs), likely she was the one who took it. =P
g2n took the metro, but my feet hurt so much that I didn't even want to walk to the station. I waited outside the convention center for the shuttle that would take me back to the hotel. My route went to the most hotels, and there were a lot of people waiting. I didn't make it onto the first bus. Had to wait for a second bus. The ride felt like it took forever. I nearly fell asleep on the bus! It takes us a long ways off to all the different hotels. My hotel was the last stop before the bus would go back to the convention center. Meaning, taking the shuttle to the convention center is nice (only one stop), but taking the shuttle from the convention center to the hotel is very time consuming (the shuttle will go to all of the other hotels first). I arrived way after g2n.
I changed, and then we went off to dinner. Since Day 0's meals already made my wallet cry buckets, we went off on our own for less high end meals, ahahaha. Ate at the Counter with customized burgers. It was conveniently just across the street from our hotel. All these new conveniently close restaurants make me very happy. Here's me being very Asian. Imagine me doing this at every single meal. And that's why there are so many pics of food, ahahaha. (Though here I'm actually taking a picture of g2n taking a picture of me lolol)
Here's my burger!
g2n's burger! And sweet potato fries!
I have to say, maybe the price of our meal did make a difference, because service here was really slow and inattentive, ahaha... No one came to take our order for the longest time, and no one refilled my water... Anyway, what should have been a short meal took a very long time. My brother arrived at the hotel around this time, so I ate even slower to wait for him at the restaurant. Once my brother arrived, we went to Walgreens to pick up some stuff. Mostly, stuff for treating my feet. T__T;; I read online that if you tape your third and fourth toe together, it helps with the pain on the balls of your feet....
Here's the... mall at night. My brother's car was parked in the mall's parking structure. The mall totally looked abandoned. Very scary actually (but a perfect backdrop for photos of horror cosplay ahahaha). There was even a sign warning people not to stare into the lasers. What lasers??? We went to pick up stuff my brother brought down for one of our roommates. Parking was a lot cheaper this year, probably because of all the construction. Only $12 as opposed to $30 a day!!
My loot for the day! La Corda d'Oro Anniversary Illustration Book (has both the original cast and the new cast from Blue Sky). Kamigami no Asobi artbook!!!!! <3333 (Saw it at the Kinokuniya booth and was basically flailing and thinking "Welp, now I'm satisfied and done shopping!) Bought some postcards of Fire Emblem 7/9/Awakening, Golden Sun, and Ace Attorney from the Artist Alley. Loved their choice of games. 8D
Buttons! Mostly bought these because I wanted the one of Rudy from Log Horizon~~~ <3333 Rudy~~~~. The Ace Attorney ones were also very nice. I was tempted to get Apollo too.
Lavrentty's charms are SO ADORABLE. *flails*
Free stuff I got for filling out surveys, ahahaha. |D;; NIS's survey was really detailed! I chatted with the worker for quite a while. She asked a lot of questions about packaging. My answer was that I liked smaller packaging because what is space. I have no space. Also, free stuff? Yes please. I would love releases that came with charms and posters and whatnot. Collector's items. |D;;
A free calendar.
A free Disgaea figure from NIS. |D;;
We slept at an okay hour that night.
Day 2: Friday, July 4
Day 2! I decided to challenge my feet again! I taped my feet, placed my feet cushions, and cosplayed Tsukito once more. G2n left before me. I took the shuttle. My brother was still sleeping, ahaha. I got there fairly late.
g2n and I wandered the Dealer's Room a bit. Here's a car from Initial D right smack in the middle of the Dealer's Room. XD
A very funny balloon of One Punch Man.
An otome game booth. (Saizo is so popular!)
There was a League of Legends booth too (a very large one).
My lunch for the day. |D;; g2n and I each bought two sandwiches since we were both still hungry after one sandwich the previous day (well, our roommate helped us buy them). Problem was, it was hard to find time to eat two sandwiches... (I only ate one).
I wanted to go to Morita Masakazu's panel. g2n kept me company. We made our way over to the panel, which was on the other side of the convention center. (Guh, walking!! The pain!!!). We passed by some sort of gathering on the way there.
Morita's panel was in LP1, which was a very big room. We waited in line, but even if we hadn't, we would've been fine. The panel was entirely a Q&A session. He is really chatty! He totally talks in lots of detail, haha, unlike some guests who answer very briefly. I don't think he even managed to answer five questions.. But his answers were all very interesting, and he seemed very friendly. He asked for us to show our American spirit (since he was touched that we were there at a panel with him on July 4th). The audience started chanting "USA, USA, USA!" |D;; He was all, "Wow, I've only ever heard a chant like this in the movies!"
The first question was for him to show off some of his karate/whatever moves. He asked for a katana from the audience. A Rukia cosplayer passed her katana up after the audience floundered for a bit trying to produce a sword (she seemed really happy that she had decided to bring her katana. she almost wasn't going to!), and he showed us how the katana should be held and how to draw it. It was very cool. :) That question took up most of the time, haha. XD; Another person asked for him to do a crazy Ichigo voice, which he did. He sounded very cool. |D;; He was also asked about his role in Sengoku Basara, in which he asked if anyone knew who did the initial voice of the monkey. Seems like no one really knew (people shouted out random answers). It turned out, he did it himself. |D;; He asked who everyone's favorite character in Sengoku Basara was, but it didn't sound like anyone shouted out his character, ahaha. He was all, "You should have shouted out my character!"
He also talked a bit about his seiyuu school in Osaka. He was very impressed with how much the audience knew about his roles and his academy and all that, claiming that we must be from the FBI, haha. There was a huuuuge line of people waiting to ask questions, but unfortunately, the line had to be cut off.
I already have his autograph from the previous time he came to AX (had him sign a clearfile of Hihara Kazuki~~), so I decided not to try this year. :3;;
We went back to the AA after that, but some time later, we once again walked back to the West Hall for the 2013-2014 Anime season gathering. Unfortunately, I didn't see a single person at the gathering site. T____T;; (Later, I learned from oriaon that the gathering did happen... but it was very small. Maybe that was why I missed it...) Darn, I was hoping it would turn out epic!
But since we put in so much effort walking to this side of the convention center, we tried looking up something we could do over at that side of the convention center. We went to a panel about live action anime & video game. Thousand Pounds & Epic Rival showed some clips of their films. We were not very familiar with them.
A very rare male cosplayer of Alois from Kuroshitsuji. |D;;
Fate cosplayers!
At this point, g2n wanted to walk back to the AA from between the buildings (meaning, out in the sun). Less people, less of a crowd. I didn't want to walk to that section though, because it meant more walking. |D;; So I took the inside corridor. I guess she saw these Free! cosplayers on her way back through the Dealer's.
While I saw this charmander. |D;; (How are you not dying from the heat!!!) I also very randomly saw my brother sitting by the side playing his 3DS hahahaha, under the AC, so I joined him by the side of the corridor to rest my feet.
Went back to the AA near closing time (saw this One Piece? cosplayer on the way back to the AA. He looked cool). G2n helped me bring my 2nd sandwich to my brother (he didn't even buy anything for lunch!!!!!). Yeah, g2n took it because I couldn't walk anymore. But yay, my sandwich didn't go to waste, haha. Helped pack up after closing, and then we made our way out to meet my brother for dinner. Yup, more food.
A male Kuroko no Basket cosplayer. (courtesy of g2n once more)
My brother decided to attend AX for two reasons. The video game concert on Sunday. And ramen. We tagged along on his ramen journey. We took the metro/subway back to our hotel. Took our time resting. Then, he drove us down to a place a bit closer to Santa Monica for the dip ramen he's been dreaming of. On our way there, fireworks were continuously being shot up into the air on both sides of the freeway. It felt like we were driving down some course in Mario Kart. |D;;
Here's the menu for the dip ramen place. You place your order outside while you're waiting for seats. They sure know that the wait will be long! They have a bunch of seats prepared for people to sit at. Next door to the ramen place was some gardening store. Very strange location for it... The rest of the street was all Japanese shops and restaurants. Most of them closed fairly late! We ate around 9~10?
Here was the outside of the ramen shop! They also had a second location which was right across the street. That really confused us. We asked them what the difference was. They seemed to have different broth and noodles.
Once our table was ready, we headed inside, and the ramen was already ready for us, whoot. Here was mine!
My brother's!
g2n's! She didn't get the fuss about dip ramen so decided to order normal ramen. Unfortunately, normal ramen isn't their specialty. It didn't seem very tasty.
Dip ramen means the noodles are separate from the soup. You dip the ramen as you go! This was quite a filling meal. |D;; Lots and lots of noodles! Very thick broth!
After dinner, we walked around the plaza a bit. Went to a Japanese store called... Tokyo. It had lots of cute stuff. I bought some stuff for my feet. |D;; And I also tried out the kuji/raffle. G2n and I both ended up with glasses (I wanted the stuffed bear), so we traded our designs. My brother got some bento boxes. We went to the supermarket after. Too bad Daiso was already closed.
Our prizes! No other loot from me. |D;; I did most of my shopping on Day 1, and I didn't really want to shop in my boots during the con.
At the supermarket, I bought some ramune (my brother has never had ramune before!!!). Blueberry ramune because Grisia's favorite flavor is blueberry!! Except, this totally looks like mouthwash, doesn't it???? XDD I completely failed at opening the bottle. G2n opened it for me, and we gave a nice blue splotch to the carpet. Oops. (We cleaned it very quickly. You won't notice a thing!) We opened the other bottle over the sink. :'D
We did not manage to sleep very early at all. We also somehow managed to clog the bathtub so we had to call maintenance to help us unclog it... He was all, "Don't worry! I have daughters!"
Day 3: Saturday, July 5
Saturday, I cosplayed Sugawara! Tennis shoooooeeeees. No more boots. I suddenly could fly! (Well, not really, but I could finally walk at a normal pace). I headed to the AA with g2n bright and early by metro/subway. We failed at buying our lunch (sandwiches) because the store somehow wasn't open yet... I guess they open later on weekends? T__T;
In the AA, there were a lot of artists who were cosplaying Haikyuu!! :3;; Took some photos with them~~.
So yeah, there's me as Sugawara to the left. |D;;;; (I don't have any solo shots of me in this cosplay)
I totally decided to cosplay Suga over other Haiyuu cosplayers because I wanted to reuse my Henry wig. |D; (Which was actually a wig I bought to cosplay Prince who I never cosplayed, and then I decided I could cosplay Henry with it). I'm totally getting my money's worth out of this wig. |D;;;
After that, I headed off to meet up with Hymn and Ori for pics! At the cosplay area, I saw this Hataraku Maou-sama cosplay group~~. That backdrop really fits them, haha.
Around this time, my brother messaged me saying there was an earthquake. I didn't feel it at all... (It coincided with doors opening for the room...Stampede of people covered the earthquake...)
Here's a Magi group!
I didn't manage to find Hymn and Ori at first. They lined up for autographs, which were at the end of the room. They came to find me, and we went around taking pics at all the different backdrops. Thank you so much, Ori! <3333 (And sorry Hymn that you had to get out of line!)
Hymn wanted to reenact a DaichiSuga print she bought, so we tried to do that, hahahaha. XD; This was the pic after that one. XDDD She even bought a coffee cup for it! XD
Karneval cosplayers who were also going around taking pics.
I totally did not see her at first!
Fight!!!
We ran into a Hinata! XD Kouhai~~~ And... tried to play volleyball with those colored balls. (It didn't work)
The forest backdrop! I have no idea which hand I'm supposed to use to do volleyball signs. Anyway, these guys who were lining up behind us for each of the backdrops were hilarious. They were all like, "Oh, twelve!!!!"
On the rooftop. I was hoping this would turn out touching... But why do I feel like I look like I'm trying to murder Daichi. XDDDDD
Here we are studying. At least I'm being a diligent student!
But not soon after, we decided to forget studying! Let's arm wrestle! The guys behind us were all, "I'm placing my bet on the white haired one!!!" klasdjfsla;fdj;as;djfa;fja ARE YOU KIDDING ME. (I pretty much started laughing then) Needless to say, I very much lost. I have sticks for arms, okay. T____T; (And also whoa, my arms are blindingly pale... my legs even more so ahahaha...Maybe I can pass as the Sun Knight)
This was the group that lined up behind us, hahaha.
Being diligent at studies.
At the classroom~~, Suga erases the board. (Yeah...)
Rearranging the cork board.
No idea why Daichi and Suga would be in a pink bedroom, but there we go!
Found a balloon with a hilarious face drawn on it (was this one of the One Punch Man balloons...). Since we didn't have a volleyball, this was a substitute volleyball, hahaha. Nice, slow motion floating balloon. Great for photos! (I do not know how to play volleyball at all though)
Thank you so much for coming out to take photos with me, Hymn!!!! And thank you so much for helping take photos, Ori!!! It was great fun. <3333 (Lots of people stopped us on our way XDDD)
A Link against the pretty sakura blossoms. :D
Here was the balloon we used. XD We left him in the cherry blossom trees....
I made my way back to the AA after that. Walked over with Ori~~~.
g2n and I decided to grab lunch from the food trucks since we failed at buying sandwiches in the morning. Saw this cool Makoto on our way out of the Dealer's Room.
We took a look at all of the different food trucks. Several of them had really long lines! We didn't want to wait in the sun, and we didn't want burgers (too many burgers the other days). :'D We ended up buying from this food truck.
Here was our food! I was really craving juice, but I couldn't find it anywhere. T___T;
On our way back to the AA~~~. This Chobits cosplayer had a huge crayon!
A Magi group! (These Magi groups are just posing huh |D)
Inazuma~~. At this point, I went off to the Dealer's to buy stuff after I ate (hurray for tennis shoes!). These are some pics from g2n's camera at the time.
Have a Nitori.
I'm not sure where they're from.
And here was my journey around the Dealer's. |D;; Bought some cute dragon plushies from this booth!
They always have cute stuff.
While I was still shopping, g2n left to line up for the K Project movie premiere. She texted me pretty soon after she got there to tell me it was full!!! What!! She headed over at 1:45! The movie didn't start until 3:30!!! And we were told that you can't line up until the previous panel goes in! We decided to try our luck anyway because it was one of the few things we were really looking forward to. So I dropped my stuff off at the table and then left to go line up.
Meanwhile, our friend went to line up for Artist Alley tables for next year. Poor them had to wait in line forever. Maybe it was the system again? I did hear that people didn't have all the information they needed and were contacting their friends to find out. Again, what happened??!! Registration was a cinch last year! (Then at night, I read on twitter that AA registration would be open online. No more waiting on site since that was a nightmare.)
Ran into Hymn on the way. She was with 6'5" Kagami!
I got in line with g2n and Hymn. We were in the second half of the line, but based on my calculations, I thought we would probably be able to get in. The first half of the line fit in the room with no problem, and not even half the room was filled then for the Morita panel. The problem was, we were dyyyyyying in the heat. The sun was very unforgiving, and we were not allowed to line up under the shade. We took turns standing in line and resting under the roof. Some of the people in line with us had umbrellas, so I also borrowed their shade at times. T___T;; I was veeery much craving juice. It was a very hard wait. The line didn't start moving until much later. We didn't get into the room until very late (the schedule totally ran late), but we totally got a pretty good seat. The room wasn't even all that full by the time we got in! I just don't get why we weren't allowed to line up under the shade.
Next paragraph contains some K movie spoilers!
Morita introduced the movie and talked a bit (actually, quite a lot) about his character, a new character to the series. His character chooses to speak with feminine speech and is very ~beautiful~. After that, the movie started! We watched with lots of people cheering and awing and crying. I was very happy that Kuro was in quite a lot of scenes. I was a little afraid that Homra or Sceptor 4 would take up the spotlight, but everyone had a part. The animation was quite beautiful. There were lots of great lines that even people who don't know the series would probably enjoy. (Also, Kuro's fanboying of Ichigen-sama was as cute as ever). Anna totally rocked. I was definitely hoping the movie would be longer though because it felt like a teaser that was building up to something more. (And to end in such a spot!!!) At least it answered the questions of who the next Red king would be and whether or not Shiro was still alive.
Very pretty movie. I'd watch it again!
Angela came on to sing after that. She only sang two songs... We saw her pass by our seats before the movie~~~. (She's so short~~) Why only two songs...
After the movie, it was pretty much clean up time in the AA. We hurried back to pack (our helpers really helped a lot!), and then we met up with my brother and jen_kat and her friends for dinner. Saw this R2D2 on our way to the garage~~.
The restaurant ended up being in the same area we had eaten at the day before! XD I didn't bring a change of clothes, so I was still in my Haikyuu cosplay... But being so far from the convention center meant I felt weird in my cosplay. I borrowed a jacket from Jenkat. It was so large that it covered past my shorts, haha.
The inside of the restaurant totally looked like we were outside. XD
My ramen!
After dinner, we headed next door to have some boba and other drinks. I tried out an oreo ice slushie~~~.
My loot for the day!
We slept fairly late once again. Everyone had to pack.
Day 4: Sunday, July 6
We all set out super bright and early. Checked out around 9 or so. We didn't get caught in the elevator frenzy at all, whoot! We wanted to leave early to make it on time for the screening of Free! ES episodes 1-2. This was before episode 2 had aired in Japan. G2n and I tried to buy sandwiches (but failed again). My brother ended up reaching the convention center before us....????!! He took the shuttle. We took the metro. Anyway, we got there, set up for AA, and made our way over to the Free! screening. We totally went up the wrong escalators and somehow walked through a staff area with no one stopping us. (Still a lot of space left the con could've used for panels and stuff)
Here's the line for Free! It was already fairly long by the time we got there. But we made it in without any problems. We sat near the front too~~~. During the screening, lots of people cheered and screamed depending on which character came on screen. It was definitely an experience. (Also, just how cute is Momotarou!!! Minishiba~~~~) We were told not to reveal anything about him on twitter/wherever because we would be the first to see him on screen even before the episode aired anywhere else. I'm pretty sure people didn't keep it to themselves. T__T;;
(He is really very cute.)
G2n's postcards of Mikoshiba all sold out. I wonder if s2 had anything to do with his popularity. People came by later too and all we could say was sorry, he's sold out! People even reserved the display copy... I hope we see the brothers together sometime.
After the screening, the producer (I think it was the producer? or was it the director OTL) was there to answer some questions! Unfortunately, he decided to answer in English instead of Japanese, so I could barely understand him. (He said he was the most like Haruka because he doesn't speak a lot. |D;;) He answered questions from the audience, and each person received a free Free! poster for asking the question. Two of them were these male Free! cosplayers who stripped in front of everyone, hahaha.
Saw yoshikochan at the screening!
After the screening, we made our way out to buy lunch. Here's a really cool Yowapeda group!
Evangelion?
Mahouka. (Crunchyroll bags everywhere)
The line for MeSoHungry wasn't very long on Sunday, so yay! I wanted to buy from them the day before, but the line was too long.
Here's what I bought. G2n also bought the same thing. I was eating this in the AA and people kept saying, "That smells so good!" "That looks so good!" Where did you buy it?
At "MeSoHungry." I sounded so silly saying it. XDDDD
After I finished eating, I very quickly tried to finish browsing the Dealer's Room (because I never did finish) but pretty soon, it was time for the Haikyuu!! gathering. I passed by one booth that was playing Tenimyu music. That immediately drew my attention, so I went over to chat with the worker there. Turns out they have plans to bring the musicals over to the US! :O I thought he meant a localized DVD or something, but it sounds like they'll be touring. In Asia first though. And then maybe the west coast. He didn't really say any particular musical. They had a bunch of musicals listed, including Sailormoon and Yowapeda. I'm excited either way.
Then it was the start of the Haikyuu! gathering! If not for the gathering, I usually don't cosplay on Day 4. Too much work with check out involved!
Many thanks to Ori for several of these pics! (Any with me in it. XDDDD) We lined up in number order here. XD
After this pic, we were moved outdoors. It was quite a large group.
This Rei cosplayer I saw at Fanime was organizing the gathering. (Turns out he's a friend of Hymn's)
Nekoma group pic.
Then we started in number order with 1! Daichi!
2! Sugawara!
3! Asahi!
Do a spike!
4! Nishinoya!
Save that ball!
5! Tanaka!
They were the best.
There were no 6, 7, or 8. XD;
9, Kageyama!
King of the court!
10, Hinata!
(this picture is gone now =P to be replaced???)
11, Tsukishima, be a wall!
12, Yamaguchi. "Tsukki~~~"
And that was it for the numbers.
Kiyoki-san next! I was debating cosplaying her instead of Suga to make things easier for me on the last day (I brought along my jacket and my sweats, but I decided last minute to go with Suga again)
Yachi~~
Our coach, Ukai!!
Now for other teams! The only Aoba Jousai member there!
Here's the other captain!
Kenma playing his games.
All the captains.
Hinata and Kageyama.
Nishinoya and Asahi.
Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.
Kiyoko-san and her fanboys. XD
Nishinoya and Tanaka.
Now with Hinata as well going ~~Senpai~~~~
Hinata and Kenma.
Kuro and Tsukishima.
Suga and Daichi.
More Suga and Daichi, with Daichi totally being a pimp.
I had to leave in the middle of the gathering to make my way over to the rePLAY concert. Said bye to Hymn, ran back to the AA to grab my stuff, said bye to everyone, and then ran to the concert. My brother was already at the front of the line. I was going to take the plane back home with everyone, but then I decided to go to the concert, which meant I wouldn't make it in time for my flight. So, my plane ticket went to waste. I instead had my brother drive me home. |D;;
The concert was really cool! We were in the main event hall. Our seats weren't too bad. We were in the second row or so in the mid section, so only one row blocked our view. Ticketed events are nice... No need to be afraid of not getting in. I think AX might need to do more ticketed events from now on, just to prevent people who aren't really interested in the event from attending and guaranteeing people that they'd at least be able to attend the events they really care about. The wait for non ticketed events is getting a little ridiculous.
Anyway, rePLAY: Symphony of Heroes was quite cool. They started off with a mix for Sword Art Online that they put together especially for AX. The rest of the show was all video game music. There were quite a few songs I didn't know since I'm not as familiar with non Japanese or none console games. But I did enjoy how the symphony was a story! There was narration and everything, starting with the hero setting off on his journey, traveling through all these different places to get the key that would solve everything. Each piece from each different video game was preceded by narration about what the hero was doing.
I was somewhat surprised Zelda was not featured! And the song from Final Fantasy was actually not Sephiroth's theme! (nice~) Kingdom Hearts was featured when it was mentioned that the hero finally got the key. XD I loved the piece from the Chrono series! Anyway, it was a very cool symphony!
After that, it was finally time for my brother and me to head home. I didn't have time to change before the concert. I quickly changed after the concert. After that, we were all shooed out of the convention center. We took the metro/subway back to our hotel where the car was parked. Got some food from Famima! This was my dinner for the night. (Finally got my juice, lol)
And then we drove home. 8D Took the scenic route because traffic was quite bad on the other highway. Tried to write some fic during the ride....
Got home just past midnight. I bought one thing the last day, and that was volume 1 of Star Project Chiro.
And that's a wrap for AX 2014! Give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to read all of this... XD
I think I should probably buy some new boots~~.
So yeah! Here's my write up about Anime Expo 2014. It is probably 60% photos of food. :'D I don't even like eating all that much, but I do care a lot about eating and drinking enough so I don't fall sick during the con. |D;; I cosplayed Tsukito from Kamigami no Asobi on Thursday and Friday, and I cosplayed Sugawara from Haikyuu!! on Saturday and Sunday. Pics, pics, and more pics! This is a super long post. :'D
Day 0: Wednesday, July 2
gem2niki and I set out bright and early on Wednesday, both with very little sleep. We watched episode 1 of Free! Eternal Summer at the airport. |D;; (Bad idea. I wanted to giggle out loud)
We took the plane to the Burbank airport along with a bunch of g2n's coworkers. I've never flown there before. We usually go to the LA airport. I was super surprised that the airport was really tiny. You just walk directly off the plane to the outside via a ramp or stairs. There's also a rear exit on the plane. Our local airport used to be this small too, but now it's expanded quite a lot. This airport was pretty convenient though. Really short walk to reach the luggage carousel!
Except for me, everyone else with us was an artist selling in the Artist Alley, so they had so. much. luggage. Me, I just had one. A very light one. g2n even stuffed some of her boxes in my luggage, haha... I'm still surprised we managed to fit everything (and everyone) into three taxis. We had to hold some of our luggage in our laps. One luggage had the luxury of sitting in the front seat. There was some traffic during our ride to the hotel from the airport. Taxi driver was really friendly and told us stories about how someone fell asleep in the taxi of a taxi driver he knew and was driven to the home of the taxi driver... Just how asleep was that passenger... Our taxi arrived last out of the three taxis!! The other people already checked in by the time we got there! (What)
Our hotel room! We've been rooming at the Sheraton for... 3 years straight now, I think? Room looks just the same as usual, but there was construction going on in the lobby. Here's our food/snacks corner. XD The area around the Sheraton is being developed. Seems like it'll get more and more convenient to room here.
After we all settled down in our hotel, with some rearranging of roommates, we headed out to lunch. g2n's coworker had some restaurants she wanted to check out. We all ate together in one large group of eight. For lunch, we dined at this fancy place where water was poured out of this bottle. It was a very difficult feat pouring water out of that bottle. :'D
Here was my fish sandwich! Totally wasted on me. I don't eat spicy food, so I had them take out all of the jalapenos...
g2n's food.
And now some food from the others. |D;;
Needless to say, it was quite filling.
I'm proud to say I finished my food (while many others didn't) but maybe it was because I didn't have the jalapenos, haha.
The plates were rectangular, which was quite cool looking... but very very hard to pick up!
My wallet cried after the meal.
After lunch, we walked to the convention center. It was the only time I actually walked to the convention center this year. I took the metro back and forth between my hotel and the convention center after this. On our way to the convention center, there were posters of Edge of Tomorrow (Nowhere was the name posted though! Spent some time thinking "Is that? Wait, is it? Oh, it is for Edge of Tomorrow") The posters were changed later.
Here's the convention center!
A food truck that was giving out free ice desserts!
Here was the free menu. We went inside the convention center to pick up our badges. As part of the Artist Alley, we had a special Artist Alley line that was indoors. It was much shorter than the general attendee line for pre-registration badge pick up... but even then, it was useless. Even though we were pretty much at the start of the line, having gotten there before registration opened, the line did not move at all for 2+ hours because the registration system was completely down. Something with the printers, I think? We ended up sitting down in line and waiting in the same spot for two hours, but at least we were indoors and not out in the sun like the general attendee line and artists who came later. Since we were part of a large group, we took turns doing other stuff. G2n and I even got in line for the free ice dessert outside. We came back in after that line and the registration line still hadn't moved. Later, at night, I was checking twitter and it said something like they would process everyone who got in line before midnight... Midnight, and they're still doing badge pick up?? Just how backed up was everything!! What happened, AX... In previous years, registration usually always went pretty smoothly. This year, it was a nightmare.
Green tea fluff! I liked the ice part but not the red beans and the white fluffy whatever it was. My red beans were trying to escape. T___T;;
g2n's strawberry fluff.
We were pretty much dying of thirst and running out of water. Only had one bottle of water between g2n and me. We definitely had to go buy water after this.
In line playing streetpass since the line wasn't moving. I met a lot of funny miis. Here's a Midousuji... In the very next screen, he said "Gross!" :'D
After we finally got our badges, we took the metro back to our hotel. We walked to Target to stock up on water and snacks. Rested for a bit, and then we headed out to dinner.
The area around our hotel has changed a lot in one year. There are tons of different restaurants now! G2n and I used to keep eating at the same two restaurants each year (IHOP, Wokcano, oh, and Subway), but wow, we didn't even go to those restaurants a single time this year. (Blasphemy!) Here's the place we went to for dinner on our first night. Went with the same group as our lunch group +1, our roommate who drove herself down. This place is seemingly famous for having handsome waiters, but it was all lost on me because I wasn't wearing my glasses and it was super dark in there. I couldn't make out a single face, hahaha.
Their dessert section at the front of the shop~~~. They had lots of macaroons too.
Reaaaaally hard bread. Sharp enough to poke your eyes out!
Beverage one of the others ordered.
Some of our dishes!
Here was mine. Because I really didn't know much about the other food on the menu outside of spaghetti. |D;;; I tried to google some of the other food on the menu to no avail, ahahahaha. The food didn't look like too much, but I had a difficult time finishing! (Then again, I was still digesting my lunch...) Two heavy meals in a single day... within hours of each other... But I did eventually finish!
G2n's salad. It was very large.
Dessert! I couldn't bring myself to eat more than a bite. We ordered two for the group. Thankfully, the rest of them finished it.
My wallet cried some more after this. :'D (Too high class for me!)
Slept nice and early to get ready for Day 1!
Day 1: Thursday, July 3
Day 1, I decided to cosplay Tsukito. My gods was I in pain the entire day because of my boots! T___T; I should've bought new boots, ones that don't have high heels and that fit better. Tsukito's aren't high heeled anyway, but it was the only pair of black boots I had.
g2n and I took the metro/subway to the convention center. Saw a trio of Emas from Ace Attorney right outside the con~~. Ema from three different ages! XD
We headed straight for the Artist Alley before opening time to set up g2n's table. It took some figuring out how to get the poles set up and to hang all of the art up. (We had help. We're both short. You can see half of our help pictured to the right. He was very helpful) By the time we finished setting everything up, it was just about time for the doors to be open to premier badge holders.
g2n and I went around the Dealer's Room during the premier hour. It was nice and empty, pretty much the only time for easy shopping, where we could actually chat with the shop workers. (We ended up filling out a lot of surveys and got a bunch of random free stuff. g2n got her wish and visited the Kyoani booth. They weren't there to sell anything. Just...testing the waters?). We didn't get very far before the hour was up and general attendees came pouring in in a stampede. Staff kept having to say, "Please do not run!" Free posters flew off the tables...
A Log Horizon display!
We went back to g2n's table after doors opened to the general public. She already had a lot of customers in the hour and a half we were away! Thankfully we had helpers because of her friends who were manning the table next to hers. They had two artists and two helpers behind that table, plus me and g2n behind ours, making it six people behind two tables.. (We're only allowed two people behind a table at a time). So we had to take turns. This was our lunch for the day! Not Subway for once! \o\ (We ate Subway four days straight in 2013... For breakfast and lunch every single day...) I really liked this new store we tried out because the bread wasn't soggy at all, unlike our Subway fare from last year.
A Midorima passed by the table. So genki!
Natsume~~
Our friend Lavrentty in her awesome cosplay ahhhhhhhhhhhh. :DDDDDDD Didn't get to see her after Day 1... OTL After lunch, I made my rounds around the AA, but I totally missed Lavrentty's table until g2n came back and told me where it was... I guess I did walk around half blind. -___-;
Ran into seta_suzume in the AA! Yay! Got to see a different cosplay of hers outside of Kimblee. XD Somehow, I always only see her when she's dressed as Kimblee. XDDD
I went to NIS America's panel, but I got the panel rooms mixed up. |D; Waited a bit outside of the wrong panel room before I realized things weren't quite right. I left and made it to the NIS panel just fine. They announced some new titles and had a Q&A session. Sounds like Dangan Ronpa is doing fairly well for them. I wonder if they'll ever localize Kamigami no Asobi... I would love it if they did. :3;;
Tried going to the VIZ panel afterward, but the line for that panel was crazy! The panel room was smaller than the NIS one. People had to wait in waiting rooms. Very stuffy. Too many people breathing the same air. T___T;; Anyway, the panel was full, so I left.
Since I was in the area, I went to check out the arcade/cosplay area. Ran into oriaon and absolutehymn007 again there. :D
I returned to the AA and helped g2n sell for the rest of the afternoon. My feet were dead, so I didn't want to do anymore walking. T__T;; But after the AA closed, I wanted to check out Gen Urobuchi's panel, which was in LP1 all the way back on the other side of the convention center. We walked over. G2n with her luggage with all her art was still eons faster than me. (Waaaait up g2n I caaaan't walk anymore)
The line for Gen Urobuchi's panel was ridiculous. It was nearing dinner time, and my feet were killing me, so I wasn't in the mood for waiting, and neither was g2n. (Thankfully, Gen Urobuchi is coming to Japan Expo! \o\) We decided to head to the cosplay area instead to take pics. Good thing too, since I was too dead to take pics another day. |D;;
This was the new autograph area. It was in the same place as the cosplay/arcade/gaming area. It was very far from the AA/Dealer's Room, so g2n and I didn't get any autographs this year. Too much of a walk... We got a lot of autographs last year since it was in the same room as the AA/Dealer's Room.
A Tales of Symphonia group~~~ (Haha, I love how Zelos is hiding in the back)
There was a bit of a wait at each cosplay area. Here were two cool cosplayers before me. |D;;
I don't actually know where they're from. Learned from g2n that it's Kill La Kill. There were lots of other KLK cosplayers around, including guys with glowing nipples...
Here's me. |D;; I do not know how to pose. And Tsukito does nothing but stand there expressionless. And write. So that's what I did, ahahahaha. |D;;;;
Watch me write everyyyyywhere.
And fail at trying to look contemplative.
What is this weird backdrop.
Ooo, classroom. (I do not actually have chalk)
My wrist is kinda tiny.
There were other cosplayers talking pics in the other part of the classroom set, so I just snuck into the corner and used one of the desks. (*sigh* I totally didn't cut my wig right!!!)
Several people who took pics of me as Tsukito were also cosplaying otome games. |D;;; I saw a Yui but she walked too quickly for me to stop her. Even though I tried calling out to her, she never turned around (Is my voice that small)
And so continues g2n's photo taking of a bunch of guys. I will disclaim here that if the picture is of a guy cosplayer (especially one with nice abs), likely she was the one who took it. =P
g2n took the metro, but my feet hurt so much that I didn't even want to walk to the station. I waited outside the convention center for the shuttle that would take me back to the hotel. My route went to the most hotels, and there were a lot of people waiting. I didn't make it onto the first bus. Had to wait for a second bus. The ride felt like it took forever. I nearly fell asleep on the bus! It takes us a long ways off to all the different hotels. My hotel was the last stop before the bus would go back to the convention center. Meaning, taking the shuttle to the convention center is nice (only one stop), but taking the shuttle from the convention center to the hotel is very time consuming (the shuttle will go to all of the other hotels first). I arrived way after g2n.
I changed, and then we went off to dinner. Since Day 0's meals already made my wallet cry buckets, we went off on our own for less high end meals, ahahaha. Ate at the Counter with customized burgers. It was conveniently just across the street from our hotel. All these new conveniently close restaurants make me very happy. Here's me being very Asian. Imagine me doing this at every single meal. And that's why there are so many pics of food, ahahaha. (Though here I'm actually taking a picture of g2n taking a picture of me lolol)
Here's my burger!
g2n's burger! And sweet potato fries!
I have to say, maybe the price of our meal did make a difference, because service here was really slow and inattentive, ahaha... No one came to take our order for the longest time, and no one refilled my water... Anyway, what should have been a short meal took a very long time. My brother arrived at the hotel around this time, so I ate even slower to wait for him at the restaurant. Once my brother arrived, we went to Walgreens to pick up some stuff. Mostly, stuff for treating my feet. T__T;; I read online that if you tape your third and fourth toe together, it helps with the pain on the balls of your feet....
Here's the... mall at night. My brother's car was parked in the mall's parking structure. The mall totally looked abandoned. Very scary actually (but a perfect backdrop for photos of horror cosplay ahahaha). There was even a sign warning people not to stare into the lasers. What lasers??? We went to pick up stuff my brother brought down for one of our roommates. Parking was a lot cheaper this year, probably because of all the construction. Only $12 as opposed to $30 a day!!
My loot for the day! La Corda d'Oro Anniversary Illustration Book (has both the original cast and the new cast from Blue Sky). Kamigami no Asobi artbook!!!!! <3333 (Saw it at the Kinokuniya booth and was basically flailing and thinking "Welp, now I'm satisfied and done shopping!) Bought some postcards of Fire Emblem 7/9/Awakening, Golden Sun, and Ace Attorney from the Artist Alley. Loved their choice of games. 8D
Buttons! Mostly bought these because I wanted the one of Rudy from Log Horizon~~~ <3333 Rudy~~~~. The Ace Attorney ones were also very nice. I was tempted to get Apollo too.
Lavrentty's charms are SO ADORABLE. *flails*
Free stuff I got for filling out surveys, ahahaha. |D;; NIS's survey was really detailed! I chatted with the worker for quite a while. She asked a lot of questions about packaging. My answer was that I liked smaller packaging because what is space. I have no space. Also, free stuff? Yes please. I would love releases that came with charms and posters and whatnot. Collector's items. |D;;
A free calendar.
A free Disgaea figure from NIS. |D;;
We slept at an okay hour that night.
Day 2: Friday, July 4
Day 2! I decided to challenge my feet again! I taped my feet, placed my feet cushions, and cosplayed Tsukito once more. G2n left before me. I took the shuttle. My brother was still sleeping, ahaha. I got there fairly late.
g2n and I wandered the Dealer's Room a bit. Here's a car from Initial D right smack in the middle of the Dealer's Room. XD
A very funny balloon of One Punch Man.
An otome game booth. (Saizo is so popular!)
There was a League of Legends booth too (a very large one).
My lunch for the day. |D;; g2n and I each bought two sandwiches since we were both still hungry after one sandwich the previous day (well, our roommate helped us buy them). Problem was, it was hard to find time to eat two sandwiches... (I only ate one).
I wanted to go to Morita Masakazu's panel. g2n kept me company. We made our way over to the panel, which was on the other side of the convention center. (Guh, walking!! The pain!!!). We passed by some sort of gathering on the way there.
Morita's panel was in LP1, which was a very big room. We waited in line, but even if we hadn't, we would've been fine. The panel was entirely a Q&A session. He is really chatty! He totally talks in lots of detail, haha, unlike some guests who answer very briefly. I don't think he even managed to answer five questions.. But his answers were all very interesting, and he seemed very friendly. He asked for us to show our American spirit (since he was touched that we were there at a panel with him on July 4th). The audience started chanting "USA, USA, USA!" |D;; He was all, "Wow, I've only ever heard a chant like this in the movies!"
The first question was for him to show off some of his karate/whatever moves. He asked for a katana from the audience. A Rukia cosplayer passed her katana up after the audience floundered for a bit trying to produce a sword (she seemed really happy that she had decided to bring her katana. she almost wasn't going to!), and he showed us how the katana should be held and how to draw it. It was very cool. :) That question took up most of the time, haha. XD; Another person asked for him to do a crazy Ichigo voice, which he did. He sounded very cool. |D;; He was also asked about his role in Sengoku Basara, in which he asked if anyone knew who did the initial voice of the monkey. Seems like no one really knew (people shouted out random answers). It turned out, he did it himself. |D;; He asked who everyone's favorite character in Sengoku Basara was, but it didn't sound like anyone shouted out his character, ahaha. He was all, "You should have shouted out my character!"
He also talked a bit about his seiyuu school in Osaka. He was very impressed with how much the audience knew about his roles and his academy and all that, claiming that we must be from the FBI, haha. There was a huuuuge line of people waiting to ask questions, but unfortunately, the line had to be cut off.
I already have his autograph from the previous time he came to AX (had him sign a clearfile of Hihara Kazuki~~), so I decided not to try this year. :3;;
We went back to the AA after that, but some time later, we once again walked back to the West Hall for the 2013-2014 Anime season gathering. Unfortunately, I didn't see a single person at the gathering site. T____T;; (Later, I learned from oriaon that the gathering did happen... but it was very small. Maybe that was why I missed it...) Darn, I was hoping it would turn out epic!
But since we put in so much effort walking to this side of the convention center, we tried looking up something we could do over at that side of the convention center. We went to a panel about live action anime & video game. Thousand Pounds & Epic Rival showed some clips of their films. We were not very familiar with them.
A very rare male cosplayer of Alois from Kuroshitsuji. |D;;
Fate cosplayers!
At this point, g2n wanted to walk back to the AA from between the buildings (meaning, out in the sun). Less people, less of a crowd. I didn't want to walk to that section though, because it meant more walking. |D;; So I took the inside corridor. I guess she saw these Free! cosplayers on her way back through the Dealer's.
While I saw this charmander. |D;; (How are you not dying from the heat!!!) I also very randomly saw my brother sitting by the side playing his 3DS hahahaha, under the AC, so I joined him by the side of the corridor to rest my feet.
Went back to the AA near closing time (saw this One Piece? cosplayer on the way back to the AA. He looked cool). G2n helped me bring my 2nd sandwich to my brother (he didn't even buy anything for lunch!!!!!). Yeah, g2n took it because I couldn't walk anymore. But yay, my sandwich didn't go to waste, haha. Helped pack up after closing, and then we made our way out to meet my brother for dinner. Yup, more food.
A male Kuroko no Basket cosplayer. (courtesy of g2n once more)
My brother decided to attend AX for two reasons. The video game concert on Sunday. And ramen. We tagged along on his ramen journey. We took the metro/subway back to our hotel. Took our time resting. Then, he drove us down to a place a bit closer to Santa Monica for the dip ramen he's been dreaming of. On our way there, fireworks were continuously being shot up into the air on both sides of the freeway. It felt like we were driving down some course in Mario Kart. |D;;
Here's the menu for the dip ramen place. You place your order outside while you're waiting for seats. They sure know that the wait will be long! They have a bunch of seats prepared for people to sit at. Next door to the ramen place was some gardening store. Very strange location for it... The rest of the street was all Japanese shops and restaurants. Most of them closed fairly late! We ate around 9~10?
Here was the outside of the ramen shop! They also had a second location which was right across the street. That really confused us. We asked them what the difference was. They seemed to have different broth and noodles.
Once our table was ready, we headed inside, and the ramen was already ready for us, whoot. Here was mine!
My brother's!
g2n's! She didn't get the fuss about dip ramen so decided to order normal ramen. Unfortunately, normal ramen isn't their specialty. It didn't seem very tasty.
Dip ramen means the noodles are separate from the soup. You dip the ramen as you go! This was quite a filling meal. |D;; Lots and lots of noodles! Very thick broth!
After dinner, we walked around the plaza a bit. Went to a Japanese store called... Tokyo. It had lots of cute stuff. I bought some stuff for my feet. |D;; And I also tried out the kuji/raffle. G2n and I both ended up with glasses (I wanted the stuffed bear), so we traded our designs. My brother got some bento boxes. We went to the supermarket after. Too bad Daiso was already closed.
Our prizes! No other loot from me. |D;; I did most of my shopping on Day 1, and I didn't really want to shop in my boots during the con.
At the supermarket, I bought some ramune (my brother has never had ramune before!!!). Blueberry ramune because Grisia's favorite flavor is blueberry!! Except, this totally looks like mouthwash, doesn't it???? XDD I completely failed at opening the bottle. G2n opened it for me, and we gave a nice blue splotch to the carpet. Oops. (We cleaned it very quickly. You won't notice a thing!) We opened the other bottle over the sink. :'D
We did not manage to sleep very early at all. We also somehow managed to clog the bathtub so we had to call maintenance to help us unclog it... He was all, "Don't worry! I have daughters!"
Day 3: Saturday, July 5
Saturday, I cosplayed Sugawara! Tennis shoooooeeeees. No more boots. I suddenly could fly! (Well, not really, but I could finally walk at a normal pace). I headed to the AA with g2n bright and early by metro/subway. We failed at buying our lunch (sandwiches) because the store somehow wasn't open yet... I guess they open later on weekends? T__T;
In the AA, there were a lot of artists who were cosplaying Haikyuu!! :3;; Took some photos with them~~.
So yeah, there's me as Sugawara to the left. |D;;;; (I don't have any solo shots of me in this cosplay)
I totally decided to cosplay Suga over other Haiyuu cosplayers because I wanted to reuse my Henry wig. |D; (Which was actually a wig I bought to cosplay Prince who I never cosplayed, and then I decided I could cosplay Henry with it). I'm totally getting my money's worth out of this wig. |D;;;
After that, I headed off to meet up with Hymn and Ori for pics! At the cosplay area, I saw this Hataraku Maou-sama cosplay group~~. That backdrop really fits them, haha.
Around this time, my brother messaged me saying there was an earthquake. I didn't feel it at all... (It coincided with doors opening for the room...Stampede of people covered the earthquake...)
Here's a Magi group!
I didn't manage to find Hymn and Ori at first. They lined up for autographs, which were at the end of the room. They came to find me, and we went around taking pics at all the different backdrops. Thank you so much, Ori! <3333 (And sorry Hymn that you had to get out of line!)
Hymn wanted to reenact a DaichiSuga print she bought, so we tried to do that, hahahaha. XD; This was the pic after that one. XDDD She even bought a coffee cup for it! XD
Karneval cosplayers who were also going around taking pics.
I totally did not see her at first!
Fight!!!
We ran into a Hinata! XD Kouhai~~~ And... tried to play volleyball with those colored balls. (It didn't work)
The forest backdrop! I have no idea which hand I'm supposed to use to do volleyball signs. Anyway, these guys who were lining up behind us for each of the backdrops were hilarious. They were all like, "Oh, twelve!!!!"
On the rooftop. I was hoping this would turn out touching... But why do I feel like I look like I'm trying to murder Daichi. XDDDDD
Here we are studying. At least I'm being a diligent student!
But not soon after, we decided to forget studying! Let's arm wrestle! The guys behind us were all, "I'm placing my bet on the white haired one!!!" klasdjfsla;fdj;as;djfa;fja ARE YOU KIDDING ME. (I pretty much started laughing then) Needless to say, I very much lost. I have sticks for arms, okay. T____T; (And also whoa, my arms are blindingly pale... my legs even more so ahahaha...Maybe I can pass as the Sun Knight)
This was the group that lined up behind us, hahaha.
Being diligent at studies.
At the classroom~~, Suga erases the board. (Yeah...)
Rearranging the cork board.
No idea why Daichi and Suga would be in a pink bedroom, but there we go!
Found a balloon with a hilarious face drawn on it (was this one of the One Punch Man balloons...). Since we didn't have a volleyball, this was a substitute volleyball, hahaha. Nice, slow motion floating balloon. Great for photos! (I do not know how to play volleyball at all though)
Thank you so much for coming out to take photos with me, Hymn!!!! And thank you so much for helping take photos, Ori!!! It was great fun. <3333 (Lots of people stopped us on our way XDDD)
A Link against the pretty sakura blossoms. :D
Here was the balloon we used. XD We left him in the cherry blossom trees....
I made my way back to the AA after that. Walked over with Ori~~~.
g2n and I decided to grab lunch from the food trucks since we failed at buying sandwiches in the morning. Saw this cool Makoto on our way out of the Dealer's Room.
We took a look at all of the different food trucks. Several of them had really long lines! We didn't want to wait in the sun, and we didn't want burgers (too many burgers the other days). :'D We ended up buying from this food truck.
Here was our food! I was really craving juice, but I couldn't find it anywhere. T___T;
On our way back to the AA~~~. This Chobits cosplayer had a huge crayon!
A Magi group! (These Magi groups are just posing huh |D)
Inazuma~~. At this point, I went off to the Dealer's to buy stuff after I ate (hurray for tennis shoes!). These are some pics from g2n's camera at the time.
Have a Nitori.
I'm not sure where they're from.
And here was my journey around the Dealer's. |D;; Bought some cute dragon plushies from this booth!
They always have cute stuff.
While I was still shopping, g2n left to line up for the K Project movie premiere. She texted me pretty soon after she got there to tell me it was full!!! What!! She headed over at 1:45! The movie didn't start until 3:30!!! And we were told that you can't line up until the previous panel goes in! We decided to try our luck anyway because it was one of the few things we were really looking forward to. So I dropped my stuff off at the table and then left to go line up.
Meanwhile, our friend went to line up for Artist Alley tables for next year. Poor them had to wait in line forever. Maybe it was the system again? I did hear that people didn't have all the information they needed and were contacting their friends to find out. Again, what happened??!! Registration was a cinch last year! (Then at night, I read on twitter that AA registration would be open online. No more waiting on site since that was a nightmare.)
Ran into Hymn on the way. She was with 6'5" Kagami!
I got in line with g2n and Hymn. We were in the second half of the line, but based on my calculations, I thought we would probably be able to get in. The first half of the line fit in the room with no problem, and not even half the room was filled then for the Morita panel. The problem was, we were dyyyyyying in the heat. The sun was very unforgiving, and we were not allowed to line up under the shade. We took turns standing in line and resting under the roof. Some of the people in line with us had umbrellas, so I also borrowed their shade at times. T___T;; I was veeery much craving juice. It was a very hard wait. The line didn't start moving until much later. We didn't get into the room until very late (the schedule totally ran late), but we totally got a pretty good seat. The room wasn't even all that full by the time we got in! I just don't get why we weren't allowed to line up under the shade.
Next paragraph contains some K movie spoilers!
Morita introduced the movie and talked a bit (actually, quite a lot) about his character, a new character to the series. His character chooses to speak with feminine speech and is very ~beautiful~. After that, the movie started! We watched with lots of people cheering and awing and crying. I was very happy that Kuro was in quite a lot of scenes. I was a little afraid that Homra or Sceptor 4 would take up the spotlight, but everyone had a part. The animation was quite beautiful. There were lots of great lines that even people who don't know the series would probably enjoy. (Also, Kuro's fanboying of Ichigen-sama was as cute as ever). Anna totally rocked. I was definitely hoping the movie would be longer though because it felt like a teaser that was building up to something more. (And to end in such a spot!!!) At least it answered the questions of who the next Red king would be and whether or not Shiro was still alive.
Very pretty movie. I'd watch it again!
Angela came on to sing after that. She only sang two songs... We saw her pass by our seats before the movie~~~. (She's so short~~) Why only two songs...
After the movie, it was pretty much clean up time in the AA. We hurried back to pack (our helpers really helped a lot!), and then we met up with my brother and jen_kat and her friends for dinner. Saw this R2D2 on our way to the garage~~.
The restaurant ended up being in the same area we had eaten at the day before! XD I didn't bring a change of clothes, so I was still in my Haikyuu cosplay... But being so far from the convention center meant I felt weird in my cosplay. I borrowed a jacket from Jenkat. It was so large that it covered past my shorts, haha.
The inside of the restaurant totally looked like we were outside. XD
My ramen!
After dinner, we headed next door to have some boba and other drinks. I tried out an oreo ice slushie~~~.
My loot for the day!
We slept fairly late once again. Everyone had to pack.
Day 4: Sunday, July 6
We all set out super bright and early. Checked out around 9 or so. We didn't get caught in the elevator frenzy at all, whoot! We wanted to leave early to make it on time for the screening of Free! ES episodes 1-2. This was before episode 2 had aired in Japan. G2n and I tried to buy sandwiches (but failed again). My brother ended up reaching the convention center before us....????!! He took the shuttle. We took the metro. Anyway, we got there, set up for AA, and made our way over to the Free! screening. We totally went up the wrong escalators and somehow walked through a staff area with no one stopping us. (Still a lot of space left the con could've used for panels and stuff)
Here's the line for Free! It was already fairly long by the time we got there. But we made it in without any problems. We sat near the front too~~~. During the screening, lots of people cheered and screamed depending on which character came on screen. It was definitely an experience. (Also, just how cute is Momotarou!!! Minishiba~~~~) We were told not to reveal anything about him on twitter/wherever because we would be the first to see him on screen even before the episode aired anywhere else. I'm pretty sure people didn't keep it to themselves. T__T;;
(He is really very cute.)
G2n's postcards of Mikoshiba all sold out. I wonder if s2 had anything to do with his popularity. People came by later too and all we could say was sorry, he's sold out! People even reserved the display copy... I hope we see the brothers together sometime.
After the screening, the producer (I think it was the producer? or was it the director OTL) was there to answer some questions! Unfortunately, he decided to answer in English instead of Japanese, so I could barely understand him. (He said he was the most like Haruka because he doesn't speak a lot. |D;;) He answered questions from the audience, and each person received a free Free! poster for asking the question. Two of them were these male Free! cosplayers who stripped in front of everyone, hahaha.
Saw yoshikochan at the screening!
After the screening, we made our way out to buy lunch. Here's a really cool Yowapeda group!
Evangelion?
Mahouka. (Crunchyroll bags everywhere)
The line for MeSoHungry wasn't very long on Sunday, so yay! I wanted to buy from them the day before, but the line was too long.
Here's what I bought. G2n also bought the same thing. I was eating this in the AA and people kept saying, "That smells so good!" "That looks so good!" Where did you buy it?
At "MeSoHungry." I sounded so silly saying it. XDDDD
After I finished eating, I very quickly tried to finish browsing the Dealer's Room (because I never did finish) but pretty soon, it was time for the Haikyuu!! gathering. I passed by one booth that was playing Tenimyu music. That immediately drew my attention, so I went over to chat with the worker there. Turns out they have plans to bring the musicals over to the US! :O I thought he meant a localized DVD or something, but it sounds like they'll be touring. In Asia first though. And then maybe the west coast. He didn't really say any particular musical. They had a bunch of musicals listed, including Sailormoon and Yowapeda. I'm excited either way.
Then it was the start of the Haikyuu! gathering! If not for the gathering, I usually don't cosplay on Day 4. Too much work with check out involved!
Many thanks to Ori for several of these pics! (Any with me in it. XDDDD) We lined up in number order here. XD
After this pic, we were moved outdoors. It was quite a large group.
This Rei cosplayer I saw at Fanime was organizing the gathering. (Turns out he's a friend of Hymn's)
Nekoma group pic.
Then we started in number order with 1! Daichi!
2! Sugawara!
3! Asahi!
Do a spike!
4! Nishinoya!
Save that ball!
5! Tanaka!
They were the best.
There were no 6, 7, or 8. XD;
9, Kageyama!
King of the court!
10, Hinata!
(this picture is gone now =P to be replaced???)
11, Tsukishima, be a wall!
12, Yamaguchi. "Tsukki~~~"
And that was it for the numbers.
Kiyoki-san next! I was debating cosplaying her instead of Suga to make things easier for me on the last day (I brought along my jacket and my sweats, but I decided last minute to go with Suga again)
Yachi~~
Our coach, Ukai!!
Now for other teams! The only Aoba Jousai member there!
Here's the other captain!
Kenma playing his games.
All the captains.
Hinata and Kageyama.
Nishinoya and Asahi.
Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.
Kiyoko-san and her fanboys. XD
Nishinoya and Tanaka.
Now with Hinata as well going ~~Senpai~~~~
Hinata and Kenma.
Kuro and Tsukishima.
Suga and Daichi.
More Suga and Daichi, with Daichi totally being a pimp.
I had to leave in the middle of the gathering to make my way over to the rePLAY concert. Said bye to Hymn, ran back to the AA to grab my stuff, said bye to everyone, and then ran to the concert. My brother was already at the front of the line. I was going to take the plane back home with everyone, but then I decided to go to the concert, which meant I wouldn't make it in time for my flight. So, my plane ticket went to waste. I instead had my brother drive me home. |D;;
The concert was really cool! We were in the main event hall. Our seats weren't too bad. We were in the second row or so in the mid section, so only one row blocked our view. Ticketed events are nice... No need to be afraid of not getting in. I think AX might need to do more ticketed events from now on, just to prevent people who aren't really interested in the event from attending and guaranteeing people that they'd at least be able to attend the events they really care about. The wait for non ticketed events is getting a little ridiculous.
Anyway, rePLAY: Symphony of Heroes was quite cool. They started off with a mix for Sword Art Online that they put together especially for AX. The rest of the show was all video game music. There were quite a few songs I didn't know since I'm not as familiar with non Japanese or none console games. But I did enjoy how the symphony was a story! There was narration and everything, starting with the hero setting off on his journey, traveling through all these different places to get the key that would solve everything. Each piece from each different video game was preceded by narration about what the hero was doing.
I was somewhat surprised Zelda was not featured! And the song from Final Fantasy was actually not Sephiroth's theme! (nice~) Kingdom Hearts was featured when it was mentioned that the hero finally got the key. XD I loved the piece from the Chrono series! Anyway, it was a very cool symphony!
After that, it was finally time for my brother and me to head home. I didn't have time to change before the concert. I quickly changed after the concert. After that, we were all shooed out of the convention center. We took the metro/subway back to our hotel where the car was parked. Got some food from Famima! This was my dinner for the night. (Finally got my juice, lol)
And then we drove home. 8D Took the scenic route because traffic was quite bad on the other highway. Tried to write some fic during the ride....
Got home just past midnight. I bought one thing the last day, and that was volume 1 of Star Project Chiro.
And that's a wrap for AX 2014! Give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to read all of this... XD
I think I should probably buy some new boots~~.