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.