Written by David Nolen | 23 October 2008

Anime Expo 2007, despite all the bands, cool guests that attended, and other goings on, can only be called one thing: an unmitigated disaster of galactic proportions. There is no escaping this, there is no denying this, there is no justifying this. Complete and utter; the destruction was phenomenal. It couldn’t have been worse had it been planned. That being said, when the new site was announced, which was the L.A. Convention center, it received the same lukewarm response that the announcement of the Disney Land Convention Center did back in ’99. In essence the, the culmination of a comedy of errors that was only funny to sick fucks like myself and possibly Megatron.

I mean, let’s face it, the Hotels are not within walking distance, the surrounding area is not someplace for half naked cosplayers to be walking around without an army of protection, and given the declining performance of AX over the years, this could only add up to, having hit bottom, now drilling for humiliation oil. Every indication we had seemed to tell the lot of us it was game over; no continues…we’d be best served by hitting up other conventions.

I can honestly say, at least from my own personal experience, that I wound up being quite pleasantly surprised by everything that went down this year. They actually managed to not only make the new situation work, with one major, but recoverable, gaffe (more on that later), they fixed damn near every problem they had last year and many in previous years. Lines were, for the most part, managed fairly well (at least, I heard no major complaints, heh), the bus situation did the job (minus that one gaffe), there was more than enough room to move around in, press…eh, let’s talk about that one later, and the main events were handled and regulated quite well. Also, my biggest fear, the surrounding area, turned out to be, while not exactly unfounded, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we all thought. Don’t get me wrong, you’d not want to walk around there in the main part of the city in the middle of the night, but in the area of the convention center, everything was fairly safe and well taken care of. During the day it was actually okay for groups to hit up the various places to eat around there (though they were a bit of a walk). However, perhaps I should get on to the meat of the report, rather than discussing it in general terms.

One thing before I get to that. Guys, yes, I’m referring to those with xy chromosomes, you all need to just boycott AX Idol. You cannot win. There is absolutely no possibility of you winning. They will choose girls every single time, no matter what your talent level happens to be. You could be Frank Welker and Freddy Mercury all wrapped up into a body that looks like Juan Pablo Di Pace, and you will still loose. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a trend. Five times with only girls winning is outright bias, and I’m directly accusing every single judge at that event of being biased against the male gender in this event. If you’re looking for female VA’s and singers, don’t be pussies about it, just post it as a talent search with a note that guys need not apply…because they don’t. Unfortunately, the guys at Bang Zoom! are now in a Catch 22 concerning this event. More on that when I get to it.

Day 0

This year Navaash had flown down to hang out before and after the convention since he was heading overseas for awhile once AX was done. It was also cheaper to fly into San Diego than it was to L.A….the irony being that he actually stopped in L.A. before continuing on to San Diego. Though I don’t mind being alone, company is welcome too, and more so in this case since we were heading to the same place.

As before we hit up several stores to stock up on supplies. We were a little more prepared this time around than Doug and I were for Fanime, but to be honest in this case, ‘more prepared’ amounted to hitting up Costco in order to pick up a case of water and some breakfast bars in bulk for everyone, since we were going to be rooming with Gensao and co like previous years. Everything else, like energy drinks, were acquired at Food 4 Less, a store I cannot praise enough, even if it is (and quite possibly because it is) the ghetto of food stores. So I guess in that context we were about as prepared as we were before.

First thing to do was hit up Fry’s for a new SD card for Navaash. I was going to get another SDHC card myself, but decided against it…I didn’t think I’d need another one despite the fact I was going to be recording a lot this year; and it turned out I didn’t. Still, what I really want is a Class 6 32GB SDHC card, but that’s not going to happen for awhile, even if I can get it for about half of what you see on that page. We also had a small mishap with one of my Monster drinks in that it got caught between some luggage and the seat and compressed to the point it exploded. Nothing major, and was honestly about the worst thing that happened, outside of the one I left in the vehicle for four days in the sweltering heat. In fact, I recommend highly that if you drink the coffee Monster’s that you do not leave them in your vehicle for very long…this thing stank massively after four days, and only now has begun to dissipate despite all attempts to accelerate it. After we finished up there, and after we had to perform some minor corrections on our heading, we were off.

We arrived in L.A. about the same time that Gensao and co did, which was fortunate, as it allowed us to coordinate getting ourselves and our stuff into the hotel room, not to mention getting us all into the all important parking. Mind you, it wasn't just us checking in, but a few hundred other attendees as well, so as usual for a day like this, it's more controlled chaos in the hotels than anything else. We made do, and got the job done regardless.

Next up was getting to the convention center and getting ourselves badges. Not that hard either, since it was just down the road a couple miles. Walkable, but only if you're feeling psychotic. Certainly it wasn't really necessary to walk either, considering their parking complex is more than large enough to accommodate anyone who wished to drive in. And while it wasn't clearly marked, it didn't take too much skill to find out where pre reg was…one only needed to follow the people walking out, heh.

Pre reg for me was fairly easy being a member of the press, and from what I saw, it actually wasn't too bad for anyone else, despite the daunting number of people. Hell, the first day, the line was stretched out to around the convention center…they had it cleared in nearly thirty minutes. Still, I had some time to kill while everyone else finished, and we all know what that means.

So here's the first pic of the convention. These gorgeous girls were advertising for a Maid Café over in Little Tokyo. They seemed to be having fun taking pics and getting their pictures taken both alone and with people who wanted to; though I think they were damn near exhausted by the time the convention was over.

After everyone got their badges, we lined up to get tickets for the Masquerade and concert events (for those that wanted to go). I'm going to call this a very good thing, despite the fact that in this line you were going to have to pay a nominal fee (about $5) for those tickets. Yes, even for the Masquerade. This actually cuts down on people waiting in line all the time, and in turn, the lines in general…so even with that, it's a good thing. They couldn't charge at all for any reason for the AMV's however, and given the current super litigiousness of the recording and movie industry, I can see why…still, this isn't so bad. As for me, I had a ticket voucher for being a member of the press which I redeemed here, as well as instructions for showing up at 0900 at the press office the following day for further events tickets and more information.

Now, here is AX's biggest black eye. Their coordination between ticketing and hotel information was sorely lacking. If it wasn't for Gensao, this could have placed our group in the same predicament a great deal of attendees wound up in. See, in order to get on the bus, you'd need a little stamp on your pass saying that you had access to the bus routes to the LACC. Gensao had his, but the rest of us did not…he caught that quick and had us rectify it at Guest Services. This didn't actually become a problem until day 2 when they started enforcing it. I seem to recall quite clearly reading that anyone could use that bus route as long as they had an AX badge, but apparently they decided to revoke that privilege…or more likely forgot they had made the statement. I can't find it again myself, but if someone were to find it and give me the link, I'll update this report to point to it. In any event, this left a lot of people who had paid good money for their hotel rooms stranded for the amount of time it took them to get downstairs, into their vehicles and to AX in order to get that taken care of. Not a pretty sight that day to say the least…THAT was fucked up. So, as a bit of advice for everyone…ensure all members of your party have copies of the hotel receipt that lists the guests on it, and take it with you to registration.

Tickets acquired, we took this opportunity to walk around the rest of the convention center (continues on to page 4) and map the place out in our heads. Since this was a new place, there was going to be some confusion on where to go in order to do what we wanted to do…best get as much of that out of the way as possible. This is why we play RPG's…it trains the mind to make a map on the fly, and to retain it for quite some time. Heh, a lot of times I feel like I'm in a Dragon Warrior game in these conventions with all the loot and info I tend to acquire and the distances I travel.

A visit to Little Tokyo was in order for dinner and sight seeing. It was unlikely we were going to get the time during the convention to visit, so we'd best go right then. It's honestly a pretty small place, and didn't take us very long to walk through, though being the fanboys we were, we wound up in Anime Jungle going, "ooooh…so pretty!" This despite the occasional mentions, by every single one of us, that tomorrow we were going to be immersed in it up past any possibility of breathing. You know you're an otaku when…

So many places to eat, but we wound up in a sort of bento place and eating seafood. It was here, I confess everyone found out I suck with chop sticks. Yes, my shameful dirty secret is exposed…I can't use those things to save my life. Irony upon irony for a man who also has an ex-fiancée who is pure blood Chinese. Fortunately there were forks around, otherwise I'd have starved, but yeah…anime fan who can't use chop sticks. The world should have probably ended right there due to a reality contradiction.

Before heading back to the hotel to plan our next move and crash, we did some shopping in the Japanese grocery store which was a Mitsuwa Marketplace, and is not a bad place to shop. There's one here in San Diego, and I have a damn good book case and media storage cabinet from them…though I wish that media storge cabinet were bigger.

Getting back was a bit of an adventure, but Gensao's GPS saved us once again. I swear, breaking out the bedding and electronic gear, taking showers, and planning the next day has become something we've done so much that we do it now with military proficiency. Hilariously we found that these hotels also had the Anime Expo internal TV network. They need to vary their programming a bit, but it did the job they wanted…and honestly the job it needed to do. It provided some background noise while we planned our individual and group schedules for the following day.

Day 1

I had to get there pretty early to talk with the Press staff over stuff like tickets, what to sign up for, and the like. The basic run down was that they'd be open daily at 0900, any tickets for the events of that day would be available at that time; first come, first served. The 'Batman: Gotham Knights' event should be signed up for right that moment however (which I did). They were completely unhelpful in regards to locations where press may film and take pictures in the Nokia Theatre however. In fact, this was to be indicative of the entire situation in regards to the handling of the way Press could take pictures and film. No one bothered to even THINK about that, and there was never anyone on hand at any even to tell us where to go and what we could do. This both helped us and hindered us. It helped us since most of us just went, "Fuck it!" and set up in the Nokia Theatre on the highest terrace right next to the sound system and handicapped zone. It hindered us because at any moment they could have come and told us to move or even leave. They didn't, but they easily could have; so we had that hanging over our heads the entire time. I've never seen anything work more in spite of something than because of something than I did right then. Considering this was my first year as press I couldn't help but ask the others if this was typical…they actually mentioned that sometimes it was worse, but yeah…pretty typical.

This was even worse during the opening ceremonies as they didn't allow us press guys in before people so we could set up. I've never begrudged anyone if they had a legitimate reason to go in first, and to be honest, press does have a reason to require extra time. Also those with small children, elderly, and disabled. I know, sounds like someone boarding an airplane, but seriously…it's something to be and should be considered. All guys in charge should be briefed on this, and disseminate this information to those under them. This didn't really become a problem as near as I could tell, but there at first during Opening Ceremonies it was rather disconcerting as I wasn't sure if I would be able to set up my camera in time. Opening Ceremonies was pretty typical; truly nothing special about Anime Expo's stuff anymore. Last time we had someone get up and sing or anything was several years ago, which is pretty lame, honestly. Still, it is quick, and that counts for something as well. The highlight is when the guys from the VA college in Japan get up on stage and dub something their animation department put together, which ranges from the surreal to the comical to the semi-serious. I don't think they've ever done pure action before, and that'd be an interesting change of pace to be sure. I wonder if they'd do a hentai dub over at late night just to show us how that works?

First thing on the list was what Navaash wanted me to attend, and to be honest, I had an interest in. A panel entitled: Fansubs: The Death of Anime. Closed to the public, on the Press allowed in…the shear balls it took to name this panel that, considering every single person there is likely guilty of downloading a fansub or two is pretty goddamn large. I only managed to get in during about the last third of it, but if you want to read a rundown of it you can follow this link or if you want to just watch it, head over to this youtube page and start.

It was a mixed bag at this panel. A little bit of industry propaganda, a few good points here and there, but also there was quite a bit of whining. The discussion of theft of work is a decent one, but in order for there to be a theft, in this case, there has to be a way for them to have made money on it in the first place. This requires a distribution model that is simultaneous across the board…not just on Japan's channel so and so, but world wide. This was actually discussed, but the reasons this wasn't considered in any real context was due to scheduling they place the product under in Japan and the fact the committees which make these properties don't even consider digital licensing.

They have a word for that situation folks: BROKEN SYSTEM!

A refusal to adapt to changing situations and continuing on as if the world has not changed is not only indicative of a broken system but an outmoded philosophy of doing business. The RIAA and MPAA are running up against this wall and are punishing the whole world for changing without their leave…how dare we. Either fix your system by taking these new realities into account or die. Someone else will then take up the slack…someone always does. This means a world wide distribution model which will include dubbing/subbing in several languages simultaneously. This means tighter integration with several local companies, possibly even acquiring them as foreign offices for the distribution of your products. Lessons learned in dubbing and subbing over here WILL have to incorporated into the paradigm else you'll be forced to relearn those lessons bought with a lot of time and effort by those who've already walked that road. Crunchy Roll, for example, though taking a lot of flak for some of the shit they pulled is now attempting to fill this void a bit in a more legitimate manner (they really need to fix their internet tags). Only time will tell if they're successful.

To their credit though, I think they honestly know this despite their reluctance to face it. They're just a bit overwhelmed by how fast and how hard it hit them, and to be honest, they're not knee jerking and treating everyone like an upstart peon like the rest of the entertainment industry. Is it theft? Like I said they have to be really loosing money first, and while there is no way to measure it, they may well be in a round about way. But at the same time it can be argued that no, they're not…they'd have to truly place themselves into a situation with a valid distribution model before they can say that. Simply signing up a U.S. distribution company some months or years after series premier is NOT a valid method in this context. At that point, I believe that they'd find most would pay for their anime again…or perhaps watch with commercial interruptions. Still they'll forever need to be on watch for up and coming technological trends and maintain an adaptable flexibility concerning new distribution models and methods…or they'll be left as so many other who refuse to evolve have been: as ashes and dust.

One more thing: perhaps a change of name for their panel next time? Their current one is just BEGGING to start a fight with their customers. Just sayin'.

Next big thing I was going to attend was the Pop Shock Masquerade, since I've never done that before. In fact, I was going to miss the AMV's for the Battle of the Bands, so I was going to be doing a lot of stuff this year I'd not done before. However, that was hours away, and that meant checking out the dealer's hall, taking cosplay pics, etc, etc.

On the subject of the Pop Shock Masquerade, we ran into this individual and her group the previous day. She mentioned that there was no way we were going to recognize her the following day. Damn, but if she wasn't right.

Lots of new stuff this year, as well as some old friends, such as Captain Jack here. The shear newness of the place prevented many gatherings from happening, since no one knew where anything was, except for those that knew each other personally, or had a lot of members. Still, this made for a greater mix of cosplayers all over the place, so you'd never know what you'd run into. Also of great interest was the bag check-in which was a godsend; lugging around thirty pounds of camera gear for four days was not something I was looking forward to. A couple dollars a day to store my gear was a bargain the way I see it. I'm pretty distinctive looking too (I'm the ugliest bastard I know, heh) which let me form a nifty friendship with the lady who was running the bag check-in. She knew me on sight the following days.

Traffic through this place was completely unregulated for the most part, but was also free flowing. No traffic cops, fun fuckers, or line nazi's to be had for the most part…in fact, the convention center staff were practically transparent, as they should have been. Except when someone was doing something stupid like balancing on the outcroppings thirty feet above the floor…then they'd tell you to get your dumb ass down, but outside of that, I barely saw them. Unless you'd been at the previous year's convention, you can't believe what a relief that was. It's true enough that Staff Pro was the biggest problem of last year's con, and their removal was in everyone's best interests. The only Staff Pro that I saw were those like the lady who was checking in bags…those doing some of the tedious extra work that the convention didn't need their own staff concentrating on; so they farmed it out. And those people were quite nice and professional too, but they were also not people that were just literally picked up off the street and told they didn't have a dick either.

So meandering around, I found myself in the dealer's hall…which was enormous. There was one table devoted to nothing but Transformers, and it was there that on the last day I wound up acquiring something I've been wanting for 22 years: A G1 Omega Supreme. I wanted everything at that table, but I didn't have a couple grand to just drop there, so I had to make due with just that. Damnit.

There were other treasures to be had. Take for example Suiseiseki and Suigintou here. They were both so cute that I wound up taking pics of them separately here and here. Truthfully, Suigintou had the look and the feel down…I just wanted to take her home.

I've got to stop saying such things before someone realizes who I am and starts screaming as I come near.

I also ran into these two which I'm fairly sure were the cosplayers who were in this hilarious skit at the Masquerade. This one sticks out in my mind, not just because Fate – Stay/Night is one of my favorite anime stories (despite all attempts by AIC to kill it) but because this skit is so in character for both the persons they are portraying here. You just know Shirou would do this…you KNOW he would.

Here's a Reverie Metherlence from a somewhat obscure RPG type anime called Elemental Gelade. I mention this one as I enjoyed the story, despite its obvious RPG cheese factor at many points, and this girl said I was the first to know who she was. When that happens it reminds me I'm not the only one that hasn't seen all the anime out there too. However, it also seems I tend to gravitate to the more and more obscure now adays. I wonder if this is similar to me going to less mainstream comics and such anymore. I'll have to examine that more.

The guy who cosplays many of the Sentai characters showed up as well. In this pic he's with another guy who I think was cosplaying the Green Ranger last year. I like this picture as shows both of the more well known ranger portrayals of Jason David Frank; probably the guy who's been on the Power Rangers longest.

I was wandering around, here and there, to and fro, in and out…you get the idea, when I came across these two and I realized that…I had run out of cards. They made me promise that if I saw them again, that I should give them one. The following day I found them in roughly the same place, just outside that icky convention diner, and gave them one. Heh, I hope they liked it.

Shortly after that I came across a cosplay group for Higurashi that I spent some time with. You can find their pics on this page and continuing on to the next. One of the pics I took was more me taking a picture of someone else taking a picture…which turned out to be far more badass. I wish I could have gotten this one too.

It was getting close to the time for the Battle of the Bands, which meant it was time to go collect my camera and tripod from the good people at the baggage check-in station, and get over to that event. Last year, I’m told, was nowhere near like this…the line was actually outside the building and wrapped around the enormous dais outside. I wasn't about to take my camera out with all my gear on me, but trust me…it was large. Thing was, I needed to find someone in charge in order to get in and set up before the event started. During my search, I found a cute young lady who was in the same boat as myself and who wound up accompanying me on my search. We finally found someone in charge who wound up calling the AX Press coordinator himself, who then asked us, "Didn't you guys get passes this morning?" To which I replied, "I asked. They said we didn't need any for this one." He just rolled his eyes and waved us in.

Now look, I'm not saying Anime Expo's press department suffers from outright incompetence, but it does suffer a lack of internal communication and representation at events. Seriously, there was a pass for this, and we had a member tell us there wasn't? No, that's very bad right there. Also, at major events, there should be at least one prominent member of the press department there, they should be easy to find (ie. Not hiding, the rest of the staff knows who/where they are, etc), and they should have the typical questions to be asked already planned out. You know, where we can go, and what precisely we can do where we're at, and what's the backup…can we do this, etc, etc. It's something they should really look into, because outside of the coordinator at this event…the Press staff was MIA for everything else I was at, or at the very least, was certainly hiding. Maybe I should ask Dom from Megatokyo what's going on…he works for the AX Press department.

Thus, with the lack of anyone tell me or anyone else what to do; I wound up setting up my camera next to the stage. I even asked the operators, "I in your way?" To who which they replied, "Go for it." Heh, even the cute press girl came up to me and asked if they had given us any spots for press. I just said, "I say sit wherever you want. No one is telling us what to do, so might as well just find the perfect spot." Which she did, or at least, I hope she found where she decided to sit perfect.

Vic Mignogna, of 'Full Metal Alchemist' fame, was to be the MC of The Battle of the Bands, and he was walking around with several of the coordinators of the event before hand. I heard as he was walking by that people were going to need to be informed that two of the bands, "GagaalinG" and "LM.C.", were not to be filmed since they were pros and such. So I asked when they were playing. Before and after, he told me, which was accurate. This is why you'll not see either band on video I recorded and torrented out via Nyaa Torrents. On that subject, if the torrent is dead and you need a seed, just drop by our boards and tell us.

The event itself was awesome. First band up was "GagaalinG" (and no, neither of the pros were participating, heh). I was not a fan of either of the two pro bands, but I'll admit, they rocked the house down with what amounted to straight out mini concerts. About twenty to thirty minutes for each to belt out a few songs for all our enjoyment, heh. The bands this year were returning champions "Broken Lane" whose lead singer most will recognize as Jose Sanchez from the past couple years at AX Idol, "Fire Riser," "The Black Crystals," and "The Ownage."

Rather than having a semi professional set of judges, Vic picked out several members of the audience to come up and judge the competition. I think he got one more than he wanted, but it worked out. He also spiced up the event by singing, sharing his Real Fans of Genius in which he teamed with Steve Blum in these Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" parodies, and his World of Warcraft commercial during the intermission points between bands.

The bands themselves were all quite decent, and I have no complaints about any of them, though I wish I had better sound recording capabilities. Sure, I can record 5.1 with my mic, but I really wish I could get better sound recording equipment for these events so people can hear it as I do. "Broken Lane" more than defended their title in my opinion, though for shear imagination I'd have to give that to "The Ownage" which was a two man band, one guitarist and one mixer, of which only the guitarist could only make it on stage himself. Still, if nothing else, Jose Sanchez gets props for his diving after his mic when he dropped it and busting his lip open, heh.

After all was said and done, "LM.C." popped in to rock the place to the ground, and whom, in my humble opinion, did so far more than GagaalinG did. They pulled the audience right to the stage and had us in a mosh pit just rocking out right there. The only real complaint I have is that the Anime Expo staff then abandoned their posts it seems, because damn near everyone who had them, pulled out their cameras and recorded this band's performance in a fanboy version of "I Shot That." They didn't seem to mind it one bit, however, and this rather torques me off too. Not that they didn't mind it, but that Anime Expo doesn't bother to ask if the bands mind it…only that pros don't get recorded. Period. They need to work on this policy, and if they're actually going to say something like that, they also need to stick around to enforce it. The first part of that though is making sure that the guests don't want to be recorded, THEN informing people, THEN enforcing it. Failure at any of those three steps is ludicrous, and shows a serious lack of respect for both the fans and the guests.

Standing up for hours at a time without really moving is somewhat taxing and it was a relief to finally sit down. Still, there were things to do, like the dance, which actually started on Day 0. We paid it a short visit, even taking a couple of pics which you can see here and here…that second one being an experiment in iso and shutter speed settings.

This was a long fun day, but we still had three more to go, and I'm not as young as I used to be. That means I can't not sleep for that time anymore…in fact I don't think most of those I was with could do that anymore, heh. So we all loaded up into the bus and headed back to the hotel room to rest up and plot the next day out.

Day 2

Many of you might be wondering why I didn’t mention the Pop Shock Masquerade that I attended the previous day. I would really like to say something about it, but to be honest; it was just too damn small. It had, maybe ten participants in a room that was reasonably filled and several cameramen. That means everyone won something, and to be honest, most wound up winning a few times. I actually felt sorry for them since all the attendees looked so damn good in their costumes, but there just wasn’t that much participation this time around.

I swear I’m getting too old for this shit. Of course, going by that logic, I’ve always been too old for this shit since I’ve always enjoyed sleeping for twelve hours a time, heh. So getting up in around six to seven (if I’m lucky) hours after staying up late in a day with a massive amount of activity…it’s no wonder you actually start seeing shit there at the end. Still, had to check in at the press area, see if anything had changed or needed to be disseminated. Fortunately it looked to be a straight forward day, just the Chibi Masquerade and AX Idol to film; watch the news for when I have them available for download. This left the rest of the day to wander around, meet people, and take pictures, possibly buy some stuff, watch some anime, and generally just goof off.

As I may have stated before, I very much enjoy coming across cosplayers of obscure series or games that I’ve watched/played before. A perfect example of this is Princess Alena from Dragon Warrior (Quest) 4. She stated I was the only one who knew who she was so far; hopefully that will change now that Dragon Quest 4 has been re-released on the Nintendo DS. It's a good game, and I recommend it highly…though I really want to play it on my big screen TV. Also, while not obscure, I don't recall seeing too many Kenshiro's from Fist of the North Star, or any of that series' characters for that matter. Certainly I've never seen one this good, as this guy went all out to look as much like Kenshiro as he possibly could.

You really never know what you're going to come across, which is part of the fun at these conventions. Sometimes you see people you swear you've seen at other conventions like this adorable little Chi cosplayer who I think I saw at Fanime this year. Others you know you've never seen, but then they have special requests, like this girl here. She asked if I could take a picture of her and all her friends…and the answer to such things will always be, at least if I'm doing it, yes, I will do that. I hope you all enjoyed it too, heh.

While beautiful girls dressing up in gorgeous outfits has become far more prevalent, I'm beginning to see a lot more guys trying to go as far out into it as girls often do. Truthfully it's easier for girls for the most part; there is a reason they're called the fairer sex…they are. Still, I'm seeing more and more of those that fit their characters more and more…such as these Elite Beat Agents. I don't think these guys got more than two steps at a time before they were photographed again and again.

Also, for those that were wondering why I managed to get the AX pics up so fast, you can blame these two. They looked at me with those ultra adorable eyes, that are in fact lethal weapons, and stated they'd waited so long for the pics from Fanime (which were up by that time, though it did take me a month). Okay girls, you win…I'll get the pics up after the con as fast as I can from now on. Just please don't cry…I'll fall over dead if you do that.

There were some extremely high quality Odin Sphere cosplayers this year, as you can see from Gwendolyne and Velvet here. As good as these two were, there was a group that was beyond fantastic the following day, but I'll talk more about them when I get to that point. Suffice it to say that Odin Sphere is a great game, and it is certainly reflected in the love and quality of the cosplayers shown this year in every convention I went to.

I've only seen her once before…well, twice if you count my somewhat inebriated state, but I believe I ran into last year's AX Idol winner, Nicole Dixon who seemed to be talking with last year's AX Idol's winner of the VA portion. Honestly I should have made sure, but there's that problem I have with such things…I don't like to be too much of a bother. Really, I NEED to be a bother sometimes, even if it's just to say, "Hey, you're so-and-so, right?" Yeesh.

Another pleasant surprise was running into the coordinator of the Transformers Lolita cosplay even at Fanime. I'm not quite sure who she was cosplaying this time, but as I stated in the Fanime report, she was cosplaying Optimus Prime there. She wasn't able to do much more than say, "Hey, I remember you!" during this time because so many people were lined up to take her pic, and for good reason, as awesome as she looked here, heh. I wish I could have spent some time with her…I had many questions to ask, and my Transformer fandom would have spurred me on despite my usual reluctance to bother cosplayers overly much.

Afterwards the hits just kept on coming. Pegasus Maiden was there in her Judy Hagstrom outfit that she wore at Fanime. It's a great pose and outfit, and I think her a lot for it. Also with her was this pretty lady who I think was cosplaying someone else from War of Genesis, but I can't seem to find out who. This one was funny in that she was originally wearing that coat buttoned up, but complained she was getting too hot…so Pegasus Maiden started unbuttoning it in the front for her. I actually had to walk away for a moment, as I was getting a little embarrassed watching that…yes, I know my mind is constantly in the gutter. I came back and took that pic after they were done, heh.

Originally the Chibi Masquerade was only a backup plan in case I had nothing to do. Oddly, I found myself in just such a predicament, and since I'd actually tried getting in to watch it for several years now, I figured I might as well attend it…and film it. It was an amusing little gathering and was basically there for anyone who wanted to get up and show their stuff, even peform a little skit if they wanted, without any pressure to 'win' or 'perform.' I came in and asked where I could set up my camera gear, but the coordinator had not been expecting anyone from the press who wanted to film it. Thus, he had no place set aside for me, but stated I could set up over in the side aisle. Not to big a problem at first…until it really got into the swing of things. I had far too many people coming in and kicking my tripod…which was nothing too major, but when I put that video up, it's going to annoy me to no end that happened.

It was off to the AX Idol contest after this. I can't stress enough how much better it was this year for just about anyone. They opened seating about two hours before the major events which gave people plenty of time to filter in. On the way there, I stopped and took part in the Vampire Knight photo shoot (continues on to the next page). I don't really find myself drawn to Vampire Knight as a story, as I don't find the premise even unbelievably believable. Still, it has quite the following all things considered, and it was fun to share in these cosplayer's enthusiasm.

Before I begin talking about the Idol contest, it has been noted to me that Bang Zoom hasn't really been judging this event in this manner the entire time. The first couples of contests weren't even sponsored by Bang Zoom directly, and had the audience voting for who their idols were to be. This is true, but it's still been three years since they started this format, and it's still more than painfully obvious where their biases lay. So guys, again…don't bother even showing up. It'll do you no good. You could probably be Peter Cullen himself and still not win, if you get what I'm saying there.

Because I was press, there was a temporary mix up on where I was supposed to enter the building from. Originally they sent me behind the building to enter from the back. When I got to the back, the personnel there told me something was wrong, since they were only supposed to let people in with certain types of AX staff badges. After about fifteen minutes, for which I was thankful that I came almost an hour and a half early, they apologized for their mistake and sent me to the front. On my way in, I met up with most of Broken Lane who were sort of abandoned there on the side of the building as they'd won the Battle of the Bands and were promised great seating for all further main events. I talked with them a bit; all of us joking about the lack of communication we were noticing from those at Anime Expo's decision making level, but eventually I had to head on in and get set up. I was told later that they were eventually shown in and got the seats they were promised, so all was well.

Yet again, there was no press coordinator there to tell those of us with cameras and video cameras where to go or what to do. And so again, we all just said, "Fuck it!" and set up where we did before during opening ceremonies. It amuses me to no end that the press situation worked more in spite of the leadership than because of it during the MAIN EVENTS where you'd think they'd have someone up high working there.

The event itself was a lot of fun. Vic Mignogna and Jonathon Meza were the MC's and did a stellar job taking over for Johnny Young Bosch who had done it the past couple years. That bastard Vic is also a chick magnet, so watching the girls swoon over him was both amusing and generated a considerable amount of envy among those of us who tend to repel girls by the score. Ah well, you learn to live with it; if a little painfully…so it truly was more amusing than anything else. Shoko-tan showed up as one of the guest judges, which was a real treat. I'm very glad no one decided to come up and sing at the end of it impromptu like last time so I didn't have to deal with another questionable fun nazi…whom I would have fought this time.

I often wonder about the judges though. Their pics would not have been mine by any stretch of the imagination. The winner of the singing portion was Pamela Moss with her rendition of "Kouga Ninpou Chou" and the winner of the VA portion was Caitlin Chang who voiced the character Yoko Ritona from Gurren Laggan. Okay, let me clarify, the VA portion was a toss up between Caitlin and Kevin Lunt who performed a DAMN good young boy voice of Simon from Gurren Laggan. At least in my book it was. Caitlin was a good vocal fit, exception even, for Yoko, but Simon was truly voice acting there and did an impressive job at it. Pamela Moss was…okay, but not the best singer there, not even the best songstress. The best female singer there was the one who came before her, in my opinion, who was Traci Hines and her rendition "Endless Story". She was so good she had the audience pulling out lighters (well, cell phones and glow sticks, heh) and waving them up in the air back and forth. The best singer all around was the final singer, Lawson Tatum and his rendition of "Rain" who is all the more impressive because he apparently didn't do any rehearsal before hand. Problem was, he's a guy…and you know he can't win in this competition.

Bang Zoom has a problem. As a guy you won't win in their competition; that much is certain at this point. However, they cannot just arbitrarily pick guys after being called on it, because…what happens if the girls are actually better that time around? Honestly, they need to split up the competition between the sexes because they cannot be trusted to judge fairly between them.

Filing out was a slow process, but nothing terribly major. Unlike last year where we had the fuckers from Staff Pro trying to rail road everyone out (God help you if you needed to piss there at the end of an event in '07), there was none of that from the Nokia Theatre employees. They just made sure that people weren't getting held up and that traffic in and of itself flowed smoothly.

Outside, I found a Senshi cosplay group who were having a blast taking pics with everyone in sight (continues on to the next page). This is not something I see often, so I took several shots, and even joined them for one. There were a number of other cosplayers out there as well, which was a great deal of fun, and let me fully test my camera's capabilities in darkness.

It was the end of day two however, and I needed to bail back to the hotel. Rest, food, and showers were needed…possibly in that order. For the following day was going to be the Masquerade, and that one was always one helluva doozy on the body.

Day 3

There were three events I really wanted to go to this day. Well, four if you count the whole Gotham Knights thing. There were…complications however, which is pretty usual when it comes to Anime Expo. I was going to the Masquerade; there was no doubt about that, which meant that the Last Comic Standing event was not going to be viable. There was the POSSIBLE Rozen Maiden gathering, but I knew that was unlikely; though I did try to help the guy coordinating it a bit, eventually to no avail. Oddly, I wasn't all that interested in the Gotham Knights QA, since Batman had been getting on my nerves in recent months, as had most of main stream super heroes. So I later wound up giving up my place in line to someone who did want to go. All in all, this day wasn't going to be too intense, outside of the lack of motion for about four hours during the AX Masquerade.

Today is the f'n day that they decided to start enforcing the badge thing on the buses which really hurt some people. Not unrecoverably, but I'll be damned if it wasn't something that people could have REALLY done without having to deal with. Also if anyone can find the news item where AX stated anyone around the hotel block could use the buses, I'll be most grateful (and post it here, heh).

So, with the game plan set, it was off to see what there was to see…and taking pictures of it. I say again, you never know what you're going to come across. Take for example this cosplay of The Bride from Kill Bill. You'd think a girl like that would be tall, but she's actually shorter than me, and attached, so there wasn't much I could do outside of taking her picture, heh.

There was also supposed to be a Lolita gathering in one of the conference rooms, which is why you had a group of them wandering around. There seemed to be a bit of a mixup in where they were supposed to go, so I don't think they made it. On the other hand, for the final day of the con, they were going to have a picnic, and I spent some time there just photographing them.

I may have stated this before, but it bears repeating: Higurashi is a series that is pure Nightmare Fuel Unleaded and yet, I find myself watching every moment of it. There's a certain…exploration of that very dark evil thing inside us all I find somewhat appealing, even despite the fact that I tend to curl up in horror and need a hug after watching certain eps. And yes, I do mean THAT one in particular for those who've seen it. So I have to admit, I find something both amusing and disturbing about a Rena cosplayer who is dual wielding those machetes on crack that she has in the series. I wish she could have been in the mini gathering I attended a couple days previous…that would have been a fun addition to the shoot, heh.

Lucky Star was a series I actually stopped watching in the fansub stage and waited for the DVDs to come out here. I only do that with series I really like, including, but not limited to, Higurashi, AIR, and Azumanga Daioh. And if that's not a barrage of imagery, I don't know what is. I only mention this, because I ran into this Akira Kogami in the dealer's hall who was a booth babe as I recall. You must understand that Akira, in the anime, is an underage idol starlet who has been noted to complain about many things, at one point even noting she still has her pedophiles when another character has their psychos. This becomes relevant because I know this young woman is cosplaying an underage idol, but I'll be damned if she didn't look good doing it. Makes one feel rather odd about the whole situation.

I'm also a major sucker for pretty smile, and this lady, beyond being a stunning woman and cosplayer of Ariel from The Little Mermaid has a blindingly true smile which she readily shared with everyone. I love seeing things like this, because it means fun is being had by all.

Among the most obscure series that I've followed, Demonbane happens to be up there close to the top. I don't actually expect it to ever have a domestic release, so it will likely remain in obscurity here in the US pretty much forever. Surprisingly though, I found not only this Master Therion and Lady Etheldreda from the series, but the first day I saw an Al Azif running around with a box bigger than her…which is why I didn't get a picture. Had she stopped…she would have dropped it, heh.

I was also rather relieved that my previous fear that I'd not see too many Rozen Maiden cosplayers was unfounded as I wound up catching a minigathering with these four which included two that I thought I'd never see again: Barasuisho and Kirakishou.

About this time I found myself meandering through the dealer's hall and came across these two cosplayers which hail from the game Final Fantasy 11. Right as I was about to take their picture, I had two assholes who had no business being at this con getting in the way and wanting to take their picture with them. Worse, they asked to use the camera the girls themselves brought with them which I and several others around called them on rather abruptly. "Oh, we're not anime fans, we're just here to pick up hot chicks," was their response. The curt dismissal they received from these two hot chicks was priceless (though slightly disappointing since they still got their pic…I hope it was deleted), and we finally got down to the more serious business of why we were here. Still, all I could think of was, "Weren't these fuckers left back in High School?" Look, I'm all for anyone who wants to hook up with girls or guys at these cons, and even hit on cosplayers if that's their thing (or in some cases, get hit on BY cosplayers, heh), but there are certain rules you do that by and these two rejects broke them all. I wonder if they were the cause of the disturbance that got the security guys all riled up shortly after?

The previous day, I mentioned some high quality Odin Sphere cosplayers right? Well, this is the point and time I finally came across them (continues on to the next page) while I was heading to the Nokia Theatre for the Masquerade. These ladies were well beyond excellent, going well above and beyond to look as much like their characters as they could. In fact, this is EXACTLY what these characters would look like if they jumped off the screen and into your home. From the darkly beautiful queen of the underworld Odette to the stunningly beautiful Valkyrie princess Gwendolyn to the heart achingly beautiful princess of Valentine, Velvet and her bishounen brother the Prince Ingway and finally the ultra adorable princess and then queen of the faeries, Mercedes. Course if you think that Mercedes is cute, you should see the one that was in the Masquerade skit; I'm absolutely certain I needed resuscitation after she killed me via diabetic shock.

Heh, and around these girls was hovering a guy with some camera gear that was obviously either related to or going out with one of these girls and who kept giving me the evil eye. I don't really blame him all things considered, but dude, seriously, it's not worth getting kicked out of the con over. Those girls were out there to get their pictures taken and talk to people; you only intervene if one of them is in danger when some jerkfuck takes it too far, and at that point you're more than justified. 'Til then, fuck off. Most of us are too damn shy to do much more than trade a couple words with them anyway. I mean seriously, the woman cosplaying Velvet for example, is a billion lightyears out of my league. There's no way a girl like that would give a guy like me the time of day if she weren't there to get her picture taken. A guy can dream…but let's be honest, shall we? I would like nothing more than to find a girl who looks THAT good, is great, nice, talented, and who actually loves me without...well I'll stop there. All I know is that girl, in any form, does not exist…not for a guy like me, and I've enough object lessons drilled into me to finally get that. I’ve accepted this, but what saddens me most about the situation is that I’m not even close to being the only one in this Hell.

Having already gone through it with the Idol contest, and with the staff now properly briefed, I was directed to the last of about nine lines to get into the Nokia theatre which was reserved for us press guys. Mostly so they don't flip out about my tripod, all my camera gear, etc, etc. As before, I found many of the same guys in the same place, ready to record it. This time none of us even bothered to think about looking for the coordinator, we just set up where we did before and let the chips fall where they may. Before I'd gone to the Press Office of Anime Expo, but they were most unhelpful when asked if there would be some place reserved where we'd be able to set up camera gear. I actually feel worse for the guys from the press who decided to do it back stage. Depending on where the cosplayers exited, they'd not be able to get a few of them. You could only take pics on the side you stationed yourself at; so you'd need at least two people; God help you if you were solo like me and many others.

The Masquerade itself was…flawless. I’ve never seen an Anime Expo Masquerade run quite so smoothly. You can find a torrent for it here at Nyaa Torrents (and if there's no seeds, tell me and I'll reseed). Or, if you want to see it online, American Cosplay Paradise has it available for streaming. I expect this had a lot to do with the fact they seemed to have given themselves and everyone else more time to compensate for all the things that could and did go wrong. Also it probably helped that a larger number than usual skits were canceled for various reasons, including one group that got into a car accident. Fortunately no one was hurt, but there you have it. The only real complaint I had was with my camera and its method of recording. However, that's no one's problem but mine. As for the overall quality, it was quite high, with a couple of memorable ones being the Fate/Stay Night and Odin Sphere ones that I had previously linked…mostly due to my love for that series and game. The halftime show was amazing, featuring a full on drum line that I wished I could get more of with my camera, but suffice it to say, it was awesome.

After the Masquerade there is usually some picture taking of the contestants that goes on outside, but I didn't see very much of that. I'm uncertain why, but I think it was just because of where they exited, which was in the back, and most seemed kinda tired, which was fine. I still got a few pics you can see here at the bottom of this page, starting with that awesome Gally.

Originally I was going to just head back to the hotel, but Gensao and Peo wanted to go check out the Anime Gong Show that was starting about this time. Hell that sounded like fun, so off we went. The idea behind this contest is to sing enough to suck, but not bad enough to get yourself gonged off. In other words, to suck enough to still be entertaining. The Judges also heap upon you a fuck ton of abuse as they describe your performance, and that's where the real entertainment is. For the most part that's what happened, although we had one judge that was just not really able to pull off her role very well. I also have to admit, I wound up coming up with some jokes when the judges seemed to falter there at towards the time when we were getting ready to go. Take the girl dressed as the Idol Master cosplay. I wanted to say, "I honestly couldn't hear a word you were singing. The dark voices in my head were screaming, 'Kill the hot girl's boyfriend, and take her! Take her right now there on the stage in front of everyone and use her to fill the world with your dark brood! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!' On that note, if you're ever looking for another boyfriend, give me a call." Then there was that bishounen that well, I would have said something like, "You give fellacio to sucking, and that turns me right on. Worse, the dark voices in my head were screaming to do you like the Idol Master girl awhile back. And for the final indignity, I am seriously of the opinion it wouldn't even be considered yaoi in your case."

I think it's safe to say I'm one sick fuck.

Day 4

Final day. Don't have to carry around a tripod or video gear at all. Blessed sweet relief, I wish I had a Haruhi girls pillow like a certain hotel roommate of mine who shall remain anonymous (heh) so I could cuddle it. Yes, yes, I know, I know…sick fuck.

You know, for a guy who doesn't like the series in and of itself, I somehow always manage to get to the Sailor Moon cosplay gathering (continues to page 39). I often find it hard to hand cards out at gatherings of this size. There are too many people wanting to take pictures and I just plain flat out don't have enough cards. Though occasionally I can give out a few cards, like the one I gave to this adorable Sailor Mercury cosplayer. I hope she and everyone else there who managed to find my site enjoyed their pics.

It was also the day for the Lolita gathering, and I was looking forward to that after missing it at Fanime. Well, the pics actually start here on the bottom corner of page 39, and continue on to page 43. I and another photographer spent a lot of time with these girls, and it amazes me just how they just didn't really acknowledge anyone on the outside looking in. It really did remind me of a Discovery Channel special at points where a guy looks in on a separate microcosm, while they are completely oblivious to the researcher's gaze. If one were to be going for their sociological doctorate and basing it on otaku culture, one could devote a few pages to this.

Also ran into the lovely Pegasus Maiden showing off one of her more recent creations. I'm told on good authority that this one of a kind item has been purchased as well, so I expect it'll show up in a photoshoot on the EGL forums in short order, heh.

Into the dealer's hall I went to make purchase of some DVDs (Gurren Laggan and Lucky Star to be precise), marvel at how Funimation had acquired both Geneon's unreleased catalog and the previous day managed to get some of ADV's stuff when their parent company cut them loose, get Omega Supreme, get my commissioned artwork from David Wong, and get something pretty from John Medeiros Jr. It was that day, after all, when prices come down and I might actually keep from bankrupting myself…even though I did wish I had about a grand to blow at the table with all the Transformers. John Medeiros Jr. is a staple at most conventions around the country and his art is top notch. I bought from him a 'fixed' chalk rendering of Suigintou which is so beautiful I'm going to be framing it…when I find an appropriately sized frame I like for it.

I also managed to photograph the girl you may have seen in some of the online youtube promos for Anime Expo. Here she is in her Kan'u Unchou from Ikkitousen cosplay. She even has that weapon of hers signed. Sorry boys, she's taken too, hehehehe.

It was getting towards the end, and we were all getting a little tired. Still, for one of the last few photos I took, this set of Senshi cosplayers on page 44 and continuing on to page 45, I gotta admit, these girls were stellar. Talked with the Venus cosplayer a bit, mostly about the costume, how long it took to make, etc, etc. There was actually a professional taking pics as well, so we often had to work with and around him, but it was all good, and no one got in the way of the pro that I saw. All in all, a perfect ending to a fun convention. So with that, we said our goodbyes, loaded our booty up, and took off back to San Diego. Navaash was going to stay one more day to rest and hang out, but eventually I'd have to say my goodbyes with him too, at least for another year.

Anime Expo this year was actually a fun convention. Trolling the boards, it seems most agree. There were some problems with the staff and peace bonding, as the staff were total psychopaths about that. There was also that entire bus thing, and the hotels being as far as they were, but overall...nothing major or deal breaking. I saw a lot, did a lot, and despite the lack of press coordination, filmed a lot. Honestly, if the press continues like this, I won't mind, but only because the coordinators stayed out of our way and never made themselves known to us. We did what we did, we didn't hurt or interrupt anyone or anything, and we got the job done. They're making a trolley stop there which will take you to Little Tokyo for food, a food court for real food, and some hotels are under construction around the area. Honestly, this place is looking to be quite awesome, especially with the Nokia Theatre there. I can actually recommend this convention again. They shaped up and actually made this thing work. They need to address their problems and lessons learned, but when doesn't any convention. Also certain staff members need to just sit down and relax for awhile...there was no need to spaz out...it's all cool. Still, for the most part, they did their jobs and were invisible otherwise, and their counterparts in the Convention Center Staff were even more so in this regard. They let the con ops guys handle the con, and only intervened if the convention center itself was impacted...like when idiots start climbing the rafters and such.

I'm glad I went this year, and am looking forward to next year. And to be honest, I'm surprised I am saying that given the declining quality for the longest time. Good job guys. Let's give it the same and better next year!