Day 1

Friday, June 29th, 2007

Woke up at 6:30AM, but didn’t start getting ready until 7:00. By 7:30, though, I was pretty much ready to head out for registration. But, just like I predicted, other people would be slow. So, as I waited and played music for the next hour or so, I breathed a sigh of regret. The line would only get longer and longer.

We finally left at 9AM, but the line was, at this point, ridiculously large. Sent to the back of the line, which snaked itself in and around the whole of a parking lot. We finally registered around 12PM, around when the exhibition hall opened up. I wasn’t able to get into it until 1:30, but I was able to quickly locate Hen Da Ne, which I regularly go to each Anime Expo for various doujin and… uhh… visual novel goods.f

Chatting with the storekeeper, he seemed to have figured that TYPE-MOON stuff in general tends to be good sellers. He had stocked up a lot of hollow ataraxia, as a result, but Realta Nua was going “for a high price,” as the shopkeeper from Resident Evil 4 would say. It would be bundled with the telephone card, all of the grail bust statues (sans the Kuro Saber), and, as well as the Torabura game. The sad fact of the matter is that I don’t own a PSP, and as much as I’m disappointed with Sony in various ways, I wouldn’t mind owning a PSP at all.

I ended up purchasing Fate/hollow ataraxia, the This Illusion and Hollow singles, and the Hishoku no Sora single by Kawada Mami. Uwaah… Oh wait. And Fate/Zero volume 1 & 2. Yay.

I wandered around some more, and spotted a rather nice Arche figurine. I was hoping for $30-40 USD, but it ended up being $69 USD. Ouch. ;-; I’m, sorry, Arche, but my money is tight. Maybe if I can find you at a more reasonable price.

Afterwords, I headed to the Broccoli booth to track down EvoSpace, or Koji. Supposedly, he was supposed to be near, but the people at Circus didn’t know where he was. Hell, I asked for “Koji,” and I got a larger, more broadly built man. I’m thinking, “ZOMG THAT’S NOT EVO… unless he changed a lot. o__o”

I hung around for a bit, hoping to spot him. Luckily, I ran into none other than Raven, who I somehow remembered. I exchanged some words with him, and he found out that Koji wouldn’t be coming until maybe a half hour.

Damn. You need to work, Evo!

So, we waited and hung around, idly chatting as we looked for Koji. We spotted him and flagged him down, intercepting him before he could even get close to the Circus booth. We greeted him and talked with him a bit as a few other people joined in. Koji was doing such a -wonderful- job of handing out brochures as we loitered around.

And so, around 2:30 or so, I took my leave and started look searching for the inevitable line that would lead to tickets for the AMV Contest. Apparently, the staff has no idea about anything. The people by the ticket office tell me to go downstairs. Downstairs tells me to go downstairs. Downstairs’s downstairs tells me to check near the exhibition hall. The exhibition hall tells me to check near the ticket office.

WHAT.

I swear, organization this year is absolutely stupid dumb. Instead, I head into the Galaxy Angel panel, which I thoroughly enjoy. I didn’t win any raffle prizes, though, but… eh. It was getting to see the producers and character designers talk and whatnot. I know it must be difficult to speak in English, so I applaud their efforts.

Afterwards, it’s sitting in line for the AMV tickets. After waiting for hours, it turns into sitting in line for the AMV itself. Which somehow turns into, “Someone stole my laptop which had all the contest AMVs on it so no AMV contest tonight.”

D:

Now THAT just sucks. Worse, they plan to reschedule for 9:30am tomorrow morning. NINE THIRTY. It was already hard to get people to leave at 9AM for something as important as registration.

Long Beach sucks.

All that was shown was a single category: AmTV. Which isn’t necessarily the best. There was a rather nice Fate/stay night video called “Knights of Fate,” but I guess our votes don’t matter!

In the end, I returned back to where we’re crashing to drop stuff off and pop a pair of aspirin pills for the annoying ass headache that the whole AMV fiasco caused.

I was hoping that I would enjoy more of the events and less of the exhibition hall this year. Unfortunately, due to inept care of the AX staff, that hope was scattered into the wind.

Today’s loot

- Fate/hollow ataraxia
- Fate/Zero Vol. 1
- Fate/Zero Vol. 2
- Fate/stay night - This Illusion / days Single
- Fate/hollow ataraxia Single
- Kawada Mami - Hishoku no Sora Single (Shakugan no Shana OP1)