Nekogami Yaoyorozu Nyantype Poster

Anime Expo 2011

OK, I know this post is coming almost a week late, but I’m lazy, what can I say? That, and a whole mess of stuff always crops up when one visits home after a good while. On to the Con! (picture thumbnails have been kept small to keep the post from being incredibly long)

Me being me, I completely forgot to take one of those “welcome to AX” type shots from in front of the convention hall or with one of the thousands of AX 2011 20th Anniversary signs. So just enjoy this distance shot of the front of the South Hall of the convention center. I’ll proceed to describe things in relatively chronological order, mainly for my own sanity, but also to help you get a feel of the activities involved in AX. Also, because I’m a huge cheapskate and a massive air-head when it comes to planning things properly, I will not be discussing some of the larger events such as the Masquerade or AX Idol because those events cost money and require waiting in huge lines early to purchase tickets. If I had traveled with myself, that might not have been such an issue, but travelling with many different friends makes things like that trickier to undertake.

Obligatory shuttle travel shot

My crew and I stayed at the Westin Bonaventure just about one mile from the LACC (LA Convention Center) where AX was held. I may say as a quick aside that anyone looking for a good hotel next year, I highly recommend the Westin. The staff was extremely polite and worked hard to accommodate my group. The girl who checked me in actually wanted to go to AX but had to work unfortunately.

You know you're in LA/Hollywood when you see things like this

My friends and I actually purposely delayed our arrival to the LACC on Friday due to the massive line just for picking up our badges. At one point, the line wait was over 2:30 hours. Sooo, we hit up lunch first and came back, and by then, the line was a more manageable 30 minutes.

The dreaded line...

Once inside, the first thing we did was hit up the Dealer’s Room which also contained the Artist’s Alley this year in the back, rather than on the side as in previous years. The first thing I noticed after a brief walk-through was the distinct lack of official merchandise on offer. Only Crunchyroll and Bandai had large industry booths up front whereas in past years ADV, Geneon, and many others had booths. This meant that there was also a distinct lack of free swag to be grabbed up so no new posters for me this year sadly. I would say that over 50% of the Dealer’s Room contained either indie booths hawking wares such as costume parts or custom t-shirts or artist booths selling unofficial artwork. The latter is especially a disturbing sign to me considering I’m used to seeing more of the local LA area anime merchants taking these booth slots. The artists already have their own large area within the Artist’s Alley; it is wholly unnecessary for them to sell their wares alongside official merchandise at a con this large, in my opinion.

Case in point, Crunchyroll featuring a poster of Shugo Chara without any accompanying merchandise

This disappointment aside, I immediately went on the hunt for new posters and swag dealing with characters from the last year or so of anime (which is especially important as most of my posters are still things like Haruhi, Bleach, or Samurai Champloo). My intent was to definitely update my collection, but again, much to my horror, not only were almost NO posters on sale, the wall scrolls on sale appeared to have been discovered in boxes in a warehouse dating from 1998. The original Metal Gear (original, talking NES version here folks) had several wall scrolls dedicated to itself and the Castelvania that appeared on the original Xbox also took up a lot of room.

Entrance to the Dealer's Room/Exhibit Hall

Danny Choo also had a large presence at AX including two Itasha cars featuring his mascot

Once I did find booths of interest, I was disappointed in not only their lack of new anime material, but also their lack of material of any kind. The newest animes to get any love were Index and Working!! While fine choices themselves, I was hoping for more selection, especially from some of the larger and successful anime of the last few seasons.

I did manage to find a booth rocking some small Bakemonogatari merch

Black Rock Shooter and Vocaloid princess Miku Hatsune featured highly at the con due to the (then) upcoming Miku concert Mikunopolis. AX obviously went out of its way, and rightly so, to hype the concert and Miku throughout the entire weekend (and it paid off). I did manage to eventually find a booth selling newer officially licensed merchandise such as two OreImo keychains but that was about the limit of the good official merchandise this year.

Bad blurry shot of OreImo keychain

Bad blurry shot #2 of OreImo keychain (Kuroneko!!)

One of the more active and engaging booths, as is their custom, was the Hi-Chew booth which featured not only free samples of Hi-Chew (a must for sustaining any Con-goer) but also an appearance by the King himself this year (including a viewing of his commercials).

The King himself

Despite my doom and gloom description, I did manage to find a smattering of official merchandise, just definitely not to the extent that I’m used to at AX:

Some lovely figurine collections, wish there were more!

Cute nendroids featuring K-On and Lucky Star among others

Some nice Working!! figures

Hinagiku!!!

Kuroko and Mikoto

Some nice Railgun merch

Rare Madoka merch, not even sure if this is official

funny Railgun nendroid pyramid

I did also manage to pick up some things I was looking for such as Champion Red Ichigo Vol 24 (back issue) Megami Deluxe 16, Young Ace, Champion Red and some other stuff:

Champion Red Ichigo 24 and Megami Deluxe 16 up front

Comic Sumomo 05 and Champion Red 10

Young Ace with accompanying cool Asuka figure

OK, enough about the Dealer’s Room, by now you probably get the general idea. The best time to go to the Dealer’s Room is during one of the larger events as the Hall empties out somewhat and is more easily navigated (some of the booths are extremely narrow/tiny). Outside the DR lies the vast majority of humanity at the Con. The South Hall lobby featured two Miku Itasha cars hyping Mikunopolis and many of the cosplayers use the good lighting in the lobby for group photos. Also, on the terrace above the lobby sits the food court area which further compresses people together.

Shot overlooking the South Hall Lobby

Food court peeps

The best idea, and one I have yet to follow, for attending AX is to examine the schedule of events thoroughly, choose your favorites, and always remember that there will be early lines to all of them. This goes not only for Main Events such as Mikunopolis, but also ordinary panels that have a chance of being popular (such as guest/industry panels). One of the cooler facets of this year’s Con was the ease and vast amount of autograph signings by big-time guests. Also, having a nice handheld portable gaming device and ensuring all your friends carry the same device/games helps alleviate the pain of standing in long lines for long periods of time. One of the more lively panels we attended was the K-Pop 101 panel which ended up being standing room only much to the shock of my fellow compatriots. Lots of fangasms were had during this panel which highlighted all the major Korean Pop acts of the last couple years. Another really cool panel I was fortunate enough to attend dealt with Vocaloid producers who make music videos to Vocaloid music. Each video was shown followed by a brief description and comments from the authors. They even had cosplayers for all the major vocaloid characters up front reading out small skits introducing each video.

One of the most fun things about attending Cons like AX are the random fan events that just crop up without a moment’s notice or preparation. While traversing the concourse connecting South and West Halls, a large number of attendees decided to form a “high-five line.”

High-five line

Of course we all jumped in and preceded to have some mindless fun for a few minutes watching as the line continued to grow longer and longer.

Another of the cooler facets of having AX at the LACC is the vast LA Live complex that the city and ESPN have built up around the LACC. Let me tell you, downtown LA was a huge dump before they built the Staples Center a few years ago and since then they have continued to revamp the area. Mikunopolis was held in the Nokia Theater across the street from the LACC which a few years ago didn’t even exist. Another addition is Club Nokia (sensing a trend yet?) which AX rents out for 6 hours each night to play DJ sets for attendees. The club is a true LA club with the same fantastic vibe, only, at this time of the year it’s filled with cosplaying maniacs dancing away until 1AM. Attached to all of this is an outdoor walkway filled with good restaurants and cafes which provide a nice area to rest and relax after a busy day at the Con before heading back to the Hotel. AX has benefited greatly from being able to utilize these new structures.

The LA Live complex stretches from the Staples Center all the way down to that Figueroa sign

Other crazy moments come from staying in a hotel room designed for 4 people with 8 people. Those who can’t squeeze into a bed lie down where they fall on the floor. While cramped, needless to say, much fun is had cramming 8 friends into a hotel room for a couple nights. Another fortunate aspect of staying in the Westin was that the All-Night Karaoke venue was held downstairs in the Westin so we could go down and have fun well into the early morning and easily return to the room and crash. The funny aspect of karaoke is now that everyone has smartphones, no one needs lyrics to their songs anymore, they just look them up on the phone, ha.

As a part of some closing comments, let me say this. First, I have more photos but rather than try to squeeze them all into here, I’ll upload a gallery post later which will include the vast majority of them including those from a few of the panels I managed to attend. Secondly, I screwed up a few things this year and missed out on a couple of the events I wanted to go see. When I went to get Mikunopolis tickets they had already sold out of them and I didn’t want to pay $40-50 for scalped tickets in front of the theater (originally $15). This was a major disappointment but hopefully I can rectify it sometime in the future. Thirdly, I highly recommend everyone reading to come and attend AX if possible. The more the merrier and the larger the community grows, the more respect it gains and the more anime events will come to America.

I may not have written down everything I wanted to here, most likely because I’ve forgotten something, but I do hope you enjoyed this snapshot of AX. The Con was an absolute blast aided in large part by a great group of friends accompanying me throughout the weekend. Despite a couple failings (lack of official merchandise being one) and my own mistakes, I don’t foresee myself doing anything but continuing to attend Anime Expo well into the future.

Please feel free to leave comments/questions/share your experiences…

R-15 Anime Official Art! Moe+Pantsu

R-15 is an upcoming anime series based on a light novel about a student who’s secretly a published pornographic writer and who enrols in an elite school for geniuses. Naturally, he’ll have to keep his talents hidden..

This official image was released recently in an anime mag. I wasn’t exactly excited about this anime, but now I see the light! That is the power of pantsu! Not only are the panties lovely, but the girls seem high-tier moe as well.

If I have to pick one of the four, I’d go second from the right! Pink Shimapan are where it’s at!