Anime Expo 2009 Report
http://random.naki-bokuro.net/2009/07/18/167
http://random.naki-bokuro.net/?p=167
I’m finally done with writing Anime Expo 2009 report *dies*
I probably have bunch of spelling and grammar errors but I don’t have time to check them right now
absolutely NO copy and paste any text of my report on other sites…
by the way, I didn’t go to Anime Expo on Day 3 so I just wrote what I did on that day so feel free to skip that part…
Contents:
Day 0 - Nothing very interesting (LOL)
Day 1 - Kouga Yun Panel and Morikawa Toshiyuki Panel
Day 2 - Meet the Guest Reception (Morikawa Toshiyuki, Kouga Yun, Mizushima Seiji, Kuroda Yosuke)
Day 3 - No AX 2009 Report (didn’t go to the con)
Day 4 - Open Autograph Session (Kouga Yun, Mizushima Seiji, Kuroda Yosuke)
Day 0 (Wednesday)
I got to LA around 9 am and I waited at the airport for about 3 hours because my grandmother was flying all the way from Japan to go sightseeing with my parents from LA
While I was waiting at the international airport gate there were bunch of Morning Musume fans waiting with banner saying “Welcome to LA Morning Musume!” (don’t remember the exact word but something like that was written on there) (LOL)
My grandmother was on JAL and I found out that they were on the same airline. I was hoping Morikawa-san to be there too but I didn’t get a chance to see him coming out from the gate because I left right after I found my grandmother
So I left the airport and we rent a car and head towards the hotel so we can drop our stuff off
We got to the hotel around 3:30 pm and went to the Convention Center right after
There were huge line to get the Pre-registered badge but it was moving at a pretty fast pase so I didn’t expect to take more than 30 minutes but I was so wrong It took me about 1 hour to get my ticket =_=
after getting my badge I called velessa and she said she was almost done getting her ticket so I met up with her right after she got her badge ^_^
and then we went off to hunt down that Meet the Guest Reception ticket which isn’t even listed on the AX program nor AX website
we asked bunch of staff about the Meet the Guest Reception ticket and they told us that it’s sold at Merchandise booth which shouldn’t be open until tomorrow (Day 1)
well we just decided to head there anyway so we would be able to figure out were it is beforehand
then we found few people standing around the booth so we asked them if they are selling Meet the Guest Reception ticket but they were already counting money so we told them we will pay cash for it and we were able to get tickets for it (by the way, the ticket was $30)
so that was the end of Day 0 for me…
Day 1 (Thursday)
I went to the con around 8 am so I could get Guest Reception tickets for rady, kimi_kuma, and her friends
I met up with fangirl_ism and her sister and we waited in front of the Merchandise booth until 9 am
after getting tickets we met up with velessa since she was in line since 7:30 am for the Guest of Honor panel (thank you sooooooooo much velessa!!!)
we were kind of worried about Morning Musume fans taking over the panel but apparently AX was planning of clearing the room after Morikawa-san’s panel (but they announced this after Kouga-sensei’s panel which they should have done it earlier -_-)
anyway, we were able sit in the middle of first row (right in front of the guest seat) for both Kouga-sensei’s and Morikawa-san’s panel
Kouga-sensei’s panel were all Q&A, she didn’t really talk about herself in the beginning like Morikawa-san did for few minutes
now I don’t remember what kind of question were asked… all I remember was one of the person asking if LOVELESS going to be yaoi instead of shonen-ai (LOL)
she was like “I don’t think that’s going to happen because of publisher related problems” and then she asked if people know about yaoi and if they are interested about it and she also asked if she ever got a chance to write yaoi manga would everyone be interested in reading her manga
most people at the panel cheered and clap their hands, and those who doesn’t like yaoi or not interested just laughed about it (especially guys)
and after hearing the cheers she said she will think about publishing yaoi manga as Doujinshi
someone asked what’s her favorite character from her manga and she said “it’s really not my work but I really like Tieria”
I was so happy to hear she likes Tieria too~vvv
oh and I remember someone asked about LOVELESS… why she decided to take the ears and tail off for the *adults* and she mentioned in the beginning she was going to have ears and tail for all the character but she noticed that they don’t look good when putting them on adults (especially on tall characters like Soubi) so she end up making all adults have no ears and tail but it would be weird not having a reason why in the story so she decided to make that kind of reasons in the manga (LOL)
also I remember someone asked about how she came up with all those ideas for manga and what her daughter thought about her as Manga-ka
she said she read a lot of manga (like 80% of what’s out in Japan) because she loves reading them and she puts a filter through it while she’s reading other people’s work so she can come up with more interesting ideas without copying someone else’s work
in addition she mentioned she watches news on TV everyday no matter how busy she is which she thinks it’s helping her a lot when making manga
about her daughter she said that her daughter understands she’s not going to quit her job and she thinks she’s a bad mother because she couldn’t take care of her as much because of her job
and then someone asked if her daughter is interested in manga as well and she said she’s more interested in novels
ok… that’s all I remember from the Kouga-sensei’s panel *dies* it’s so hard to remember people’s question because they are nothing related to what I’m thinking but things I mentioned on here was very interesting to me
next was Morikawa-san’s panel and he started off with few minutes of talking about himself
what bothered me the most was the introduction the AX staff made… (and he’s Japanese sucks as hell… he can’t even say Morikawa-san’s name right) he spend like 5 minutes naming most of the roles that he did which I thought was WASTE OF TIME -_-
ok I understand AX are happy to get famous seiyuu like Morikawa-san but at the same time keep the introduction quick and easy to save time for Q&A
anyway, what he talked about in the beginning of the panel was he was really happy to be there, and said AX requested him to come every year but his schedule didn’t work very well so he had to turn down their invitation but they were enthusiastic about it so he decided to come this year
he came to LA around noon yesterday (Wednesday) and he mentioned that he left his dog in Japan so he’s worried about his dog the most
He said this is his second time traveling outside of the Japan and the first time he went to Guam for vacation so this is the first time he got on an airplane for a long time so he was excited like a little kid on the airplane
yesterday was press inverview day so he received a lot of press interviews and he was very impresed about how all the press were enthusiastic about his work
he received bunch of interview about Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII
also he was surprised to hear press asking about his role in Yu Yu Hakusho as Shishiwakamaru because it was a role he almost forgot that he played
so he was happy to be reminded about it and happy to hear people remembered the roles he played in the past
he talked about going to Anime Expo to his friend and his colleague, he was asked by CAPCOM’s Kobayashi Producer to advertise Devil May Cry and Sengoku Basara
so he started advertising Sengoku Basara… he mentioned about Sengoku Basara being popular in Japan especially to girls and they say it’s Sengoku Boom and those girls call themselves Gekijo instead of Fujoshi (I didn’t know about this so I thought that was interesting (LOL))
and anime Sengoku Basara recently ended but it’s so popular that they are making second season for it right now and going to start soon so he wanted everyone to take notice of the Sengoku Basara second season
also he mentioned about pre-stage for Sengoku Basara stage in Japan that happened yesterday (Wednesday) and he heard that it’s awesome so he would like to keep that in mind as well
and about Devil May Cry, there’s anime for it and this is going to be in Blue-ray disc in Japan so there might be some Devil May Cry promotional event soon or later so he wanted fans to keep an eye on those event as well
also he asked Seki Toshihiko-san about Anime Expo since he came as guest last year (he mentioned he asked when he saw him at recording studio for One Piece)
Seki-san mentioned there’s going to be bunch of people asking for voice request
Morikawa-san said he’s nervous about that and asked people to take it easy on him (LOL)
so Q&A started afterwards and some people asked him to do love confession and someone ask him to propose to that person with Sephroph’s voice
umm… other than that I don’t remember anything at all… sorry, I was getting really nervous about asking Mew’s question *dies*
I still hate standing in front of bunch of people even though I had to go through that crap when I was in High School and College -_- but I think I’m getting better at it little by little… I guess practice makes it better (lol)
so that’s all I can mention about the panel for Kouga-sensei and Morikawa-san (sorry it’s not very detailed… I tried my best >_<)
and so rest of the day I waited in line for Morikawa-san’s autograph session but I didn’t get a chance to get his autograph on that day T_T
right after that I had to run to Imaishi-san and Nishigori-san’s panel so I could get autograph ticket for my friend
after the panel I lined up for the autograph session and got their autograph ^_^ and I had few minutes before the Dealer’s room close so I rushed in to find some things that I wanted…
bought few things and met up with velessa and walked up to Westin Bonaventure because that was the place where they are planning on having the Meet the Guest reception on Friday morning (8 am)
we left right after finding where that place is since I wanted to eat dinner with my family… so that was the end of the day for me
Day 2 (Friday)
I woke up around 6 pm trying to get ready for everything and leave the hotel at 7 am so I can line up for the Meet the Guest Reception at 8 am which was held at Westin Bonaventure.
My friends came few minutes after I got there and we just chat until the reception started.
All the guest passed by to get into the room few minutes before the reception starts.
I was wondering why the reception was held at Westin Bonaventure since it’s about 1.5 miles away from the LA Convention Center but I noticed all the guests were staying at Westin Bonaventure which now make sense.
So yeah, reception started and me and all of my friends sat at Morikawa-san’s table as soon as they started.
They mentioned every 15 minutes you have to stand up and move to other tables. So we started asking questions. I was embarrassed to go first so I waited for a while until I asked my question.
I really wanted to ask about Saiunkoku Monogatari because I cosplayed as Shuurei (I’ve asked the similar question to Kiuchi Hidenobu-san last year too).
So I asked if he had any funny moments and difficult time while he was acting as Shuuei in Saiunkoku Monogatari.
He said he didn’t have difficulty acting as Shuuei and he enjoyed recording with others. He also mentioned about Hiyama-san being there made it even more fun.
I remember someone asked about if he likes recording the game voice or anime voice and he said definitely recording anime voice because game voice recording is done alone so it’s kind of sad.
I think he mentioned that he likes to go to the after party with his seiyuu friends when he’s recording gets done for anime and drama CD
so I asked him if he’s strong with alcohol and he said he was drinking last night until 2 am which means he’s pretty strong (LOL)
Someone also mentioned about ad-lib in anime and he said that happens often and he does it sometimes too so I asked him if ad-lib happens more often on drama CD and such and he said yes since there’s no animation for it and he mentioned that there’s always author coming in to check on how they are doing and people gets NG if they say something that doesn’t match their character
oh yeah, and we heard him sing part of Love Me Tender!!! rady beg him to sing it and he did which was AWESOME >_< (thanks to rady for requesting!!!)
and she asked if he’s going to have 2HEARTS live again and he would definitely would like to have one again~vvv
oh yeah, since he’s in bunch of events and concerts, I asked him if he gets nervous every time he gets on the stage. And he answered yes but he tries to calm himself down since he thinks nothing will go good if he’s nervous. So I asked him if he does have something in particular to calm himself down and he said he takes a deep breath few times and tells himself everything will go great.
umm… sorry, that’s all I can mention… I really don’t remember the other questions… I just enjoyed listening to his voice that I couldn’t memorize all the questions that as asked (LOL)
so we stood up after 15 min and I wanted sat a Kouga-sensei’s table but I was too slow to get there so it was already full T_T so I started eating food that was served there and waited for the next round with fangirl_ism and velessa
I got a seat close to Kouga-sensei and then she started talking to me all of a sudden. She asked me if I was the one who was sitting in front of the guest seat during the panel (I was sitting in the middle first row, right in front of the guest seat during the panel)
I was so embarrassed that she remember me (LOL) but I started asking question I wanted to ask.
I asked her which is her favorite character in LOVELESS and she said Ritsuka but everyone else (like her helper) thinks she likes Soubi.
Even though the session started no one starts asking question about anything so I kind of felt bad so I started off with few questions about Tieria.
First off, I mentioned I totally fell in love with Tieria after seeing him cross-dressing and everyone laughed, especially Mizushima-san (lol)
so I asked Kouga-sensei what she felt when she was drawing cross-dressed Tieria and she told me that she had difficulty deciding what kind of dress he should wear because of the breast (LOL)
So she asked Mizushima Kantoku if he should wear a dress that shows part of the brest or none at all which I thought was pretty funny
I also asked Mizushima-san who was voicing the cross-dressed Tieria’s voice
there were part where his voice was done by a woman and I’ve been wondering who was voicing it because it wasn’t listed on the credit roll
and he said if he remembers it correctly he used the same person who voice the newscaster who appeared in the Episode 1 (he didn’t say her name because he didn’t remember (lol))
he mentioned he didn’t want people to make a big deal out of it so that’s the reason her name isn’t on a credit roll
also someone asked if he has any spoiler for Gundam 00 and he said there’s going to be bunch of new cool Mobile Suit appearing and he mentioned Tieria will appear again~vvv
and then the translator asked if Tieria will be cross-dressing in the movie and he said no more cross-dressing for Tieria (LOL) thanks to the translator for asking that question! that was really good question (lol)
so I head over to Morikawa-san’s table and me and my friends mostly sat there for rest of the time since no one really sat down on the table even though we stood up
oh and Morning Musume came to this reception which was so unexpected… I didn’t go to their table but seems like they were having a lot of fun with their fans
one funny thing I want to mention was that Morning Musume left few minutes before everyone left and while they were walking away from the room they were waving at everyone and Morikawa-san was looking at that and he waved at them as well (LOL) I thought that was really cute which definitely made me laugh
so yeah, this reception was like the best event in Anime Expo 2009… I was really glad that I ran around to search for this ticket and paid $30 for it (which I still think it’s expensive even though I got to meet the guests)
anyway, rode velessa’s car to go back to the convention~ (big thanks to velessa!)
and we went in to the autograph session waiting room and sat there for few hours (we chat with Gokumew2 on the phone~vvv)
fangirl_ism was kind of away from where we were standing so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her T_T and she had to leave right after the autograph session so that was the last day I saw her… once again, thanks to fangirl_ism for hanging out with me and hope we see each other again at other anime convention! it was nice meeting you ^_^
so I got Morikawa-san’s autograph after lining up in a huge line T_T I would so have cried if I didn’t get his autograph even though I lined up for it for such a long time…
his autograph is really cute~vvv after my name he wrote little heart like this “v” which I thought was really cute and I asked him to sign on my Saiunkoku Monogatar artbook so he even wrote Shuuei on there! (I can’t even write that Kanji (LOL)) that definitely made me happy and told me to e-mail his radio show (which I haven’t done and I really should do it soon T_T)
after Morimori’s autograph session me and velessa went to Kouga-sensei’s autograph session
since we didn’t have priority ticket for it we had to wait in the stand-by line T_T and of course we didn’t get her autograph *sigh*
so that was pretty much it for the day… rest of the day I spend time with velessa and took pictures of cosplayers
Day 3 (Saturday)
I didn’t go to the con so I don’t know what kind of event was held there on that day
but what I did was I woke up and rady and kimi_kuma picked me up and went to Little Tokyot to do Kiniro no Corda group photo shoot
rady was Yunoki, kimi_kuma was Hihara, and rady and kimi_kuma’s friend Andrew was Tsuchiura
we took bunch of pictures with different poses and it was a lot of fun~vvv
I never expected I would be able to do Corda group cosplay in my life so that was really really fun!!!
hopefully we get a chance to do it again~vvv next time I kind of want to do summer uniform version since I’m getting the Seisougakuin-sai pins from the Kiniro no Corda ~secondo passo~ DVD~vvv I definitely want to do a guy character (probably Shimizu since he’s the shortest (LOL))
anyway, we dropped of kimi_kuma and Andrew at convention center and me and rady head off to Knott’s Berry Farm
we met up with my family first and we got inside and found velessa afterward ^_^ we rode bunch of roller coaster and watched bunch of shows which was really fun
I usually don’t ride roller coaster as much at the theme park since I’m not a fan of it but I decided to ride them this time and it was a lot more fun than I expected
I think that was the first time riding that many roller coaster in one day (LOL) I usually rode only one or two roller coaster at most in any of the theme park (even six flags)
we stayed until the theme park close so we got to watch the fireworks towards the end~vvv
I got back to the hotel around 1 am and took shower and went to sleep at 2 am *dies*
Day 4 (Sunday)
so I woke up early again… (6:30 am) and got to the convention around 8 am since AX info booth didn’t open till 8 am
so I asked them about the open autograph session and they told me it’s going to be held at the registration hall so I went there and there was already a line forming (which was still pretty short so it was good)
and they they started announcing who’s going to be there and such and they sadly announced that Morikawa-san and Morning Musume won’t be there (don’t care about Morning Musume but sad to hear that Morikawa-san left already)
so yeah, I stayed 4 1/2 hours outside since they said open autograph session starts at 12:30 pm
I got to meet a group of girls who were standing behind me waiting for Kouga Yun-sensei
we end up talking most of the time which was really fun ^_^
so time passed by really quickly and I got to meet Kouga Yun-sensei and got her autograph~vvv I asked her if she still remembers me and she did! and I asked if I could take a picture with her and she said she will be more than happy to so I asked the translator to take it for me~vvv I was soooooooooooooooo happy and excited that I got to take picture with her >_< and she told me she loves Vampire Knight too (since I was cosplaying as Yuuki from VK) it was kind of funny that we were talking about manga which isn’t her work (LOL)
and then I went back in line to get Mizushima-san and Kuroda-san’s autograph and I asked if they remember me from reception (I mentioned I was the girl who asked bunch of question about Tieria’s cross-dress (LOL)) and they were like “oh yeah~!” and their translator also said they remembered me too (lol)
anyway, I got pictures of both Mizushima-Kantoku and Kuroda-san~vvv they were really nice ^_^
Mizushima-san drew Halo beside his autograph and Kuroda-san drew a picture of me which I thought was really cute~vvv
afterward I found rady and kimi_kuma walking in the hallway and they mentioned that they were thinking about getting lunch at Little Tokyo and I called velessa and she’s almost done getting autograph from Kouga-sensei so we waited for her
we kind of roam around the con since we had time and few people asked to take a pictures of me and velessa because we were cosplaying as Vampire Knight characters ^_^
I was cosplaying as Yuuki (with long hair) and velessa was cosplaying as Luca~vvv so happy that velessa decided to cosplay with me!!! so after that was done we left the con to eat lunch together~!
we met up with kawaii_gaara-chan (I didn’t know she was kawaii_gaara-chan until I heard about it from her) and her bf, Terry
after lunch I had to leave since my parents was heading to Little Tokyo to look shop around
so I said goodbye to everyone and met up with my family and spend time with them so that was the end of my Anime Expo trip ^_^
I kind of wanted to go back to the con but my parents weren’t happy about me since I didn’t spend a lot of time with them -_- (which I didn’t even plan on spending time with my family in the beginning… my trip to LA was all about going to Anime Expo and I told them I won’t be spending time with them before we plan this trip)
so I got back to the hotel early so I can start packing my stuff up and rest up a little… next day I was dead tired and I got home at 1 am (LOL)
even though I was so tired it was such a fun trip!!! once again, thank you so much to velessa, rady, kimi_kuma, Andrew, fangirl_ism, kawaii_gaara, Terry, and people that I’ve got to talk to at the con!!! It was nice meeting you all and it was super fun spending time with you all!!! Hopefully we will be able to meet again at some other anime convention~vvv next time I will make sure to bring my best friend (xixi) with me!!! (lol)