Funnily enough, most of the day was me helping WhiteMage clean up stuff and doing last-minute stuff for her. Not exactly fun, as I was hoping not to be straining my arms so early. =_=

When we actually did take off, we had fun navigating through downtown LA. Sticking to the driving directions probably saved us, as we were oriented towards the parking lots. Yay~.

The Los Angeles Convention Center is definitely worthy of AX. A huge, clean, modern monstrosity of a structure. Air-conditioned with wide corridors, grand entranceways, and an easy to follow format. Far nicer than Long Beach. I didn’t see much in the way of LACC and Nokia theater personnel, though, so I’m still wary actual operating experiences. But, it honestly can’t be much worse than last year.

Registration was a breeze. Ten to fifteen minutes of waiting or so, followed by a five second swap of the barcode ID and confirmation. Wow, I wish they had this system all the other years, as well.

Being a snap-happy fella’, I took some random pictures.

I had hurt my foot on the previous day, and was worried that it would be a hinderance, but it didn’t seem like a problem while walking around. There wasn’t much of a rush, as the convention center was mostly empty. I caught some video of a random Melty Blood match going on in the arcade, though.

There was a dance, too, but there was a grand total of 20 or so people. Yeah… that’s really enticing.

After walking around a bit more and finding out where the Nokia Theatre was, WM and I left to do some errands, pick up people, and actually eat dinner. Not really that much for today.

NoodleKnight evidently wanted to meet at the convention center, but due to some massive miscommunication problems over the phone, we ended up missing each other. Mainly, I didn’t even know he was going to even come to the convention center. =_=

Well, there’s always today. Woo. Time to print up my schedule plan for today.

Anime Expo 2008, Day 0: Random Melty Blood Match

Ahh… this will be the seventh time going to Anime Expo.

Do I qualify as a veteran, yet?

In any case, my plan.

Day 1 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 1 Plan

Doesn’t look like I’m going to hit the Exhibit Hall very much, as the Toshihiko Seki and Shokotan panels will be taking up a good amount of time. Also, afterward, I will probably need to be standing in line for the AMV tickets and whatnot. And, afterward, the AMVs themselves.

It’ll be nice if the #beastslair gang and I can get together for the AMVs. Or at least dinner afterward. Probably won’t be any time for a dance or anything. Also, it’ll be nice to see the usual host one more time, as he wanted to retire last year, but things were so horrible that he decided to stay on another year just so things could end on a good note.

Day 2 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 2 Plan

I’m mainly hoping for people to get up earlier than the day before and head over to the LACC, rather than groggily not doing so. It always seems to be a problem getting people up, as if sleep they’ve never had to go with only a few hours of sleep. Bleh.

I especially want to be early this day for the David Hayter panel. I’ll be bringing my MGS3 box with me (not the actual game) so I can have it signed sometime during the day. Hopefully during a time that isn’t inconvenient. Too bad I don’t have a PS3 and MGS4, but I’m not exactly rich, either. I don’t think any of the #beastslair people going have the game, so…

I wonder if they’ll let Banquo get his rifle stock autographed. ^^;

In any case, I’m hoping for a fun time at the Jyukai / Yoko Ishida concert. Woot.

If what the Anime Expo website scroller says is correct, then the Masquerade should be on Friday, not Saturday. I.E., Day 2 instead of Day 3. Unfortunately, some of the retards in charge of the site information and updates don’t really know what the hell they’re doing, as the schedule of programming still shows AX Idol as being on the second. I’ll probably make second backup plan in case AX Idol is really on Friday like their schedule says so.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to personally take a lot of nice pictures of the cosplayers, for a change.

I don’t think many family members realize I’m fairly snap happy if I actually have a digital camera in my hand. ^^;

After Masquerade, hopefully I can go to one of the dances, possibly with other #beastslair people. Club dances, mind you. I can’t dance for beans, anyway. But I at least can pretend I know how to dance.

With the help of large amounts of sugar in my bloodstream. >_>

Thank God for Denny’s. I love that restaurant.

Edit: Alright, I guess they’re referring to Masquerade Ball being changed to Friday, not Masquerade. Which is a sidenote of a dance on the schedule, displayed in a box, rather than actually having been put in the schedule itself.

… Can’t they just make a visual schedule for dances and gaming and make things easier? Consistency of design, dammit.

Day 3 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 3 Plan

Day 3 is a particularly troublesome day. I want to support Jyukai and secure her signature, but the Shokotan concert happens right afterwards. Being a main event, it would require tickets. There’s only a half-hour gap between the end of the Jyukai panel and the beginning of seating for the Shokotan concert; tickets very easily might be gone by then.

One solution is to have someone else wait in line for a ticket while I attend the panel, but I would feel guilty about that.

The other solution is to forgo going to the Jyukai panel and waiting in line for a ticket for Shokotan. orz

The latter solution might be what will end up happening, as I value going to a concert higher than going to a panel.

In any case, as alluded to before, the Masquerade is stated in the schedule to be on this day, and it is implied by the news scroller that AX Idol will be on this day in actuality. I will probably have to make a backup plan, as well. If AX Idol does happen on this day, I will be in luck, as I don’t plan on attending it!

This opens me up for the Exhibit Hall and several smaller panels and events, such as the Otaku Parliamentary Debate finals, the Dating Sim panel, and Last Comic Standing. I have no particular preference for most of them, but I’m sure Banquo of the #beastslair crowd would be interested in attending a few of them. So, it’d be fun to go in a group. I just want people to have a good time, really.

Day 4 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 4 Plan

The sad part about the last day is that there aren’t many events, and things end generally about 3PM. At least last year, we had a Transformers movie to wait in line and get excited over. This year, back to the Exhibit Hall for the last few freebies and deals. Or attending some of the panels specific to the last day, like the voice actors panel and whatnot. And convention feedback.

If this AX turns into a disaster, I will definitely have something to say. In fact, I probably will have something to say, anyways, as the AX website is very bad with giving names and whatnot. Thankfully, registration seems to be going smoother, and Day 0 registration day seems to have stuck as a lasting tradition. But, I’m interested in voicing my opinion about the updates. I’m looking at you, Joseph Kitzman. Too, I’d also be interested in getting their IT shop working efficiently and securely. Apparently, they have some serious problems getting things working. >_>

Finally, the closing ceremonies. Last year, it was actually entertaining, as they had some Central/South American homemade video about two otakus arguing with each other over something stupid, and then fighting some anime-like battle to the death. For something homebrew, it was pretty darn impressive.

I sure do hope AX will be good this year. Of course, it can’t be worse than last year, but for a few people, this is going to be their first Anime Expo, and I want to help make it a good experience for them, as well as help them realize that 1.) LA isn’t a dangerous, gang-infested slum of violence, where you have to live in constant fear for your life, and 2.) that anime conventions aren’t about having some horribly obnoxious otaku stinking up your personal space.

Alright, guess I’m done for now.

Day 4

Sunday, July 2nd, 2007

With checkout at 11AM, there was a bit of a rush to get people to wake up and pack. Afterwards, I headed off to the exhibit hall at 11:30, since I actually wanted to look around and buy something.

It was then that I nabbed a Revoltech Saber figure for $25. Niiice. With a bit of money left over for a few more purchases, I searched around for one store that had an Arche Klaine figurine: one that wasn’t $69. And that’s when I saw it… marked down to $35 for the final day. Previously, it had been $45, which was still out of my price range on Day 1, and I would later find out that $35 is about where you’d actually want to pay excluding shipping.

Going through some last rounds through the booths before I headed towards the line for the Transformers movie, I snagged six packs of T-M Lycée cards before bidding fare well to the exhibit hall. ::sigh:: I wish I had more time.

The line, however, was ridiculously long, worse than the line for the exhibit hall (though not as bad as Day 1 Registration). Stuck in the blazing hot sun, Tokyopop bag beginning to break due to excessive use, I showed off what little I had to the rest of my group. And, of course, like every other line I’ve ever been in, whenever I get incredibly bored and try to situate myself into a less-boring and more entertaining position, the line moves. Like magic. Which usually means trying to stuff everything back into my backpack. D:

Mahou~

We eventually made it faster through some creative maneuvering and a contact we knew further up the line. Wheee… Stuffed into balcony seats, unfortunately.

But I guess that didn’t matter. Transformers was by far the best action flick I’ve seen in forever. The robotics animation was fluid yet natural. The power of the Autobots and the Decepticons seemed on par to a Gundam, yet seemed more believable given the live-action context. The plot wasn’t that bad for an action movie, and served to complement it rather than exist separate from it. Old-school quotes were well-received in the movie, but not to the extent to make it painfully obvious, cheesy, or out-of-place. And the U.S. military, even though they were getting their ass kicked by Blackout and troubled by Sector 7, proved themselves to actually be competent, adaptive, and effective, unlike how many other movies typically portray them.

My guess on why people still are mixed about this movie is because they have these enormous preconceptions as to what the movie would be about, with some having their heads so far up their own asses to see that why a lot of the changes from the original Transformers had some very good reasoning behind it. But, you know, I’ll just group them with the same people who think that the Fate/stay night was horrible because it lacked the sex scene, or that Emiya Shirou is an idiot and a loser because he isn’t using his Unlimited Blade Works non-stop.

So… anyways!

After Transformers, we headed over to the closing ceremonies. A short foreign film called “Otaku” was playing, where these two Latin American (?) otakus are arguing over some insignificant detail about some anime series. The argument escalates into a DBZ-like fight between nerds, which was actually surprisingly well-done. Afterwards, the Guests of Honor came out, and all the fans cheered for them. I’m glad they were there, because the host was a retard who didn’t know how to speak if it wasn’t actually written in his script. Ishikawa was there, and my sister and I cheered for her. I had a feeling that they, too, felt disappointed with the Anime Expo itself because of how things were organized. And, I think the fans wanted them all to know that they very much appreciated having them over.

And, that was the end. While it was probably the worst Anime Expo I’ve been to, I ended up finding things to do anyways, and generally enjoyed myself. I just hope that Anime Expo cleans up their act.

I also hope that next year, Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center won’t be a bomb, either.

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