AX 2008 Retrospective

I've actually decided to combine the four days into one post. Do note that some of the pictures are not my own! A big thanks to Silver, Sara, Mason, and Taryn!



The first day was really exciting because it was something that I have never experienced before. I dressed up in my costume and was stopped by so many people for pictures before we even got to the convention itself! It was exciting! We went to a panel discussing the past and future of the Mobile Suit Gundam series. Just before entering we saw some Otakus dressed up as Zeon officers (pic below), and the panel was pretty interesting. During their Q&A portion they seemed to discuss Gundam SEED a lot, but it's more than likely because it's the newest series to hit America. One of the most interesting questions was something like "Do you feel with SEED, that Gundam is now in a rut and Gundam 00 maybe the answer to getting it out of this rut and back onto its high ground?" You could tell that there were a lot of Gundam SEED fans, but most of everyone said that, yes Gundam SEED was bad, but Gundam 00 will hit America and it will allow for Gundam to reclaim itself in the American market (hopefully!).

(thanks for the photo guys!)

After the panel we walked around and saw a small gathering of Bleach characters outside so we went to meet them. We found out that our room mates were there and we took some photos with everyone. Then afterward, we decided to head to the dealer's hall to spend our hard earned money, but were stopped by a bigger Bleach gathering. (a few photos below) Finally, after all photos were done, we got up to the dealer's hall and it was amazing. There were so many shops and so many different things happening at once. We walked around and had my photo taken with people several times. It was a really exciting day. After we finished there we went back to the hotel to arrange what we all were gonna do for dinner. We got our food and then Sara wanted a more private shoot for her costume, and I tagged along with Silver and Sara to shoot some photos. We got some awesome photos of her costume )and by we I mean Silver, cause he was better at night time photos than I...) I will post some later after I get through them all... I will actually make a costume post!

We all had fun our first day and day two consisted of us just going around the dealer's hall, but the highlight of the day was David Hayter! This was one of the main reasons I wanted to come to AX this year. David Hayter is a famous American voice actor. His main claim to fame is being the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. He has also done numerous anime character voices. The panel (I guess that would be the best word for it) was him talking about his work experience and him answering a lot of questions. People made a lot of requests asking him to say stuff in Snake's voice. I kinda felt bad for him, but he was a good sport and a really nice guy! Another awesome highlight of the day was AX Idol. AX Idol is essentially a contest for people to display either their singing talents or voice acting talents. We got really close seats to the stage, and the event was just awesome! It was amazing to see how much talent people have! The winner for the voice acting competition was extremely good! The judges even said that she seemed to be a professional! Congrats to her! And the singing winner was really good too! She had an excellent stage presence and was actually quite attractive! Congrats to them! The day ended with all of us eating dinner and trading photos.

(picture kinda sucks, but oh well)

On day 3 we woke up and I put on my costume again. We romed around the dealer's hall, and went to two panels that day. The panels we went to were one on the Persona game series (which Mason was really interested in), and a "Robot Rumble" panel where we actually heard some pretty decent arguments over what robot would when in a fight. (Mainly between Eva 01 and Giant Robo) Then we met up with the group and got some tickets to Shoko-tan, and I have to say, even though it was a J-Pop concert (Japanese Pop for those who don't know), it was awesome! She sang anime theme songs from a lot of anime that I knew! and she did it all in costume too! I have never had so much fun at a concert before! And yes, it helped that she was REALLY HOT! ;)

(the contest)

Day 4 was kind of a bore... We got up to go to the dealer's hall and buy some stuff and make Mason buy stuff as well. We walked it over twice then went to get lunch, when we got back they had closed the hall! LAME! So we decided to go to the aracade and get some Initial D 4 Liscences. Taryn and I decided to do a joke for our names, my name was "LOL" and his was "WUT", and Mason's name on his liscence was "MASON"... yeah... REAL original Mason! ;) and we played until they kicked us out. We got some more pictures of people in Cosplay and then went back to the hotel room to end the night with a eating contest and a few drinks! Silver won the contest by the way.

(it was a good thought...)

Finally the day came to leave. We all desperately packed everything and I will admit. I bought a little too much... But I am pleased with what i bought so that's what counts! Anyway, we all "cleaned" the room the best we could, and realized how messy it was. We still had two beers leftover from the night before so we decided to leave them as a tip for the crew. We also left a money tip incase they don't like beer... The main group went to the airport via super shuttle which left Mason and I to go to the train station (Union Station) by ourselves. The architecture there was so beautiful! The chairs were super comfy, unlike our chairs in our station... Our train arrived on-time, and we got on with no problems. The ride home seemed to be a LOT quicker than the ride out, but that's probably because i was able to distract myself better on the way back. One thing did baffle me on the train ride though. We had a guy sit behind us who knew the conductors and seemed to be a regular. He told the person next to him (but might as well have told everyone else on the train cause he was speaking loudly enough), that as soon as he got to our station, he had to turn around and go back in four hours. Mason and I couldn't figure it out, but other than that the train ride was excellent and I would certainly reccomend it to anyone who wants to travel!

All in all, the trip was fun and I got tons of awesome things, and made some new friends as well! If you are ever thinking wether or not to go to an Anime Expo, there are things that you should consider first:

1. There are plenty of immature people there, but there are a lot more mature people there
2. No one will make fun of you because you like anime while you're there. They'll just make fun of the anime that you like... (BELIEVE IT!)
3. If you dress up, be prepared to be stopped... a LOT...
4. Bring a camera
5. Bring LOTS of money
6. Go with a group
7. and finally... HAVE FUN!
   

AX 2008 - Day 0

So this is a bit late, but I wanted to collect my thoughts on it first before posting. Anyway...



So I have never been to a convention of any sort in my life. So when my buddy Sara asked me if I wanted to go to the Anime Expo this year, I was a little hesitant, but I looked at the website and saw how much the ticket cost was and decided that I could afford a trip this year. I then told my two friends about it and they said that they would like to go too. So began the awesome journey. Three months prior to the Expo, I got my ticket for the Expo AND a train ride out there! It was so exciting to buy my own vacation tickets and what not. It almost felt like I was finally starting to move out of home. (As odd as that may sound...)

One of the conditions for me staying in the room with my friend Sara was that I had to Cosplay (or "The act of dressing up in costume as favorite characters from anime, video games, movies, etc." -- Web Definitions). So I thought about what I would like to dress up as, and I chose a character from an Anime. The character's name is Grimmjow Jagerjaques, and he is from the anime called Bleach. Sara agreed to make the jacket and help me out with whatever else i needed. The jacket came out beautifuly! and she was also able to help modify some parts that i ordered beautifuly! All in all Sara's work was OUTSTANDING!



My friend Mason and I decided to take the train over to LA because it was a LOT cheaper than flying both ways. The ride was awesome and seemed like a little adventure on the way out to LA. We got reserved coach seats and decided not to get a personal sleeper as it would have costed us about $1000 for just one way... But we were both satisfied with the train ride because we had ample leg room and even though I had forgot to check my suitcase it sat comfortably in front of me! Now, I'm a tall guy (standing at 6'1"), but i had enough leg space to fully extend my leg out in front of me while barely touching the seat. I don't tend to sleep well on planes, and it seems that it's the same for the train. I was in and out a lot, but got enough sleep for the following day. Our train was suppose to arrive early in the morning, but was actually 5 hours late due to flooding in Illinois. This set back actually ended up working better for the both of us. Our roomates actually didn't arrive in LA until MUCH later in the day, so mason and i had plenty of time to explore LA's awesome Metro system! After a few hours of cruising on the metro, we decided to head over to the convention center for early registration. We got there and I had registered as industry and found my line to be only 4 people long, where as mason had a line of over 1000 people in it. It was awesome. After registering we decided to wait in the nice air conditioned Convention Center until our comrades had arrived. Shortly after sitting down and reading a few articles, they arrived. We got our baggage and headed to the hotel to meet with them.



We got to the hotel and waited a short period of time, and oddly enough sat next to one of our roomates who we did not know at the time. It was really funny to find out that he was rooming with us. We got our room cards and were off to the rooms. We got up there and we all looked around and began deciding where we were going to sleep. After everything was arranged, those who didn't already finish their registration went down to get registered while the rest of us decided on food. We decided on a pub, which was quite pricey even for LA, and had fun. That night we slept soundly waiting for the first day of Anime Expo to start!