Anime Revolution 2012

That ceiling!

There was a strange level of expectation for its launch year: first being their ridiculously priced registration, second for their departure from their former self as AE (taking many minions with them), and lastly the slow trickle of guest announcements (although all western guests at the time) throughout the year. Not until the final few months did they finally give us want we really want and brought one amazing Japanese guest to our shores. Whether that one amazing guest justified the rest of the con is another story completely however...

The day before:

Thought I'd be smart and stop by to grab my badge early at the pre-reg, and but nope, not as smart as one would think. Got there after work, joined the silly long line, and waited like a sucker for an hour and a half. Alright!

The first day:
The morning I got a ride from LightningSabre and got there to lineup again for another hour or so for his badge (not that there was anything else happening during that time anyway, which actually became a reoccurring thing). We made our way to the dealers hall first thing, strolled around, said hi to some of LS' friends, and stayed on the lookout for cosplayers that caught our eye.

When lunch rolled around, we met up with one of LS' friends who worked in the actual building itself for food at Mahony & Sons, then headed back. We sat in on the Ghibli panel where the dude just showed clips that were badly clipped. What seemed like not long after we had lunch, we went to grab dinner at the neighbouring food court (more to waste as much time as possible). The only other interesting panel we thought we'd stop by was the Terri, Ron, and Sugar Q&A (mainly for Sugar). We couldn't help but notice the frequent disruption from the adjoining panel "room" (room = an actual room divided by a cloth wall, to make the separate "rooms"), which was rather annoying.

(l-r) Terri Hawkes, Ron Rubin, and Sugar Lyn Beard

With nothing else interesting lined up, we found a place to chill for a few hours without being yelled at by AR staff for being a fire hazard. Our final panel for the day was the swimsuit contest which, is strange for me to say but, was quite entertaining and worth the wait. A bit overboard on the innuendos and puns but the contestants counterattacked them all pretty well.

The next day:
Ended up joining LightningSabre again that day and caught the tail end of his ball joint meet. Found Lester (and Ty eventually) and got our Nakata Jouji autographs. With nothing better to do, we checked out the Aniplex panel but, as a consequence, we were unable to get into Nakata Jouji's panel because of the silly underestimated person capacity. We spent the rest of the day chilling at KL-chan's booth when Tofu joined in on our exciting lack of festivities. Also, interestingly enough, discovered that PiggyHoHo, from way back when of the online CCS community days, is a local and had a booth right beside us in the AA. Small world. ;o

Nakata Jouji

That night we deferred night market fooding to the next day and decided to finish up in the downtown area with Sanpachi Ramen for dinners.

The Sanpachi Ramyuns.

Seeing how the first two days were already a snore, I opted to skip out on Sunday to get errands done. The hanging out and stuffing our faces with street food at the night market later that day was more engrossing than the two days prior combined.

I'll still give them credit for being able to pull together a huge guest line-up for their first attempt, which is rather impressive in comparison to their competitors. However they get negative points for their ugly usage of the venue and the lack of activities available. Their pre-registration line is also inexcusable; on-site registration should NOT be available on a pre-register day and that manpower and booth space should also be solely used for that pre-reg line present. Providing some proper seating area would also be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, good try. Now try harder.

Summer Travels: EVO 2012 World Championships

Day 1: Warming Up

Come early Monday morning, the tournaments were well on their way. I headed to the Caesar Palace's to catch Kozu's first match for KoF and to also scope out the floor. Sty finally woke up hours later and together we met up with some people we used to play with in a private Ragnarok Online server many years ago. We opted to have some quick food at the food court and then went back to catch more of the matches, such as the showdown between Noah and Mago, Air well representing Canada, Tokido getting beat by a fellow Canadian, and our .bRO keyboard-playing friend, Roogle's, match against Uryo.

Noah (left) vs. Mago (right)

Playstation All Stars was readily available for playing so I gave that a whirl and unfortunately I wasn't particularly fond it. Also, Street Fighter X Tekken is only amazing because of Toro and Kuro. That's all.

Later that night I convinced everyone we had to do the 24 hour buffet and thus our buffet adventure started with Paris' because of its location. It was sad Paris' has continued to drop in quality; it was a bit of a disappointment but still satisfactory nonetheless.

Day 2: Wandering
Our next buffet was at the Flamingo for brunch. The afternoon consisted of a round of P4A, getting an autograph (and photo) from Daigo Umehara, and wandering around the floor. The room was more packed than the day before so we had less opportunity to sit down to observe the matches.

Capcom's fancy car display plus bored car guard man

Our final buffet was at Planet Hollywood, which was safe to say was the best of the three we had. I also picked up a Evo 2012 T, which ended up becoming my autograph shirt. On the way to and from places, we encountered "celebrities" (sans locals except Air and JWong) which Kozu helped identify.

Day 3: The Finale
After having a string of buffets, we decided to get some fast food before heading to the last and most exciting day of all matches. The floor was cleared of exhibits and was all filled with chairs. Next door was the overflow room where the livestream was set up. Although the commentary was nice, the unexpected streaming failures were rather annoying. Without a doubt, the KoF and MvC3 matches were the most exciting games to watch whereas AE had very little battering between the two players, thus rather underwhelming.

Daigo's final AE match

The Prologue
After having experienced a fighting game tournament in person, it really inspires you to pick up a fighting stick and play some fighting games yourself. The energy, emotions, and rivalry in the room is incomparable to a mere livestream. As for me though, I may have an accessible fighting stick and may get my hands on a game or two, but I would sadly have no one to play/practice with. Despite saying that, I will consider dropping by LV for EVO again next year since flying to LV is rather affordable compared to other US destinations.

So, the next morning we had a pasta buffet. Don't do it; it's a trap! Pastas are so filling! What were we thinking!

Also on the way back, I saw Air while crossing customs. He's a Vancouverite!

And finally, loot picture which lazily includes Anime Expo shtuff too:

Thus ended my summer travels adventures and back to work I went, successfully still pale as a vampire. Take that 45°C Las Vegas weather! However, I did have to deal with a cold/flu/cough attack which lasted me a good 2 1/2 weeks. I'm beginning to see a trend in my health post-travels...

Summer Travels: Geek Downtime

Between two fun & geek-filled weekends of Anime Expo and EVO, Sty and I made the effort to keep ourselves occupied. In hindsight, we could've devoted some of that time to sleeping and just chillaxing a bit more. Maybe I'm just getting old but, boy, was I sleepy!

Tuesday, July 3
Sty and I decided to take an "official" tour of LA during our downtime between events considering the number of times we've visited and would never do the real touristy things. We picked a decently reviewed tour online before we left on our trip and left it at that. We were running late that morning, so we called in to the tour group to confirm the time. They suggested we go straight to their office but we stayed on track and headed to the hotel pickup location we originally picked at booking. For some reason they figured that we agreed to meet them at their office and decided not to pick us up at our pickup location. We waited over an hour and then an additional hour after we called them to ask wtf was going on until their bus finally came by to grab us.

When we got to the office we were forced onto the other later tour that featured less an area of LA, which fortunately wasn't that huge of a concern. On the tour, we stopped at the Farmer's Market where we had "real" donuts for the first time (vs. Canadian "donuts"), Hollywood where we took pictures of the stars we cared for (BIG BIRD!), and Venice Beach for fake merch window shopping (and the beach too). The rest of LA, like Rodeo Drive, was driven through on the tour bus, so there wasn't much to that part.

It finished up earlier than we expected, so we called up Ken to come and grab us. Considering it was high traffic 4pm, he ended up getting stuck for the longest time, which we felt super bad for. :( When he finally did manage to make it to us, we decided to make a stop at Fry's again for some time wasting before meeting up with HB for dinner.

As we were already starving by then, we had a small snack at Jogasaki which was right outside the Fry's; it was really good! After some shopping, we made our way to Ramen Yamadaya and met up with HB. We also had a side of sake with our ramen to celebrate the occasion.

Jogasaki rolls~

Yamadaya ramen~

Btw, we wrote in to the tour company and got the difference in tour costs back.

Wednesday, July 4
We didn't realize our planned Universal Studios day was right on Independence Day (combined with the summer holidays) so the place was packed.

The park was peppered with water mist spray areas, but fortunately it wasn't THAT excessively hot that day. I made Curious George upset for not wanting him in the photo with me and Fievel. Yeah, was never really a fan of Curious George, so too bad for him. Transformers the Ride was the best out of the bunch, second was King Kong, and the third was probably the Studio Tour (bonus points for having a cute-looking tour guide ;)).

Thanks to our front of the line passes, we managed to see everything by the end of the day. We walked the city walk but didn't manage to decide on dinner so we left the park to find food elsewhere. Ken called up his friends who were checking out some local fireworks and they brought us to Umami Burger where we had delicious high-end burger and fries. P:

Thursday, July 5
We packed up our shtuff and made our way towards Korea town where we were to be dropped off for our bus trip to our next destination, Las Vegas! We had some pretty authentic (or so I think!) Korean tofu pot to-go from BCD for our ride there. The tofu was really quite good, btw~

The ride itself was a bit rough – the seats weren't particularly comfortable, the bus was super packed, the movie they played was super loud – but I was so tired, I just forced myself to nap while I could. For the cost of the one-way, hassle-free trip, it wasn't that horrible of an experience.

Upon arrival, me and Sty hung out at the casino/bar area of the Bally's hotel where we were to stay at before Kozu and crew showed up. We drove out to grab some nummy late night fast food at Sonic's after dropping off our stuff and got to check out the tail end of a motorcycle meetup that took over the whole drive-in parking lot. The peach and coke was my winning drink combination. <3

Sleep happened probably. I think some Sengoku Basara did too.

Summer Travels: Anime Expo 2012 – Part 4

Day 3: One Bad Judgement
Bright and early again on Sunday. I borrowed a press badge in the morning to line up for potentially extra press-reserved LiSA tickets. Being the first person in and out, I snagged two and made my way back to the hotel to "wake up." I headed out again when I was ready and went to Koyama Rikiya's panel, which was then followed by the Fate/Zero industry autograph session. I foolishly through I would have been able to get their autographs after trying for some Madhouse industry autos but I should have figured the autograph session wouldn't start on time. Regardless, I got a fancy King Kazma sketch from the character designer and moved on. Moved on to another autograph that just so happened to be there: Muvluv Total Eclipsers. The merch was more to be desired so I opted for a shikishi signing before me and Kozu mad sped to LiSA's concert.

LiSA's concert was fun but I only know of her music from Angel Beats! and Fate/Zero so most of her music escaped me. She also had a fun hand motion dance she had us perform to one of her songs. I was sad to not hear "alchemy" though her version of "My Soul, Your Beats" was decent.

After the concert we walked the exhibitor's hall's artist alley section this time. We stopped by to say hi to (ahem, bothered) the artsy friends and then finished up the exhibitor's hall (finally!). There was nothing else better to do that night so Kozu and I also checked out the Total Eclipse screening, which ended up getting delayed quite a bit. The actual screening consisted of Kuribayashi and ayami singing their theme songs live up on stage before showing us the first two episodes of Total Eclipse. Eh, safe to skip that series imho. Bring the original Muvluv to screens and we'll talk.

After the late showing, we went for food. Dinner ended up only being me and Sty at the Yard House across from our hotel. Verdict? Absolute shit.

Day 4: A Nice Surprise
Once again I did some press badge borrowing to sneak my way into the exhibitor's hall to see if I could get my hands on ANYTHING to redeem my failure yesterday. Unfortunately all the booth freebies were out for the last day and there were no additional Koyama autographs. With nothing to do, I started lining up at the LiSA autographs before Kozu showed up to take my place. I casually scrolled through the schedule on his phone until I spotted an interesting guest appearance by Kishio Daisuke (wut the fruit?!) at Anime Jungle's panel.

The panel itself was quite the squeeee fest, as it was not only super intimate (with only a dozen or so of us in the audience) but we had the opportunity to ask multiple questions. My one mission, the ultimate question: "seme or uke?" which I successfully asked, in which he took by surprise. Done and done~! After the panel, most of us girls stalked him to the side hallway (ufufufu~) and requested a group photo, which he was more than happy to join in for. It was unfortunate that he wasn't properly announced in the proper media outlets but I imagine Anime Jungle only mentioned it themselves. If only I knew he was coming, I would've hunted him down for an autograph as well. If anything, he's one of the bigger seiyuu out of all the other seiyuu present (second to Horikawa). Which well reminds of Kuribayashi Minami's situation as well (she'd be bigger than LiSA, at least).

I headed back to the exhibitor's hall for one last visit and was reminded of the autograph for Niikawa Souhei so I stopped by to snag that. While in line, I met up with Benji, whom I last and first met two years ago also at AX. After determining there really was nothing left (and unable to find that cheap full size body pillow store again), I went back to meet the rest of the crew who were chilling at the Starbucks for unlimited wifi goodness.

We said our goodbyes and parted ways, heading back to the hotel to grab our belongings. We bumped into the Touhous one last time and finally stuffed our stuff into Ken's car. As it was still early in the day, we decided to stop by another Fry's for some potential shopping, seeing the stores in Little Tokyo were not open because of AX. After the detour, we opted for Pho's for dinner since it was nearby. Later that night  I helped Ken get his PC set up for PSO2 after all the talk that was done at the Starbucks round table but I think the language barrier is still hindering him from playing further. :x

In Closing
Anime Expo was decent this year but relatively underwhelming compared to other years. It was almost a bit of a cheat for AX to bring Kajiura again this year, but at least the "group" was different and because of her return, I managed to complete my See-Saw autograph. It would have also been ideal if Kuribayashi and Kishio were upgraded to guest of honor status so they would get the publicity they deserve. Can you imagine a Kuribayashi concert? YUS. That would be amazing.

X-Games was definitely the reason for AX's underperformance this year. Having less the venue space (/hotel space?) prevents them from getting more people in. It also got in the poor little attendees way of getting to and from our hotel safe and sound, without being harassed by WOO EXTREME SPORTS! people.

Also wished I brought my own camera instead. The battery for my own cam seems to be failing so I opted to use my mother's and didn't realize just how bad it is. It's BAD. I wasn't able to get any celebrity shots with the camera at all (thus the lack of photos, you noticed?).

Regardless, it was still awesome to see friends I haven't seen in two years and geek it up at our usual convention. More AX years to come? We will see.

Summer Travels: Anime Expo 2012 – Part 3

Day 2: Hit and Miss.
ALREADY SO TIRED.
I woke up and left first to make it to the Aniplex AoEx photoshoot and Okamoto Nobuhiko autograph session at 10, and boy did I choose the wrong path that morning. I decided to take my chances by taking the other coarse in front of the convention center (rather than behind, through parking lots) and discovered we get rerouted around two to three street blocks before getting to an entrance of the LACC. While weaving around slow trekkers, I gracefully PK'd, and ended up with some minor hand scrapes. I picked up a free energy drink on the way, which ended up being both a nice pain reliever for my scraped hands and a much needed energy boost. I arrived to find that the autograph lineup was already well packed and the cut-off was already determined. Regardless, I joined the line to take my chances and, fortunately, Okamoto was a FAST autographer and breezed through the line. With one success, Sty finally joined me and brought breakfast (mocha cookie crumble frappucino mmmm...).

[some asian blogging flare]

After Okamoto's autographin' he panel'd next and that's where we headed. The panel itself mostly consisted of girls asking for character quote requests, which was nothing new, but super disappointing. When that disappointment ended, we continued our exhibition hall rounds before I made my way to the fan AoEx photoshoot later that afternoon.

So the photoshoot was quite the mess. Somehow some girl with no knowledge of the series was appointed to be the screamer (aka. the person who tells which characters go up and pose). After wasting some-odd precious minutes listening to the screamer scream all while staring back at random X-Gamers peering over the fence (probably wondering why this girl was screaming at blankly staring cosplayers), I headed back to the exhibition hall in attempts to finish walking it.

Without much success, me and Sty stripped down at the hotel (drop everything unnecessary) before making our way to the Kajiura/FJ concert. Seating was behind schedule and as it was assigned seating, we chilled outside in the shade while watching the lineuppers make their way in the hall under the blazing sun.

The concert itself was amazing. Despite it being in a hall rather than an actual concert-appropriate venue like the Staples Center or even the Nokia Club, the hall was decent for what it was. Kajiura kicked it off with bgms from Fate/Zero, then touched on Xenosaga II, .hack, vocal themes from Hokuto no Ken and Pandora Hearts, the extraordinary "salva nos" from Noir, the epic bgms from Madoka, Mai-HiME, Aquarian Age (never knew; I guess it was a less memorable ost), and to top it off, they encored with "The World." Unfortunately there was no tribute to any Gundams, seeing they were all YUUKA's tracks who was not present.

The concert ended around 9pm and we were well ready to have our first real meal of the day. Sty, Kozu, and I hung out in the empty convention halls while Kozu gathered more men for the trip to the Original Pantry Cafe for breakfast food. We got the usual big plates of breakfast goodies and then figured headed back for much needed sleep.

Summer Travels: Anime Expo 2012 – Part 2

Taken over Staples Center

Day 1: A Slow Start
It was difficult waking up that morning but we managed to leave Ken's place, charge through the bad LA traffic, and arrive about half way through the Total Eclipse panel. Speaking at the panel was Yoshimune Kouki (producer/creator), ayami, and, returning pop star, Kuribayashi Minami. Sadly Kuribayashi did not get the big name treatment again this time, and silently came with the "Total Eclipse" package. We found Kozu doing his press work in the room before heading to the exhibitor's hall for our first round of shopping. We followed the line going into the hall and caught some unwanted sunshine while we snaked around. We managed to walk a few rows in the hall before heading to the "secret" Kajiura/FictionJunction autograph session. So, for some reason I discovered a text file in the mirrored AX schedule folder the night before, which had a list of all, if not most, of the autograph sessions happening at the con. I decided to take the chance and get in on the line and, what did you know, it really was happening!

After snagging autos, we headed to their panel. Although the translator was kinda awful at her job and the few "OMG you are the prettiest females in the world!" Q&A comments aside, we still got a few good discussions going such as finding out Kajiura's what-could-have-been job, if she didn't get involved in music (spoiler: she would've been a software engineer – say what!?).

Post panel we returned to the exhibitor's hall for some last minute strolling before deciding to finally check-in to our hotel at the JW Marriott. We picked up our stuff from Ken's car and wheeled our way to the hotel. It was then we discovered that the hotel was not as convenient this year as we hoped, all wonderfully thanks to the X-Games. Paths were blocked and the through passageway required us to go through multiple parking lots, backstreets, and walking around road intersections. When we managed to get to our hotel, we chilled in for quite sometime before meeting up with HB, Kozu, and the Touhou group (from the previous year) to plan dinner.

First meal of the day.

Since we wanted to check out the JAST panel later that night, we opted to eat at a curry house in Little Tokyo, which was our closest and opened late option, even though I recalled the food being not so great. The restaurant stayed open way later their scheduled closing time (which was nice) and managed to seat our kinda big table of ten after a whiles wait (which was not nice). With less than an hour left for us to eat and fly back, we scarfed down our food, dropped our monies, and headed back before the TH group.

The JAST panel had a pretty amusing simulated gameplay of a scenario from School Days HQ, but the giveaway that followed was horribly organized. Regardless, we called it a night and headed back to our room to chat and chill.