Anime Expo 2012 Summary
Jul. 7th, 2012 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuSo, here's a summary of Anime Expo! I'm really tired at the moment because I didn't take a nap, so apologies if I don't entirely make sense.
I met Anime Expo people on the train and buses pretty quickly! It was nice, because although we didn't do a lot of talking at first, having some companions really makes the difference.
The bus ride was pretty miserable, actually. The bus was full and the ride was super long. It went all night and I'm not the sort of person who can sleep anywhere (unfortunately), so all I could do was sit there, listen to my mp3 player, and attempt to doze off. I had only my Pokéball plush as a pillow and I didn't even have the window seat, so it was impossible getting comfortable. The guy next to me was sleeping like a log, LOL. I kept shifting and shifting, trying to get comfortable, but ultimately I only got a little sleep. Some of the views were amazing, though. The sunset over the bay, the mist rolling in over the hills to the ocean, and so on.
As the bus ride went on, people joined who were obviously going to Anime Expo and also the X-Games. I was particularly amused by one guy who had not one, but three skateboards, ALL with marijuana leaves on them. LOL.
In the morning, got to Santa Barbara after what felt like an eternity. The train ride from Santa Barbara to LA was nice. It went along the beautiful coastlines and was quite scenic. I talked the whole time to a girl going to Anime Expo. We had a lovely conversation that made the time pass quickly, though we were both exhausted. When we got off the train, I ended up hanging out with her and another girl (a staffer) at Union Station for a while.
At Union Station, they were shooting a movie. We watched with great amusement as the film crew shot the same scene a ton of times. The scene was the actor walking toward the camera and sighing, and that's all. There was some sort of elaborate set up in one of the rooms. In hindsight I should have taken a picture, but I forgot!
The three of us split a taxi fare to the convention center/my hotel. I sat in the lobby for a bit, dozing, while I waited for my roommates to show up. They did in short order and all was well. I went off to reg, and honestly mostly napped in the line. Lots of other people did the same. When I finished napping, I talked to the girl next to me about Pokémon and then she ranted for a while about MLP:FiM fandom being annoying while I was devil's advocate. (Actually, I don't find the fandom annoying, but that said I can understand her frustration. We've all dealt with immature aspects of fandom before!) I was basically saying, hey, that happens in any fandom. There will always be immature types ruining things and you've just got to ignore them. Anyway, it was an interesting conversation. I think she got what I was saying. We talked about the history of FanFiction.Net and whether "mature" fanfiction should be allowed, too, haha.
Reg line moved fast once it opened. There was lots of arbitrary high-fiving in the line, which I took part in because...hey, why not?
Honestly, I spent much of the con just roaming and hanging out with people, so I won't break everything down. Just some highlights!
* Thursday night was awesome! I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and dinner with my roommates. We took this weird tunnel way to get there, and ended up running up all these stairs. We ended up late and basically had to do a speed tour of the museum, but what I did see was fascinating and I'd love to go back and spend time there!
The food was yummy at the dinner, though not as many vegetarian options as I'd like. Oh well! I ate a bunch of the tofu balls. There was this incredible litchi pana cotta that was just godlike. Me and a few of the guys ended up buying more of it and then posing dramatically with it for photos. It was the best thing ever.
I regretted all the tofu balls in the morning when my stomach got all messed up and I nearly threw up. But then I went back to bed and was all better in an hour or two.
During our dinner, I was so the loudest person there. I become really extroverted at cons, haha, it's kind of hilarious. Especially because I'm normally quite introverted. I talked with some of the guys at the table about Pokémon basically the whole dinner.
* Friday, I was all worried because the Pokémon cosplay gathering was right before the Yuki Kajiura panel, which was one of only two panels I really wanted to go to. I went to the gathering and it was great fun, Umbreon was well-received as usual, and then ran off to the panel. Thankfully, the panel started late and I got in no problems. :D
The Pokémon gathering was interesting because our usual gathering area was overtaken by the X-Games, and no one could figure out where the new gathering spot was. Thankfully, someone came and lead my confused group to the proper place.
* The AMV contest was so-so. The first few categories were pretty good, but the last three were hit or miss at best. AMTV-PRO, my favorite category, was so disappointing this year! One video I'd already seen and nothing else that stuck out at all. Comedy was mostly bleh, except for this one hilarious video to Sexy and I Know It (which I had in my head all con as a result). There was a silly fun video that was a combination of FMA and Backstreet Boys, and my friends and I totally sang along loudly (as did much of the audience). I saw a few videos worth downloading and all, but this year's quality was inconsistent in my AMV critic opinion. Oh well, always next year!
* On a random note, I loved my roommates, we had a lot of fun together, and whenever we were in the room we'd turn on the X-Games and marvel at the fact that it was down the street and basically right in our Anime Expo space. Not that we paid that much attention to it, but it was still funny having it in town at the same time. I'd appreciate it not being there next year, though--too much traffic and congestion!
One of my shuttle rides took literally an hour as a result of it on Saturday. I was trying to make an autograph session, which thankfully ended up being canceled anyway so it wasn't a big deal.
* Saturday was basically hanging out and the Yuki Kajiura concert.
* Hanging out: I was wandering with my friend the James cosplayer, and we discovered religious protesters outside! Had to get some silly pictures of course. Also, free energy drinks. I don't even like energy drinks but I got some. I mean, they were free! There was an AX staffer in front of one of the religious protesters with a big speaker on wheels, hahaha, drowning him out. The religious protesters were just echoing each other, saying the same things over and over again, as it was.
There was also a pregnant pony by the food trucks across the street, advertising horseback riding under the Hollywood sign. I felt bad for the pony, it was an awfully chaotic scene there and it was hot out, too. :( She didn't seem distressed or anything, but still.
* There was this incredibly long line on the roof to get in the room for the concert, which felt silly because we already had assigned seating. Oh well, I got interviewed briefly by Yuki Kajiura's camera crew! Also, we had quite a view from the roof.
The concert itself was lovely! I felt the sound wasn't as great as it could have been, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I think the concert really came together in the last three songs--especially Open Your Heart, where everyone got up and swayed back and forth. Yuki Kajiura said she was moved by this, and I was as well. She did a lot of songs I recognized in the concert, though I was a bit baffled by the lack of Tsubasa Chronicle songs. Not that I'm even a Tsubasa fan, but that's such a popular series (and I know the music) so it just surprised me.
I'm so glad I've gotten to see Yuki Kajiura in concert, and I hope she comes back! Her music is beautiful and the concert was an awesome experience. I was impressed by how great her English is, too.
That said, I just haaaave to say it... I've seen them both live now, and I'm extensively familiar with their work, and I don't feel there is any comparison between Yoko Kanno and Yuki Kajiura. I love Kajiura-san's work, I really do, I find it very inspiring and beautiful, but Kanno's is just...amazing beyond comprehension. When I'm in Yoko Kanno's presence, I feel like her music is a manifestation of the emotion or mood she's capturing--like her piano is directly playing into my heart. Yuki Kajiura is surely an angel of music, but Yoko Kanno is the goddess of the music universe. That's how I feel. I don't intend it in a mean or negative way because I've been a fan of Yuki Kajiura for a long time, but it just has to be said.
I'm pretty sure, during the concert, the lady next to me was from Japan. I just got that sense, and she had a Japanese cell phone, too. We had a brief exchange about corgis, because she had a corgi as her background image on her phone. She has two corgis, too! We didn't talk after that, but we were totally synchronized during the concert. If one of us did something, bobbing our heads or standing up or raising an arm or whatever, immediately the other would start. It was funny and made me happy.
After the concert, I watched people pour out of the concert room from above and talked to a roommate. I felt all content, having seen a wonderful concert. I had been sleepy all day after having some cracktastic dreams, so I felt that refreshed me somewhat.
* Waiting for the shuttle back after the concert, two guys started an epic Bohemian Rhapsody singalong complete with interpretive dance. Pretty fun and silly.
* There were also multiple shuttle singalongs. One time the shuttle driver was encouraging us, so it kept going on and on and louder and louder. We did Pokémon theme, I'll Make a Man Out of You, So Many Wonders (from MLP), Never Gonna Give You Up, and so on. I just loved the enthusiasm. The shuttle was a good place to strike up conversations, too.
* Sunday--I think it was Sunday--I went to the Madhouse panel, and then focused on getting autographs. This happened pretty quickly and easily, though I almost missed out on getting a sketch from Hamada. Luckily my friend and I are both experienced autograph getters, haha.
The best part of the Madhouse panel was when a Kero cosplayer, mascot-style, came in the room, and Hamada-san just stared for the longest time and then pointed the Kero cosplayer out to everyone. LOL! At the end of the panel, he said something about how he was "concerned" about whether the person in the Kero costume was doing okay, whether they were hot and so on. Anyway, it was funny.
Sunday night is always a sad time, and I was hanging out with my friends I made at Fanime who cosplay Jessie and James. Unfortunately, the Jessie wig was really painful to wear, so she's going to have to remake it. It's the best darn Jessie wig you've ever seen, though. I was traveling with this great group of Poképeople who we made friends with and it was a ton of fun. We posed for pictures and got gobs of attention.
The best part of the evening, though, was hands-down the karaoke room. We went in the karaoke room and James performed Sweet Transvestite from Rocky Horror Picture Show. That was hilarious and awesome. Then, the staff turned on some K-pop to entertain us while they set up the next event and me in my Umbreon costume and most of our Pokécosplayer friends got up and danced wildly to the K-pop. It was soooo hot in my costume, but totally worth it! I was about to die after four songs of dancing, but by then we had attracted a bunch of people to dance wildly with us. So fun!
* Monday was mostly finishing up business, AKA looking through Artist's Alley and Exhibition Hall for the last few hours. I got to hang out with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kneesocks for a bit, which was great! :D
Right before I left, I talked to Peter S. Beagle, my favorite author, for a while. It was wonderful talking to him as always. I'm utterly thankful that my favorite author is so accessible and such a sweet person. I try to visit him every year at Anime Expo and talk! I couldn't talk as long as I liked because I had to leave to get on the train, but it was a great way to end a fun con.
* My train ride back was pretty uneventful. I was hanging out with two guys from AX for a while but I guess we never really clicked because I felt odd talking to them. Oh well! Then I talked to a girl from AX for hours about various things, and we enjoyed each others' company more. She's a fan of Wolf's Rain, too, so I did her a drawing of Toboe really quickly (and as best as I could on a moving train). We had quite a few fandoms in common, so that made for easy talking. I slept some on the train ride back, talked some, and just kinda vegged out otherwise.
Anyway, it was a great AX! Not the most eventful ever, but incredibly fun and enjoyable and great. I'm so, so, so thankful that I was able to go after all the stress and everything. Even though physically I'm no better than usual, it did refresh me emotionally. I hate leaving cons because I love that sense that everyone there is just a short talk away from being your friend, and that in general people are so friendly, kind, and happy at cons. I saw so many little acts of kindness and friendship there, and more and more those things strike me as being important and meaningful. Cons are a celebration of fandom, and fandom is one of the things that I love most in the world. ♥
Not even going to proofread that, so if there are typos or anything, just disregard. No worries if you don't read this entry, it is fairly long! But regardless, AX was a lot of fun.
I met Anime Expo people on the train and buses pretty quickly! It was nice, because although we didn't do a lot of talking at first, having some companions really makes the difference.
The bus ride was pretty miserable, actually. The bus was full and the ride was super long. It went all night and I'm not the sort of person who can sleep anywhere (unfortunately), so all I could do was sit there, listen to my mp3 player, and attempt to doze off. I had only my Pokéball plush as a pillow and I didn't even have the window seat, so it was impossible getting comfortable. The guy next to me was sleeping like a log, LOL. I kept shifting and shifting, trying to get comfortable, but ultimately I only got a little sleep. Some of the views were amazing, though. The sunset over the bay, the mist rolling in over the hills to the ocean, and so on.
As the bus ride went on, people joined who were obviously going to Anime Expo and also the X-Games. I was particularly amused by one guy who had not one, but three skateboards, ALL with marijuana leaves on them. LOL.
In the morning, got to Santa Barbara after what felt like an eternity. The train ride from Santa Barbara to LA was nice. It went along the beautiful coastlines and was quite scenic. I talked the whole time to a girl going to Anime Expo. We had a lovely conversation that made the time pass quickly, though we were both exhausted. When we got off the train, I ended up hanging out with her and another girl (a staffer) at Union Station for a while.
At Union Station, they were shooting a movie. We watched with great amusement as the film crew shot the same scene a ton of times. The scene was the actor walking toward the camera and sighing, and that's all. There was some sort of elaborate set up in one of the rooms. In hindsight I should have taken a picture, but I forgot!
The three of us split a taxi fare to the convention center/my hotel. I sat in the lobby for a bit, dozing, while I waited for my roommates to show up. They did in short order and all was well. I went off to reg, and honestly mostly napped in the line. Lots of other people did the same. When I finished napping, I talked to the girl next to me about Pokémon and then she ranted for a while about MLP:FiM fandom being annoying while I was devil's advocate. (Actually, I don't find the fandom annoying, but that said I can understand her frustration. We've all dealt with immature aspects of fandom before!) I was basically saying, hey, that happens in any fandom. There will always be immature types ruining things and you've just got to ignore them. Anyway, it was an interesting conversation. I think she got what I was saying. We talked about the history of FanFiction.Net and whether "mature" fanfiction should be allowed, too, haha.
Reg line moved fast once it opened. There was lots of arbitrary high-fiving in the line, which I took part in because...hey, why not?
Honestly, I spent much of the con just roaming and hanging out with people, so I won't break everything down. Just some highlights!
* Thursday night was awesome! I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and dinner with my roommates. We took this weird tunnel way to get there, and ended up running up all these stairs. We ended up late and basically had to do a speed tour of the museum, but what I did see was fascinating and I'd love to go back and spend time there!
The food was yummy at the dinner, though not as many vegetarian options as I'd like. Oh well! I ate a bunch of the tofu balls. There was this incredible litchi pana cotta that was just godlike. Me and a few of the guys ended up buying more of it and then posing dramatically with it for photos. It was the best thing ever.
I regretted all the tofu balls in the morning when my stomach got all messed up and I nearly threw up. But then I went back to bed and was all better in an hour or two.
During our dinner, I was so the loudest person there. I become really extroverted at cons, haha, it's kind of hilarious. Especially because I'm normally quite introverted. I talked with some of the guys at the table about Pokémon basically the whole dinner.
* Friday, I was all worried because the Pokémon cosplay gathering was right before the Yuki Kajiura panel, which was one of only two panels I really wanted to go to. I went to the gathering and it was great fun, Umbreon was well-received as usual, and then ran off to the panel. Thankfully, the panel started late and I got in no problems. :D
The Pokémon gathering was interesting because our usual gathering area was overtaken by the X-Games, and no one could figure out where the new gathering spot was. Thankfully, someone came and lead my confused group to the proper place.
* The AMV contest was so-so. The first few categories were pretty good, but the last three were hit or miss at best. AMTV-PRO, my favorite category, was so disappointing this year! One video I'd already seen and nothing else that stuck out at all. Comedy was mostly bleh, except for this one hilarious video to Sexy and I Know It (which I had in my head all con as a result). There was a silly fun video that was a combination of FMA and Backstreet Boys, and my friends and I totally sang along loudly (as did much of the audience). I saw a few videos worth downloading and all, but this year's quality was inconsistent in my AMV critic opinion. Oh well, always next year!
* On a random note, I loved my roommates, we had a lot of fun together, and whenever we were in the room we'd turn on the X-Games and marvel at the fact that it was down the street and basically right in our Anime Expo space. Not that we paid that much attention to it, but it was still funny having it in town at the same time. I'd appreciate it not being there next year, though--too much traffic and congestion!
One of my shuttle rides took literally an hour as a result of it on Saturday. I was trying to make an autograph session, which thankfully ended up being canceled anyway so it wasn't a big deal.
* Saturday was basically hanging out and the Yuki Kajiura concert.
* Hanging out: I was wandering with my friend the James cosplayer, and we discovered religious protesters outside! Had to get some silly pictures of course. Also, free energy drinks. I don't even like energy drinks but I got some. I mean, they were free! There was an AX staffer in front of one of the religious protesters with a big speaker on wheels, hahaha, drowning him out. The religious protesters were just echoing each other, saying the same things over and over again, as it was.
There was also a pregnant pony by the food trucks across the street, advertising horseback riding under the Hollywood sign. I felt bad for the pony, it was an awfully chaotic scene there and it was hot out, too. :( She didn't seem distressed or anything, but still.
* There was this incredibly long line on the roof to get in the room for the concert, which felt silly because we already had assigned seating. Oh well, I got interviewed briefly by Yuki Kajiura's camera crew! Also, we had quite a view from the roof.
The concert itself was lovely! I felt the sound wasn't as great as it could have been, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I think the concert really came together in the last three songs--especially Open Your Heart, where everyone got up and swayed back and forth. Yuki Kajiura said she was moved by this, and I was as well. She did a lot of songs I recognized in the concert, though I was a bit baffled by the lack of Tsubasa Chronicle songs. Not that I'm even a Tsubasa fan, but that's such a popular series (and I know the music) so it just surprised me.
I'm so glad I've gotten to see Yuki Kajiura in concert, and I hope she comes back! Her music is beautiful and the concert was an awesome experience. I was impressed by how great her English is, too.
That said, I just haaaave to say it... I've seen them both live now, and I'm extensively familiar with their work, and I don't feel there is any comparison between Yoko Kanno and Yuki Kajiura. I love Kajiura-san's work, I really do, I find it very inspiring and beautiful, but Kanno's is just...amazing beyond comprehension. When I'm in Yoko Kanno's presence, I feel like her music is a manifestation of the emotion or mood she's capturing--like her piano is directly playing into my heart. Yuki Kajiura is surely an angel of music, but Yoko Kanno is the goddess of the music universe. That's how I feel. I don't intend it in a mean or negative way because I've been a fan of Yuki Kajiura for a long time, but it just has to be said.
I'm pretty sure, during the concert, the lady next to me was from Japan. I just got that sense, and she had a Japanese cell phone, too. We had a brief exchange about corgis, because she had a corgi as her background image on her phone. She has two corgis, too! We didn't talk after that, but we were totally synchronized during the concert. If one of us did something, bobbing our heads or standing up or raising an arm or whatever, immediately the other would start. It was funny and made me happy.
After the concert, I watched people pour out of the concert room from above and talked to a roommate. I felt all content, having seen a wonderful concert. I had been sleepy all day after having some cracktastic dreams, so I felt that refreshed me somewhat.
* Waiting for the shuttle back after the concert, two guys started an epic Bohemian Rhapsody singalong complete with interpretive dance. Pretty fun and silly.
* There were also multiple shuttle singalongs. One time the shuttle driver was encouraging us, so it kept going on and on and louder and louder. We did Pokémon theme, I'll Make a Man Out of You, So Many Wonders (from MLP), Never Gonna Give You Up, and so on. I just loved the enthusiasm. The shuttle was a good place to strike up conversations, too.
* Sunday--I think it was Sunday--I went to the Madhouse panel, and then focused on getting autographs. This happened pretty quickly and easily, though I almost missed out on getting a sketch from Hamada. Luckily my friend and I are both experienced autograph getters, haha.
The best part of the Madhouse panel was when a Kero cosplayer, mascot-style, came in the room, and Hamada-san just stared for the longest time and then pointed the Kero cosplayer out to everyone. LOL! At the end of the panel, he said something about how he was "concerned" about whether the person in the Kero costume was doing okay, whether they were hot and so on. Anyway, it was funny.
Sunday night is always a sad time, and I was hanging out with my friends I made at Fanime who cosplay Jessie and James. Unfortunately, the Jessie wig was really painful to wear, so she's going to have to remake it. It's the best darn Jessie wig you've ever seen, though. I was traveling with this great group of Poképeople who we made friends with and it was a ton of fun. We posed for pictures and got gobs of attention.
The best part of the evening, though, was hands-down the karaoke room. We went in the karaoke room and James performed Sweet Transvestite from Rocky Horror Picture Show. That was hilarious and awesome. Then, the staff turned on some K-pop to entertain us while they set up the next event and me in my Umbreon costume and most of our Pokécosplayer friends got up and danced wildly to the K-pop. It was soooo hot in my costume, but totally worth it! I was about to die after four songs of dancing, but by then we had attracted a bunch of people to dance wildly with us. So fun!
* Monday was mostly finishing up business, AKA looking through Artist's Alley and Exhibition Hall for the last few hours. I got to hang out with
kneesocks for a bit, which was great! :DRight before I left, I talked to Peter S. Beagle, my favorite author, for a while. It was wonderful talking to him as always. I'm utterly thankful that my favorite author is so accessible and such a sweet person. I try to visit him every year at Anime Expo and talk! I couldn't talk as long as I liked because I had to leave to get on the train, but it was a great way to end a fun con.
* My train ride back was pretty uneventful. I was hanging out with two guys from AX for a while but I guess we never really clicked because I felt odd talking to them. Oh well! Then I talked to a girl from AX for hours about various things, and we enjoyed each others' company more. She's a fan of Wolf's Rain, too, so I did her a drawing of Toboe really quickly (and as best as I could on a moving train). We had quite a few fandoms in common, so that made for easy talking. I slept some on the train ride back, talked some, and just kinda vegged out otherwise.
Anyway, it was a great AX! Not the most eventful ever, but incredibly fun and enjoyable and great. I'm so, so, so thankful that I was able to go after all the stress and everything. Even though physically I'm no better than usual, it did refresh me emotionally. I hate leaving cons because I love that sense that everyone there is just a short talk away from being your friend, and that in general people are so friendly, kind, and happy at cons. I saw so many little acts of kindness and friendship there, and more and more those things strike me as being important and meaningful. Cons are a celebration of fandom, and fandom is one of the things that I love most in the world. ♥
Not even going to proofread that, so if there are typos or anything, just disregard. No worries if you don't read this entry, it is fairly long! But regardless, AX was a lot of fun.
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Date: 2012-07-08 07:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-08 03:03 pm (UTC)Also, I too feel bad for the pony :'( I hate when people extort animals for money.
Glad you had fun!