Anime Expo 2010 Report [Day 0 & 1]

It's been 'tradition' to go to AX every other year and since I went last year, this year was supposed to be a break year. Somehow, things happened and now this year has become exempt to that tradition. In fact, the tradition's probably nulled now as the years go by (ugh.. age).


Anyway, Anime Expo 2010. Wow. What just happened in the last few days? It went by so much quicker than any other year. Breaks? Sleep? Food? What.

Day 0 - June 30
Me and Tofu's flight was scheduled for 6:30am, so we had to arrive at the airport around 4am. I attempted to sleep as many hours as possible, but only managed about 2 at most. The flight itself was uncomfortable and too cold for me to catch any additional shut eye time. Poked at my DS to pass the time.

We arrived on time and then went to the International Terminal to pass the time while we waited for another friend, Rift, to arrive from another flight coming from Seattle. I never knew/noticed all police officers walked around carrying AK-47s like it's nothing. It was scary.

When he arrived, we did even more waiting for Ray to come and pick us up from the airport which wasn't until well past noon. We had a late lunch in Little Tokyo (Little Tokyo Square) at Hanaichimonme for ramen. It was a disappointing meal but it was still food.


Ray had to return to work so we quickly finished up and had him drop us off at the Westin where Kozu was doing his "press" job, interviewing celebrities in their private suites. Since he was nowhere close to done, we went and checked in at the Sheraton where we were going to be staying for the next few days, followed by wandering the attached mall and the surrounding drug stores. Kozu ended up taking longer than expected, so we decided go to and lineup for our badges first. We got there at 5pm and didn't finish until past 7:30pm. After we walked back to the hotel and stopped by a grocers on the way. We bummed in the hotel for hours until Ray finally got off work around 9:30pm and we headed out to get some deep dish pizza.


Deep dish is deep.
Day 1 - July 1
Finally. The official first day started off with the Japanese DJ panel at 10:45 and met up with Kozu there. The attending DJs were DJ CHUCKY, m1dy, NO+CHIN, and - GASP - REDALiCE. The others were still jetlagged. The translators with them weren't that great as a chunk of questions were mistranslated/misheard. Then a panel group photo was taken at the end. No idea which DJ's page it's going to be on so I can't look up their twitter/blog to find it.

Right after was May'n's panel downstairs, so down we went and we joined Kozu's friends in the long line that was forming. That was followed by the long wait before May'n showed up from the entrance behind us - she was cute as ever!


After her panel it was time for autographs so we headed to the exhibitor's hall where it was held. Kozu made a mad dash there before us so we joined him. While waiting for my turn, I snuck out of the line quickly to catch the DJs who were bored at their autograph table. Sadly there was no sign of REDALiCE but GUHROOVY was there instead.

After the round of autographs, I was making my way to the next thing on my schedule until I bumped into wandering REDALiCE, attacked him for an autograph and picture before letting him go. Continuing on, I went to Morita Masakazu's "panel" (more like event) scheduled at the Nokia Plaza next. I was already worried when I read that it was located at the Nokia Plaza out of all places - an outside stage in the blazing sun. I thought I was late for it at first, but in fact it gets delayed and thus ended up standing around in the heat for the longest time. When they started, I finally knew what was going on - Morita was brought here by Shounen Jump to promote Bleach. The next hour was listening to Morita do a live voice over, then followed by choosing three rounds of random people from the audience to do voice acting. A Rukia cosplayer who was chosen to voice Rukia was so cute and she also gave us some free fan service panty shots thanks to the wind.


Next it was mad dash time to the autograph room which was different from the usual exhibitor's hall area. When I was done, it was already well past the 4pm Kuribayashi Minami mini-concert at the MangaGamer booth but when I was making my way back to the exhibitor's hall, she was still singing. I was able to catch the last two songs or so.


They announced autographs right after, so I joined in with the crowd and managed to get Kuribayashi Minami, CooRie, and UR@N by purchasing their CDs. I got free goodies to go with my purchases: a boobie pad, t-shirt, Dear Drops book and a pretty bag.

It was already nearing 6pm which was around the time the dealer's room closed, so I quickly sped to the artist's alley to avoid getting kicked out to meet up with Tofu, Rift and their artist friends. We headed back to the hotel so I can drop off my goods and change out of costume before heading to the Marriott to meet up with Kozu and his friend, Chris. He drives a hawwwt bmw. :3

We dropped off Tofu and Rift near the restaurant they were eating with their artist friends while Kozu, Chris and I wandered around from place to place to settle on a restaurant that wasn't too long a wait. We finalized on Orochon Ramen - the restaurant famous for their Special #2 eating challenge. Ah, we weren't that fearless but I had the #3 and even that was rather spicy.


We headed back to the convention around 10:30p, picking up Tofu and Rift on the way again and took a peek at the X Japan event that was happening at Club Nokia. At first we all thought it was a fundraiser concert, but it turned out to be a music video shooting. We ughed and decided to check out the dance at the Marriott instead. The dance was pretty much the same as what I saw at Sakuracon's rave, 'cept there was a furry and a ballet dancer. Yep.


It was too difficult to get into it with only 15% of the room full, 40% of the people there were standing around, and the music was just your typical clubbing music. We gave up on that and went back to the lobby where we watched Kozu and Chris play a few rounds of YuGiOh before we called it a night.

Next: AX2010 Report - Day 2 & 3