Huzzah for finally having some time to post about Anime Expo! I am going to be a bit busy throughout the day, though, so I will stick to (hopefully highly amusing :O) recap bullet points of doom. Here we go!

(Pictures are on the next page, by the way. Go ahead and view those first, if you want, although many of you have seen the best already. xD)

• Registration went smoothly, and my brother, Robert, and I were withdrawing money from an ATM when I called Michi and told her we were at the convention center. Mere minutes later, she arrived with her brother. Amazing service, I tells ya.
• So, to get this out of the way now -- yes, Michi is quite awesome. She told me a bajillion amusing AX stories while we were generally lazing around, waiting for people (my friend, Vincent, for instance, who camera sniped us while we were waiting for him before we went into the exhibit hall line). She's also not really that short, so I can't make fun of her for that anymore. =/ Her brother is a bit like me, actually -- kind of quiet at first, mostly because he was with two people he had never heard of before in his life, but he warmed up by the end of the day. Not a bad guy. Very brother-like. :P
• While we were waiting in the enormous exhibit hall line, Michi's brother picked up various coupons on the ground that could be redeemed for free gold on Gaia. Somehow I was not surprised.
• We got into the exhibit hall, I bought my Eureka Seven box sets (pictured with the Hetalia keychainamabob I bought later), and then we ran into a random Canadian guy in a maid costume. (No, I did not get a picture, which is one of my biggest failings of the day.) He spun a story about not knowing what anime is, and he said he dressed as a maid because his girlfriend liked the costume and told him to wear it. I told him I loved Canada and gave him a high-five; then he randomly plugged Tom Green's online show, which had me thinking he was a Tom Green plant. (It seems like the sort of thing he would do, haha.) Whatever the case, he was pretty funny.
• Just about everything Michi and I saw reminded us of Des. It was kind of funny, but also kind of weird at the same time.
• Vincent jumped out of nowhere with his girlfriend, Jessica, and scared the bejeezus out of my brother. This is his normal AX entrance ritual.
• We mostly bummed around the exhibit hall for a while, with the odd cosplay photo op happening, but something funny did happen when Vincent bought a toy Piplup. He was pretty impressed that it could talk, and he tried to open it right away, but apparently there was something stuck in there that was not letting it work. Vincent retreated to the vendor who had sold the Piplup to him; they worked for about 10-15 minutes trying to get that Piplup to speak. Finally they were able to free its voice, and Vincent came back, whereupon we huddled around the Piplup, waiting for it to emit its wondrous song. Instead it belched out perhaps the most pathetic squeak I have ever heard in my life. And Vincent had spent $15 on it. We lol'd.
• Around noon, Michi, her brother and I left the exhibit hall and walked all the way to the other side of the convention, where the Seiji Mizushima/Yosuke Kuroda panel was happening. It seemed pretty packed when we got there, but we were able to snag some seats pretty close to the front.
• There were a lot of people asking questions in stilted, clumsy Japanese, which made Michi groan a lot. What made me groan a lot was the guy who said, "I'm going to ask my question in Japanese, and then I'm going to translate it for everyone." What a fucking douche. There is a translator there for a reason, you asshat.
• Most of their answers to the questions were pretty basic, but they did reveal a couple of tidbits about the Gundam 00 movie: It definitely takes place after season two, it will go more into the background of Celestial Being (but not necessarily via flashbacks) and parts of it will explore the "ambiguous relationship" between Graham and Setsuna. Please let this be Graham's redemption for sucking for a good portion of season two!!
• They had a funny response to the question, "Are there any characters you regret not killing off [in Gundam 00]?": "Didn't we kill enough people already?!" Haha.
• Mizushima pulled off an amusing troll with this preview of a new anime he is directing with Gainax. Watch and laugh as I laughed. (Also, try not to get too excited, Des. :P)
• Our plan after the panel was to run down the hall and stab the cook all the way across the convention center to a shortcut Michi and her brother had discovered, which would secure us a spot up front for the autograph session. Unfortunately, AX decided to pwn our plan. :( So we had to go alllll the way around and back to the area where the autograph session was going to be. But we had tickets that were handed out at the panel, however, so we thought we were OK.
• While in line, we learned that Yun Kouga would also be a part of the autograph session. My reaction? "Damn, and I forgot to bring my Lockon x Tieria yaoi." Michi: "What? o_O;" xD
• We became suspicious after our line was split off roughly ten million times and we were deposited in an empty room. About an hour later we were told we wouldn't be getting autographs, since we were the overflow of the line, and there wasn't enough time to get to us. It sort of felt like a punishment for going to panel and actually trying to participate at AX instead of wasting two or three hours lining up beforehand. Oh well. I would rather have done stuff and not got an autograph instead of getting an autograph but missing out on some fun.
• We still had a couple of hours to kill until the theOtaku meet-up (you are correct if you believe this sounds ominous), so Michi called Sesshy and we arranged a trip to Little Tokyo. My brother decided to tag along, so we waited a while for him because he was on the top floor all the way on the other side of the convention center, and then he couldn't find us at first. My siblings and I have no sense of direction.
• We met up with Sesshy and two of her friends near the Staples Center and took some buses to Little Tokyo. I was quiet the whole time because I am a socially awkward dork. I'm sorry, Sesshy! :(
• Little Tokyo is an interesting place, but damn, my poor budget could not handle it. (Well, the anime/manga/paraphernalia shops, anyway.) I was tempted to buy the Shugo Chara! manga but decided against it since everything the shops had was already covered by the anime. Sorry, Amu. =/
• Time went by reallllllllllly quickly. We didn't even go to that many places, but before we knew it, it was 5 p.m., which, obviously, is well past the time I set for the theO meet-up. Fail @ us. (Seriously, I apologize to everyone who took time out of their day to go to this and ended up disappointed. Whatever the reason, it was not cool of me. I swear I will make it up next year.)
• We bused back to the convention center and caroused the exhibit hall and the artist alley, but Sesshy had to leave relatively quickly. However, she did not leave before granting me a full pardon and sparing me a bloody death. w00t! also lol vaguery
• The artist alley always impresses me. There are so many amazing artists there. One had some incredibly colored drawings of Nintendo characters (I probably stared at the artist's Zero Suit Samus for a full minute lol), and another had some hilarious anime/movie crossover drawings. (Like Reservoir Dogs of the Military, a Reservoir Dogs/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover). I wish I had written down the names of the artists so that I could link to their pages.
• Michi and I went to karaoke afterward, but the gods of karaoke did not smile upon us this particular evening. First of all, the machine did not have "Days" on it. Lame. :( Secondly, registration was basically closed since there was going to be a karaoke contest later, so we came too late to sing, anyway. Bah. Next year we will rock the house, Michi. :O
• We were pretty tired by this point, so Michi, her brother and my brother sat down outside and ate ice cream while I ran around taking cosplay photos. Soon, Michi and her brother had to leave. Michi, you were cool as hell and thanks again for spending the day with me! :D

Now for pictures!