Anime Expo 2010 Report [Day 2 & 3]

...and the report continues!


Day 2 - July 2
The day's first order of business was Kitamura Eri's panel at 12:30p. We ended up showing up an hour earlier accidentally thanks to my bad sense of time but that turned out to be a good thing. They featured Kitamura and one of Toradora!'s directors, Yamanaka Takahiro on the panel. Kitamura answered a series of questions picked from the open question box that was at the NIS America booth and they apparently liked and picked my question. I had to go up and ask my own question =_= but because of that, I got the Toradora! premium box set vol.1 as a prize plus her autograph as well. Since the panel was running late into the May'n and Nakajima Megumi's concert, I went to get my prize at a later time.

So, the CONCERT. WAS AMAZING. They sang through the Macross Frontier songs plus some from the MF Movie and their own personal tracks. I was disappointed that Nakajima wasn't as cute as I pictured her. May'n definitely takes the cake. Ahem.

The real amazing part was definitely the appearance of Kanno Yoko out of all people. For the secret guest, we were debating over Kanno Yoko, Sakamoto Maaya, or even Toyoguchi Megumi (Klan) to complete the girls... but wow, she showed up and danced to Seikan Hikou as Nakajima sang it. Then followed to play the piano for a few tracks like Aimo.

After the wicked concert, we came out and swung by check out what was left of the Touhou gathering. The concert ended late, so they had already disbanded by then.

Next stop was Horie Yui's panel. She apparently was behind on schedule so the panel forced us to watch the first episode of Toradora! With only a half n hour left, they answered some questions from the question box and called it a day. I went to pester the Toradora! guy for my goods and tried my luck to ask if he could snag me Horie's autograph as well. He shrugged and said he could do the best he can and asked me to follow him back to the booth to get Kitamura's part at least.

By then, the exhibitor's hall was closing up, so Tofu and I went to meet up with the Touhou group again where we hung out, munching on the genderswap Mokou's snacks while waiting for the rest of the group to show. 8pm rolled around, and HARDCORE SYNERGY was about to start so we skipped real food and went straight there.

For the next 6 hours, I tried not to overexert my energy so I wouldn't sweat to death and feel disgusting. Regardless of me trying to stay cool, there was more than once instance where a really sweaty guy would be jumping, dancing, fist pumping into me and yes, it was very unpleasant. Anyway, the lineup was much like: DJ AMAYA, NO+CHIN, GUHROOVY/DJ CHUCKY, M-Project, DJ Schwarzenegger, REDALiCE, DJ CHUCKY, m1dy, DJ DA/LE. The most strangest thing was probably the KISS wannabe guy who was apparently another host up on stage. He was out of place at a j-core dance, seriously.

Speaking of j-core and out of placeness, a guy asked me to dance. When he poked my shoulder and asked me, I first thought: "How [the hell] do you dance together to j-core?!? Headbanging? Fist pump together?! Jump in unison!?!" I recall pausing for the longest time, trying to figure out how to answer him while he tried to fill the void with "It's okay if you say no" and I finally was all like "(errrrraghhhh) uh I'm tired! sorry!" And then he disappeared forever. K I felt really bad but really, how! I heard I wasn't the only one to be asked that question either.


All us touhouers made our way to the front to cheer REDALiCE on. When he was done with his performance, I was done with mine and stepped out to _not_ dance to m1dy's speedcore. I like him and his music, but only from a distance and for my ears... nothing more.

When it finally ended at 2am, we went to the Marriott and waited around for other people (plus REDALiCE). It wasn't until way past 3, we finally headed to out for food. By then, I was THIS close to bailing, considering the time of day it was. We had dinner..? er breakfast?.. at the Original Pantry Cafe. Too bad we had it at like effing 4 in the morning though.



Day 3 - July 3
With only an hour of sleep, I started the day with MELL's panel at 10a but got there later that I should've. It sounded like the concert was awesome. :( But VS REDALiCE is a tough one. Anyway, after the panel, I mad dashed to the autograph line up and finished pretty quickly. I headed to the NIS America booth to check on the status of my signed goods but found that Horie's autograph signing was not successful so I hurried to join in on the lineup already forming. Since Kitamura Eri was there again, I had her and the director who was there sign the inside of the DVD book I got. Afterwards, I found Tofu and Kozu already lined up for Nakajima's signing and joined in. It went slower than expected and it delayed into the Konishi Katsuyuki's panel. When I got there, the room was full and all hope was lost. I stood around outside the room for 20 or so minutes figuring out what to do until they suddenly decided to let SIX people in and so I hurried and managed to be that 6th. Man, at least 80% of the fans there were diehard Hetalia fans. I should catch up and get on that bandwagon. P:

After the panel it was another mad dash to the autographs. The amount of people who wanted his autograph was so overwhelming, personalizations were prohibited and photos were limited. Either way, my Tales of Festival book was successfully autographed and I was happy.

With little time left for the exhibit hall, I went over to the MangaGamer booth and got Katakura Shinji to sign his Boukyaku no Senritsu manga. He was super happy to see his own manga from years ago :D Sadly, Kuuchuu Yousai was nowhere to be found (it was my 2nd attempt already then).

The exhibit hall closed up and I headed to the ESPN Zone to check out the Danny Choo meet up. It wasn't particularly packed by the time I got there, and everyone was scattered in their little own groups. It was strange... and I was confused. There was a line, so I lined up and found out that it was to get Danny's autograph/picture so sure, what the heck. When it got to my turn I just asked for a photo and proceeded on. I suppose mingling sorta happened and met with lightningsabre, Ben, Jennifer and her friends. It seems like most people there were waiting on the free stuff but it never happened.


After the rather anticlimactic meetup, I took a quick detour back to the hotel to drop off stuff and returned to the convention to meet up with Tofu and his two friends at the Gurren Lagann movie screening, followed by the cosplay contest. The contest was disappointing but Konishi ended up cosplaying as Kamina so it was all worth it at the end.


Food was in order by then so we drove to Little Tokyo for Daikokuya Ramen. We had to wait outside for [I think] at least an hour before we got a spot but it was awesomely worth it. For some reason, I had ramen three times on the trip and Daikokuya's was by far the best.


The food was great AND they played old school anime music - Digimon, Utena, Kenshin, Shaman King, FMA - which of course rocked super nostalgia socks.

When we got back to the hotel, it was already packing time. The flight back didn't allow for much additional packing, so I decided to put away the costume for the last day.

Next: Anime Expo 2010 - Day 4, Final Thoughts & Loot

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

AX10 Evils

When I mean evil, I don't mean the whole new management issue because I'm sure there's plenty of evil in there, behind the scenes, all the time anyway. So up until the last minute, the list of anticipated events at Anime Expo have grown to a ridiculous number... and that doesn't include the unexpected events that might happen too.

Top Ten

1. Horie Yui
2. Katsuyuki Konishi
3. Megumi Nakajima
4. May'n
5. MELL
6. MangaGamer's Guests - Age and Kuribayashi Minami (!)
7. MangaGamer's Guests - CooRie, Kuuchuu Yousai, et al...
8. DJs - m1dy and REDAliCE
9. Kitamura Eri
10. Morita Masakazu

I don't know how all of it is going to happen in the next few days but it will, one way or another.. with blood, sweat, and tears.

Mass Effect: The First

So thanks to Dragon Age, I got into Mass Effect. This review's quite overdue and I originally wanted to make one post for both games since I played one after the other but, sigh, I'm too long winded it seems. Two posts it is.



Wrex: Shepard.
Shepard: Wrex.
I did two playthroughs:
1. Normal/Soldier/Paragon
2. Hardcore/Infiltrator/Renegade (partial speedrun)

STORY 4/5
Background of your character is up to you. First run: sole survivor of a devastating mission, family was part of the military so I followed. Second: colony overrun by slavers killing everyone, found by military so I joined, plus I was strict and ruthless.

You start off being chosen as a possible candidate to be a Spectre, a person under the right hand of the "government" who isn't restricted by any rules, so they can essentially do whatever they need/want to, to get the job done. You head off to your first mission to find that one of the Spectres have gone rogue and is scheming something evil. You encounter this beacon that sends visions into your mind, visions of destruction and chaos... unable to decipher it and the government refusing to believe you, you continue on to follow the clues given by the visions and by visiting planets reporting strange activity.

The sidequests did a lot to flesh out the story and back story of the races and history. The main story is already pretty thorough as it is. You visit various on your way to chasing the rogue Spectre and it ends pretty conclusively.

CHARACTERS 3.5/5
As expected, your party members are a variety of races. The background of the characters/races are explored through private dialog during ship lounging. Regarding companionship, there isn't much choice so I went to Alenko, the other fellow human. Garrus (turian) and Wrex (krogan) were my favourites both as characters and as race... and actually, I had my eye on Nihlus as well but his screen time was cut rather short.

There weren't that many choices for a relationship partner either. You pick between human or a blue mind-reading lady.

SOUND 4/5
Voice acting was excellent. I'm actually pretty proud of FemShep over MaleShep's voice acting skills as she sounds awesomer. There weren't that many BGMs, but the ones that were noticeable were quite memorable.

GRAPHICS 3.5/5
Not amazing but not bad either... sometimes takes the game a second too late to get textures loaded. At least women actually have womanly bodies.

GAMEPLAY 4/5
I don't mind elevators disguised as loading scenes as long as something is going on while you're waiting. Dialog sometimes pops in but not often enough. Also, there's apparently a rule that you can't ride elevators with guns out (unless it bugs out, in which it has).. it's dangerous, like running with scissors.

The Mako - the terrain rover, was used for planet exploration and some story areas and can do backflips with ease. It gets seriously tedious planet exploring, especially if you're a completionist like me. On top of travel, it can also be used to shoot things, blow you up while you're inside, and/or be used as a shield/enemy obstacle. Running back into the Mako also revives dead teammates. NEAT.

The loot drops you get are automatically tossed into inventory. It gets frustrating when your inventory gets full and you have no choice but to toss something that doesn't fit, instead of maybe swapping out other equipment. New loot aren't shown stats/details either so you have no choice but to accept the piece and check it yourself later. This usually results in more of the same equipment and/or inventory that fills up quickly.

Dialog choices only play a large factor if your persuasion/threat level is high enough to make those decisions. In some cases, they can either prevent or cause certain events to happen, usually right then and there. Nothing a reload of your game file can't save if you change your mind.

OVERALL 4/5
I did another run of this game for two reasons: check out the differences being on the other side of the coin (morality and class), and some, ahem, achievements (hardcore mode, super renegade). In terms of difficulty, things just took longer to die. On my second run, I had problems trying to stay on target and not be tempted to do the side quests but I ended up doing a few anyway. Unfortunately the experience didn't change much in the second run though.

I enjoyed it but the fact that I was looking forward to the 2nd one might have mixed my feelings on this one. Being given choices to decide the fate of some "big deal" scenarios (like the fate of a race) made it all the more interesting.

Graduation and NEETing

SO. I officially graduated last Thursday on a typical gloomy Vancouver weather afternoon. Only invited the parents due to the lack of ticket availability. The convocation was held at the Surrey campus so we had breakfast [for lunch] nearby before the ceremony. The ceremony for my department was the 2nd of the four across two days which explains why it was only a mere 1 1/2 long event. It was held in the gymnasium which was prettified and masked unrecognizable (and didn't smell like gym). We were only informed minutes before the start of the ceremony what we had to do and even then, it wasn't clear until we actually watched the other students walk across first. The speeches were long but the walk across the stage was fast. The nervousness didn't really even click in until it was near my turn to walk.

After convocation, everyone moved to the lounge area where pictures were taken... which was then followed by final group pictures before we dispersed. Graduation party? Nope. I think we hate each others guts too much to allow such a thing to happen... ever. It's quite sad actually. Anti-climactic? Indeed.

NEET mode had already been switched on post grad show. Sadly the 'responsible me' has been constantly reminding me that I can't keep this up for very long. Strange enough though, I haven't had too many "do absolutely nothing but stay at home in my PJs all day" days as I've had to do general family errands left and right and the occasional hanging out.

So, for now I'll use Anime Expo as an excuse to slack off until then. Speaking of which, it's a week and a half away. They gotta stop announcing more guests already. As if the tentative schedule up doesn't already look busy enough. FFfffffffuuuuu