Another Anime Expo has come and gone. This year I thought I would be able to go just the one day (because I still need a license/vehicle), but a friend from high school was kind enough to offer me a ride, so I was able to go Friday and Sunday. Awesome.
Something about this year's AX just seemed electric even before I went to the convention center. For one, I was going to be busy as hell -- lots of stuff to do on Friday, and I met up with a ton of people both days, so there was a lot to be excited about. (This is also what I loved about my favorite year at AX, 2006. Shy, Solo Tremaine and Panda? That's a murderer's row of awesome.) Apparently my subconscious was excited, too, because I kept waking up at 4:30 a.m. a few days before AX even though I never left for the con until 10:30 a.m. both days. wtf
Anyway, after arriving in the exhibit hall, I immediately noticed a good number of Durarara!! cosplayers and (surprisingly enough) Revolutionary Girl Utena cosplayers, so that was pretty cool right away. (Unfortunately, my Durarara!! output is low because they almost always came at the wrong time.) After getting my pass, I ambled off to my first event of the day: The Eri Kitamura panel.
Kitamura was at AX to promote Toradora! (recently released by NIS America), and the panel was pretty fun. Not really informative in any way, but mostly an excuse for people to fantard with Eri Kitamura. She was energetic, of course (I think seiyuu get flogged if they aren't peppy), and the combo of Kitamura trying to be as open as possible without pissing off her superiors and a very liberal translator (he opted for a rougher explanation of her words than was probably the case every so often) made for good times.
Some quick tidbits:
-- She wants to play a yandere someday. Clearly she knows what pleases the audience.
-- Funny translation part one: Her reaction to Ami Kawashima (her Toradora! character) at first was, "Wow, what a bitch!" lololololol
-- Funny translation part two: She doesn't think much about the sensuality/sexuality of characters she plays (she's Rin in Kodomo no Jikan and a character in Queen's Blade) while she's acting; it's only after she sees the final product that the weirdness of certain characters hits her. For instance, Queen's Blade made her exclaim (in the translator's words), "Those are some huge tits!"
-- Best part of the panel came from an Angel Beats-related question. Basically someone wanted Kitamura to re-enact the part in ep5 where Yui sings the OP and starts choking halfway through. This is the result of that:
Makes absolutely no sense if you haven't watched Angel Beats but hilarious otherwise.
Unfortunately, even though AX said beforehand that autograph tickets would be handed out at panels, I guess that didn't apply to NIS America ... and no tickets meant that any chance I had of getting an autograph went up in smoke, since the autograph lines were uniformly awful throughout the weekend. So that kind of sucked. Otherwise, though, a good panel.
After that, I dicked around in the exhibit hall for a bit, which is when I noted the loud presence of the vuvuzelas at the convention. For those of you not watching the World Cup and are unaware of what vuvuzelas are ... here you are. They weren't quite that constant, but they were noticeable. I've watched so much World Cup that I am basically under the Stockholm Syndrome spell with them. A nice calming feeling comes over me when I hear them. It's great/horrible.
My next piece of business was watching the premiere of the Black Lagoon OVA, "Roberta's Blood Trail". Second Barrage is the superior season, but the Roberta storyline is my favorite, so I was ridiculously hyped for this. First episode does not disappoint -- it's only good rather than great, mostly because it just sets up the story, but there are plenty of great moments, including one that inspired a pained "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" from every guy in the room. (And a fistpump from every woman, hahaha.) Every Black Lagoon fan needs to watch it right away.
Only bad part was that the subtitles were a bit low, and it was difficult to read the dialogue while everyone else was craning their heads, trying to do the same lol. I got the gist of nearly everything, however, so whatever.
Next on the list was the Yui Horie panel. I met up with good ol' Michi in the line, who had come from the Megumi Nakajima/May'n concert (which featured Yoko Kanno as a surprise guest). We were both tired and hungry and were forced to walk all the way to the end of the panel line, which stretched outside the convention center and looked like a terrible pre-registration line. Absolutely enormous; my joke on Twitter was that it made me want to let out a Chibodee Crocket-esque, "JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS".
(Speaking of Twitter, it was my main way of keeping up with industry news while at AX, and I'm sure my face was hilarious while that huge licensing infodump was going on. "Wait, Utena was licensed?! WTF??????")
Anyway, Michi and I chatted it up and got inside ... and pomegranate joined us a few minutes later! Didn't get to see her for too long (and didn't take a picture, either, unfortunately), but it was nice to meet her after the failure of last year's meet-up. <_<; Speaking of failure, though, the Horie panel sucked. I don't know if NIS America was running late, but they spent a third of the panel showing everyone the first episode of Toradora!, which didn't leave much time for the Q&A session afterward. Pretty lame. The Horie questions didn't lead to any fun responses either. Bah.
(Plus, honestly, even though I like Horie a lot as a seiyuu, her shtick kind of creeps me out lol. The whole "I'm 17!" thing is sort of endearing from, say, Kikuko Inoue, because she usually comes off like she's just fooling around, but Horie sells it like she believes it lol. I only blame her partly for that, though ... the industry skews so young, and the image requirements are so batfuck insane (especially since Horie is also a singer) that I imagine she probably has little choice in the matter.)
So, yeah, that blew lol. After hanging around with Michi and pome a bit more (we stopped by the gaming room, where pome's boyfriend was hanging around a Texas Hold 'Em table that featured a dude dressed in full Pikachu regalia; only at an anime con, I swear), I had to leave because my carpool friends were participating in a Persona cosplay gathering, and I was roped into cosplaying with them! I went as Junpei from Persona 3, and there are photos on the next page for the impatient among you. :p But it was fun, and I got a kickass coat out of the whole deal. A win-win situation.
... Man, this thing is way too fucking long now. I think I'll go bullet points for Day Two.
-- Spent most of the day in the exhibit hall. Final count: Martian Successor Nadesico, Kare Kano and Beck, along with ...
-- ... this Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged shirt, complete with autograph from Little Kuriboh! Yep, he was at AX, and doing his usual thing of talking in phones, singing songs and having fun. Also got a picture with him, which, again, is on the next page just because I'm a jerk like that.
-- Met up with a bunch of aniblogger friends. Won't bother you all with the details, but it was fun. Also had Quiznos, and I must have more.
-- Last bit of fun was at the masquerade, hosted by Kyle Hebert and fellow There Will Be Brawl stars Kat Steel and Matt Mercer. Good times. Few too many skits were Internet meme-y and not funny, but there were some good ones, and a lot of the costumes were impressive. There were some Princess Mononoke cosplayers who were just ridiculous. Don't regret going, but I wish I didn't have to spend $30 on it. WTF Anime Expo? Nice of you to charge for a show put on by fans.
So there you go. A lot was done, and a lot of fun was had. And now for pictures!
