Anime eXpo 2013

   No pressure.

Wanna read about this delicious gatorade? No. You don't. I know you don't. You wanna read about AX. fine.


4 days. onetwothreefour. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
4 days, this event lasts.
However my attendance was capped to 3.
It was originally going to be just Saturday and Sunday, but incredibly, Lauren wanted me to go with her so bad on Friday that she managed to get me a pass- which turned out to be a 4 day pass anyway! I am forever grateful! Feelin a little stupid over that, but grateful nonetheless.

Our game plan was pretty simple. I drive over to her place, and we split from there. We arrived a little later on Friday, and spent most of it meeting up with a lot of industry people. The human brain is amazing. SO. MANY. PEOPLE. She was ecstatic to introduce me! Honestly I was a little nervous, as is my nature, but everyone was incredibly nice, aaaaaaand we lol'd into the wee hours of the night all weekend. Two of the most memorable things for me were both relevant to Eric Vale. His panel and his signing. Both were all kinds of lolz unplanned happen-y things, but still really fun.


  Friday | Day 1

I told her she looked Russian in this picture.

Those are the most obnoxious vehicles in existence. And of course we'd see one on our way to the con.

 

 I've never been to this convention center before, let alone this expo. It was MASSIVE. And we hadn't eaten anything or had breakfast so one of the first things we do is look for food. We wait in a ridiculous line to get SBUX- totally stupid - and they took forever, of course. There was a mexican food stand right next to it that I couldn't avoid, and Lauren got herself a sammich and a parfait. We sat and stuffed our faces before meeting up with all of her industry peeps she wanted to introduce me to. To be honest, I don't remember a lot of what happened in what order, so ... I'm just going to dump stuff, lol.

The Aniplex booth was our first stop. They gave us little Madoka inserts to put in our badges, promoting the movie!

Her friend, Eric Vale, who was a guest of honor this year was having a panel that she wanted me to check out. So we made our way around the con about a billion times before finding it. On our way there though we grabbed a Kyle Herbert to come with. I've briefly met him before but this weekend I was able o get acquainted more with people. 

It was fun trying to get to the panel room with Kyle by our side. He kept getting stopped, and the panel was running on a weird schedule kind of. We got there a few moments before it started, but no one had been allowed inside the room and things were really strict. They had to make sure Eric's handler knew we were coming to make sure we got in. 

They were taking the time to organize the people who wanted to come for this panel from downstairs to upstairs, and wouldn't let them in until they were all in line. So that made the panel start about 30 minutes late. Eric's commentary throughout was pretty lolz. He says next time he's just going to talk about how much he hurts himself. 

She's a companion cube. CUTE, RIGHT!?

Danielle and Kyle were there with us. 

 We both had boots on!

I also was introduced to Christopher Smith. 

He is very charming.

I've never seen such a massive Artist Alley. Was pretty great

It was packed to the dickens all weekend, basically. Sunday was nicer, but still pretty crowded. They had like 60 thousand people this year. 

At around 2PM I also had to meet up with Robert! The photographer I've mentioned before. SUPER SWEETEST GUY EVER. We thought we were supposed to meet in the South Hall but he was misinformed, and we spent 45 minutes trying to figure out where he was and trying to meet, lol. Later we found he was in the West Hall, so we made our way over there with the help of a chair member, Terry. He I think is on the board with Otakon, if I remember correctly. The shoot was fun, and demure. Wasn't anything crazy. I was kinda glad because initially I thought it was going to happen at another time, and I wasn't super dressed up for it. But no biggie.

I can't wait to see how they come out. This wasn't the only shoot we did. :D

We did another one on Sunday in a different location with way more natural light. I absolutely adore him. He's great to work with and considerate. Once I get the shots I'll show you guys. He and I had the funniest convo about Harley's Joker, btw. He's captured shots of him at other conventions, and I've talked to Harley's Joker about Robert as well. MAYBE. AT THE NEXT CON. IT'LL BE A THING. We couldn't stop giggling over the other stuff. Haha, he rules.

 Boba Phat. 

Another cosplayer to look for at Cons. :D

 I love those little boxes. They make me so happy. 

Wait til you guys see what I got omg

David Wong, the artist DnD guy bought our prints off of at Wondercon was there. 

BOY, IS HE A PISTOL. He poked fun at us about doing it. LUuuuuuLZ.

Lauren loved his prints just as much as we did, and got 5

He joked about doing it with her. LUUUuuuullllLZz boobiiieeessss

Lauren had a signing. The booth for it was in the exhibit hall and craaaaamped. Can you spot her? 

No wait

You guys, this is a thing. 

Look up Hard Gay on youtube. 

just trust me

These guys are my heroes.

Mami and Kyoko!!!

Eric also had a signing that we crashed at. That was fun.

No caps existed.

Jaaaaaaames, Eric's handler

Since the Madoka movie was being promoted, there was a cosplayer at a booth as Madoka who we got to meet. Her name is Harmony and she was the sweetest girl. I absolutely love how she says her s's. She speaks just like Lindsay Sterling and Wowcrendor. 

Here is another Mami Tomoe. My favorite one so far!

Let me just dump everything Madoka right now, k?

Madoka fan!

 I saw two Charlotte cosplayers!!

Madoka :)

Kyubey!!

It was the cutest thing ever. She had her contract and everything.

I think he was a lawyer. They added their own flare to it, lol.

I SIGNED KYUBEY'S CONTRACT :D

 Then she gave me a wish! Which was in purple lollipop form :)

When I die I want my tombstone to say "goddamnit, Kyubey."

We were at this vendor that had the Madoka mystery boxes I've been getting at Little Tokyo.

Lost my shit, of course. They were a little less expensive so I decided to buy one.

It was the most exciting thing ever at that moment because YOU DON'T KNOW.

WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO GET.

And I already have Mami and Madoka! RIGHT? Yeah. So... omg

And the girl at the vendor, her name escapes me, was just as excited to see who we got.

I slowly opened the box, and asked Lauren to look inside...

IT WAS KYOTO!!!! Lauren's character!!! How fun!! ^_^

Then of course, we had to explain to the vendor girl why we were so excited, and learned that the pretty lady at my side voices Kyoto! They gave us another box! And we opened that one right then and there too, but you will just have to keep reading to find out who we got.

This booth had aaaaall kinds of Madoka stuff at it. Suffice to say... he was fond of Lauren. And was nice enough to even gift us a print!

This Link cosplay was the best I've seen so far. He had real chain mail and looks like he was actually out defeating Jabbu Jabbu.

Friday night was really cool. It was when I officialy got to sit down and get to know some people. Lauren had set up a dinner at Umami Burger. I wish I could remember everyone's names, but Eric was there, Chris Sabbat, Kyle, Rachel, and some Con board people were there too. 

This place has some awesome sweet potato fries. And for most of the night we heard lots of fun stories about... happy things and nice people who respect their fellow colleagues. ;)

 We would all end up at the Westin eventually almost all weekend.

 This hotel had pools in the lobby.

 Madoka fanboy say whuuuut

 gimme.

 Saturday night we went to an industry after party where Lauren introduced me to even more people.

I actually saw people I recognized there! Sarah! And some people from earlier. It was... not my scene, so I was quiet for most of it, but thankfully was kept company by Steve who seemed to be just as comfortable in our corner as I was.

That's Steve. 

And this is him being extremely Azn.

He's an engineer. Makes sense

ugh I want them.

 mmmmmmmmmmm, Snape.

 This is Rachel! She has pretty eyes.

She's also in Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIII + XIII-2, and in the Hellsing anime. 

But her eyes are really pretty.

 This was a bitter sweet moment. 

This booth is Oboro Charms. I've seen her work all over Tumblr and Deviant Art, and it's well-known

within the polymer crafting community. This was the first time I saw who it was behind the cute little owl logo and she is so sweet. Unfortunately this will be her last con. She's no longer making them, which sucks... because they're really great. But I was glad to have met her and tell her how she has inspired me. There was one little charm that I saw that I had to have..

It's like it was made for me :)

Matches me perfectly!

It came on a different chain, but I was afraid that it may break from casual use, so I switched it over to a thicker black chain that I had laying around.

This was all that was left of Oboro Charms. I wish her luck and am really glad to have met her!

OH MY GOD.  YOU GUISE.

We saw this Wolverine cosplayer.

Okay?

We saw him.

okay no wait. 

Look.

O___O 

We couldn't NOT stop him. 

The funny thing was... we both feel exactly the same about physiques. 

We don't like muscular men at all. Maybe a little definition but anything more than that is just.... meh. We don't care for it. but THIS.

THIS.

you guys.

he lifted me.

We were so happy. And the jokes were a thing.

OH. A cosplayer I was really looking forward to meeting... (there's always one) we had a tough time trying to locate. It didn't help that it was so insanely crowded, and the convention center is massive. I introduced Lauren to him and she absolutely loves him. 

He goes by D-Piddy. 

The first time I saw him was at Wondercon. He's hilarious

  but guess what.  

  WE FOUND HIM!! There were a couple other Deadpools that looked similar. Lauren was a good sport and kept her eyes peeled for him too, pointing out possible suspects. But I knew... I knew..  D'awww!!! ^_^  His cologne smelled nice.  

Sunday was the last day --

  We spent most of it in the Dealer's Hall looking around for stuff and buying loot. I really wanted to get the Madoka box set but... it costs... a ridiculous amount of money. Unless I get it off Ebay, but it'd just be the regular box set. The collectors has cool stuff with it. OH WELL.  I did find a neato alternative though. And discovered another thing from it- we'll go into that later.   The plan was the get in some shopping and meet up with Eric and the charming Christopher Smith later, Kyle too if he was up for it. Rachel was dead set on splitting. So we did the stuff we had to do and then tried to figure out something from there. Lauren had her signing at 1pm.  Eric had a panel at 2pm.  I had my shoot at 2pm, but we moved it to 1pm.    The shoot was really fun. It was in the long hallway and he was hanging out with another photographer who was really sweet.  A Loonette cosplayer from the Big Comfy Couch passed by and I nearly shit my pants. Kyle, as a guest of honor, had to attend the closing ceremonies. And we had time to kill before meeting up with Eric again. He wasn't feeling well and took the day after the panel to rest his voice. So I suggested we just check out the closing ceremonies, and Kyle hung out with us while we ate before heading over there.   

We were back there for a while. Things were going well.
The way it was running was each of the guests of honor had a little intro video with their characters on them. And then they'd go up on stage and do a little speech. So that happened. And then they played Eric's video- Lauren and I just looked at each other and started laughing. He wasn't there! He went to the hotel to get rest. The tech guy was like where's Eric!? aaaaaaaand yeah, I guess they didn't know he wasn't there :P
Someone had to go up there and let everyone know he couldn't make it. Everyone boo'd :(
ERIC, DAT HEARTBREAKER.

I also met another VO talent.
that was cool.

 Kyle wanted pictures. So we took pictures.

Here Kyle, has mustache.

MURSHTACHE

We went outside through the back exit only to find that we were parked at the other end. So we went back inside to head there. The halls were so empty.
It was a happy/sad moment. I'm going to miss it. It's always sad when the con is over. It's kind of an unreal experience. You completely and utterly leave real life and dive into this place where all of these fictional people and things are walking around you, and you're surrounded by people who are there for the same reasons you are. It's just unreal. And it's amazing, and so much fun. And I loved every part of it. This time I definitely saw the other side of the way Conventions work. I saw the industry point of it. A lot of things didn't surprise me, and neither did the stories. They are also found in the music industry circles that I've been involved with for the last few years. But this was definitely an eye-opener and am so glad to have met the people I did. 

  All thanks to Lauren.    This wasn't the end of our trip though!  No, no. We were still meeting up with Eric at another hotel. We hung out there until almost 11PM that night but had a wonderful time. There was another dinner there that we went to. There I met Alexis Tipton and Austin Tindle, two other VO talents. I was delighted to learn that Alexis voices Moka in Rosario + Vampire, which I had just finished a few weeks ago. By that time my phone had died, and I wasn't able to take any more pictures.    

 but let me tell you. How much I regret not knowing the name of this hotel because their mashed potatoes were DELICIOUS. Her name escapes me, but she works for Funimation. She basically is a coordinator (it seemed to me, I don't know her official title) for the appearances and panels of the actors they bring in. She treated all of us to dinner. And we got these two "junk food platters" that had all this delicious candy shit on it. Banana nutella macaroons. sweet mercy. And snickers cake bars. And little shots of cookies and cream ice cream. And these delicious churros that were so soft and moist that just melted in your mouth. That was my face of disbelief and feeling so happy I felt overwhelmed and ugh. SO HAPPY, UGH. It was good. 

Loot|

 What did I get?!

Not as much stuff as I did at Wondercon, unfortunately. My god, I think I actually spent almost as much money on parking and food as I did on like... con stuff. It's ridiculous how expensive these short lived luxuries are. Anyway, behold.

• Madoka tote bag
• 2 Charlotte prints
• 2 Madoka blind boxes
• Madoka t-shirt
• Onigiri plushie
• All 3 volumes of the Puella Magi + Madoka Magica manga
• First volume of Puella Magi + Kazumi Magica
• 2 Charlotte button pins and 1 Kyubey button pin
• Oborocharms octopus necklace

 

Eric gave me the "I can't remember your name" pin. Seems appropriate.  

I wanna know what happens to her!

 Time for the boxes!

B o x: I

Kyoko

She came with more stuff than the others.

Her little bow goes on her head, first.

Then her ponytail.

Woot!
   B o x: II ??  

 It's Sayaka!!

Hooray! No duplicates ^_^

All that's left now is Kyubey and Homura. I'm not sure of the chances that I'll get them, just because I have 4 out of 6. I hope I get lucky on my next blind box. :X

So cute!

This officially concludes my Anime Expo weekend. I had so much fun, and had delicious rice and beans, and met nice, normal people, and and and... it was great. I can't wait until next year. The next con that I will be attending will be in November on the 1st through the 3rd at Comikaze. 

The following weekend I will be attending Blizzcon, also all weekend. 

Sadly, no SDCC for me this year. Maybe next year if I'm quick enough. 

Tomorrow is my last day off, and then it's back to work. Can you believe that I kind of miss it?? :P

Lauren's coming over tomorrow for hangy-outy times. ^_^ 

Now I'm off to do internet things and eat and stuff. This post officially took me 10 hours to do entirely, lol. Good night!! :D