Okay, well I went to Anime Expo once again this year. Fun times. Really. It was in LA this year, so everyone was kinda like NOOOO, this year is gonna be horrible, but it wasn't, honestly. Me and three of my friends stayed at a friends house cuz she lived right near by. I cannot thank them enough, her dad drove us there and back everyday and they even supplied us with food and such. Yayz.
Anywho, Day 1 got off to a slow start. We didn't do much. We didn't even get there until 10:30 or so and then all there really was to do was to hang around and check the place out. The exhibit hall didn't open until 12 (my favorite place) and there weren't any activities that anyone wanted to go to. And so... we hung out in line, getting hot and sweaty and photographed. It wasn't a pretty site. XD
I was cosplaying as the character Rath from Dragon Knights and not a single person knew who I was. No one asked for pictures either. It made me sad.
Though, perhaps my costume wasn't the best. I made it myself, without a sewing machine or anything.
When they finally let us into the exhibit hall, I, of course, had a field day. I had saved up 300 dollars for AX and spent the first hundred on the first day. Then my friend and I decided to go to the Artist's alley. We had a lot of trouble finding it though. I ended up yelling at random people, asking if they knew where it was, but most of them were just like "sorry, no" and one kid gave me this weird look and flat out ran away!!! I was shocked; no one has ever flat out run away from me before. Anyway, we eventually found it. There were a bunch of great artists and I even got the names of a couple who are on dA. I've already put one on my watch list, mythchan
[link] art is amazing and really great if you're into macabre and fantasy type stuff. I'm a little twisted. And Jyotii's is really nice too:
[link] XD Give them a visit!
After that we all hung out upstairs with a large group of Akatsuki (from Naruto) cosplayers. I was like... "Hmm, this might not be a good time to admit that I'm really not a huge fan of Naruto." But a lot of my friends liked it and one of my friends was like... the only Neji around. I think there was one other Neji in all of AX (that I saw).
To end that day, my Neji-cosplaying friend and my Hitsugaya-taichou-cosplaying friend went to see the movie L Change the World in one of the theater rooms. Now THAT was an EXCELLENT movie. The actor for L is brilliant, they couldn't have done better. All his expressions throughout the movie... they were hilarious. And I am definitely getting myself an Angel Crepes truck for a getaway car. XD All of you, go watch the movie on youtube, or something. You won't regret it, I promise you. Although, I think my experience was great, because the audience was kind of participative; you could hear a loud comment every once in a while and everyone would laugh.
Day two was also fun. Of course. I was dressed in my Kuro Lolita outfit and had a field day with my parasol and little top hat.
I went to a copic markers workshop and, because my friend and I got in line really early, we were able to sit up front at a table and actually play with some markers that they had. The talk they gave, while informative, was very boring. The best part, honestly, was the copic markers. I now know exactly what I want for my next birthday.
And I spent lots more money.
And oh! oh~! oh~~! I saw RIKU. *swoon* in REAL LIFE. Phantasmagoria was one of the first J-rock bands I ever listened to, THE first visual-kei band I ever liked, and they remain among the top of my favorite J-rock bands, right there with Girugamesh and Miyavi. Unfortunately, due to circumstances regarding Kisaki, they have disbanded. Riku, the vocalist, came as a sort of good-bye to the American fans. I got to shake his hand and take his picture!!!! *SQUEEE*
I met up with my friend dot
[link] and we got to hang out, which was awesome since I hadn't seen her since last summer. She was cosplaying Tohru. We went to the Gaia online panel for awhile, but it wasn't that great, though at the very end, during Q&A, some girl proposed to one of the panelists (a gaia administrator?). Apparently she's done this for the past three years and he always refuses. XD Talk about unrequited love. >.>
Then we ate food. Good food. O.O Bagels and muffins rock my socks eternally. My friends were at the Masquerade Ball and my friend and I didn't want to go to that, so we hung out until they were out and then we all left. That was the end of that day.
Well, actually no. Driving back to my friend's house, on either side of the highway, there was a whole bunch of illegal fireworks going off. They were all over the place, wherever you looked, you could see fireworks. It was really cool. It made up for our lack of a real Fourth of July party.
Day 3 I frustrated the people in the exhibit hall because I kept traveling back to their booths and not buying anything. When there are hundreds of dollars worth of stuff that I want and only a hundred in my pocket, I have to be careful. O.o
I went to the J-Rock revolution panel. Riku was there as the special guest. *SQUEEEE* The audience got to stand up and ask questions directed at either J-Rock Revolution staff, the president of Cure magazine, or Riku. There was this one jerk who started accusing J-Rock Revolution of file-sharing and ripping artists off and he started coming forward waving papers around like "I have documented evidence, what you are doing is wrong, blah blah...!" He was taken away by security. And thank god, because I know for a fact that it was all false and they do nothing but promote the expansion of the Japanese Indie Rock industry in the U.S. Anyway, the questions continued and some of them were serious or silly and I even stood up myself and asked if Riku planned to put music from his new band, the chariots, on iTunes. He answered yes, so everyone be on the look out! XD And for those who want to know, Riku's favorite show is South Park, his favorite color is a bunch of colors mixed together, he likes sweet food, enjoys being in America, it takes him about 3 hours to get his outfit on, his favorite hobby is sleeping, and when not wearing his visual-kei outfit, he's often not wearing anything at all. 0.0 (I'm wondering if he misunderstood this question.) Oh, and he thinks heart and skill are equally important as a musician, and his advice to other musicians is to not give up and just keep working hard towards your goal. XD Isn't he sweet?
I missed the fanfiction writing panel on this day. I was uber sad about that since fanfiction writing is probably what I do most (when I do it >.>
. Anyway, I was in line for the Masquerade and we waited a long time just for the tickets. I was really disappointed because last years was so much better. There weren't a lot of groups this year and the intermission show was nowhere close to last years. Last year was a ninja vs. pirates skit with martial artists doing all sorts of tricks. This year, they had last years and this years AX idol sing songs and then they brought in a middle school band (MIDDLE SCHOOL??!!!) followed by giving out awards for previous events. Then they gave out awards to the Masquerade participants. Probably the best part of the whole thing was that Shokotan (Japan's current IT girl) was a guest judge and for her pick of favorite cosplayer, she picked a Sephiroth and as his award, she gave him a mask based off of one of her own character creations and this pink... robe/kimono thingy and the guy was standing there, looking at the pink thing like "Are you serious?" He accepted it politely of course, but the expression on his face was to die for. I was laughing hysterially for at least a minute. I had tears in my eyes.
We left after that. May I mention that I never got to sleep before midnight during AX? The third night, I didn't even get to take my shower until 1:30...
The last day I spent every last penny I had on stuff. I even had to borrow a couple dollars to buy some art. After that I got in line for Whose Line Is It Anime? where I ate my lunch (more bagels, yay!!). Then I sat around until they let us in. The people were great and really funny of course. Some moments were better than others and there were somethings I didn't get. (As in, there were a lot of Legend of Zelda references and I don't play any games at all, so you can imagine how lost I was.) Oh, but during the "Worst Weapons" improv, one of the guys shot a rubber band out into the audience and I got it. *glee* It's on my nightstand as I speak (er...type). XD
Then that was more or less the end of Anime Expo. We hung around for awhile, drove back to my friends house, then had some burgers (well, I had a veggie burger) and then left for home. I was dead tired and then I had to get up early the next morning for driving school. Ahaha (no, it's not funny.)
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