By MisledYouth 1 year, 6 months ago
The drive from San Diego to Los Angeles always seems long. Especially on a Friday morning when there is a lot of traffic. Add on top of that the lack of sleep and loads of caffeine and you pretty much have a recipe for disaster. But not on this particular day or drive, because it was the day we were headed for Anime Expo.
Two friends of mine, both first timers at AX, and myself arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center rather late that Friday (roughly 12:00 P.M.). When we parked and got out of the car, we looked over to our left only to see Link from The Legend of Zelda sheathing his sword and grabbing his supplies. Immediately we knew there was going to be a lot of fun to be had over the next two days. So we began making our way to the registration area to pick up our badges. The line at the registration area was moderately long; luckily, it was moving rather fast and we received our badges in less than 10 minutes. While waiting in line and scoping out other people, I created my action plan for AX and it was very simple: take as many pictures as I possibly can.
Before making my way to the exhibit hall, I hung around the main lobby hoping to catch some awesome cosplayers posing for photos. Low and behold, there were too many to count! The first ones to spark my interest though were the FMA crew who were portraying Riza Hawkeye, Col. Roy Mustang, and Maes Hughes. Then I turned my attention to some cuties with brightly colored hair. Now don’t judge me for not knowing all the anime and mangas out there, but I believe these girls were portraying characters from Macross Frontier series (I had to do some research, I didn’t know who they were at the time).
I realized my friends had wandered off on their own, which came as no surprise because there was so much to see. So I made my way to the exhibit hall only to encounter millions of people everywhere (a slight exaggeration). As I was making my way down one of the halls, I encountered an enthusiastic Maes Hughes who wanted to show me a picture of his little girl. After parting ways, I began making my way towards the Bandai booth where people were looking at Gundam figures on display. I’ve never been a Gundam fan, but some of these figures were very epic! I kind of wish I had a million dollars so I could buy them all and put them in my room.
One of the best parts about AX is always the Artist Alley. It brings together independent artists to showcase and sell their work to the public. One of my favorite booths that day was that of Ami Amour and her “Cute Crochet Creatures”. She was a very sweet lady and allowed me to take a few pictures of her work. On display were a lot of interesting and kawaii (cute) animals and objects that she had created through the art of crocheting. My favorite was the Kon (*Bleach*) figure and the little Super Mario Mushrooms.
My phone began to ring at that moment; it was my friends and they wanted me to meet them so we could watch some Love Hina in one of the many rooms that they were showing anime. As I made my way towards the doors of the exhibit hall, I ran into a Stormtrooper. But this wasn’t any ordinary Stormtrooper, this was one with a yellow ribbon tied around his helmet and a red armband that read ‘Brigade Leader’ in Japanese. Haruhi Suzumiya anyone?
After meeting up with my friends and watching Love Hina for almost two hours, I went back to the lobby area to take more pictures. I spotted a very cute Yui from K-On! complete with her Gibson Les Paul; although she didn’t look too happy having to carry that heavy guitar around (lol). I kept on walking around trying to look for cosplayers that interested me, when suddenly I spotted 4 guys in blue uniforms. I approached them only to gasp in astonishment; it was 4 soldiers from the Valkyrie Chronicles series. I praised these guys for their magnificent cosplaying and told them to keep up the good fight ‘for Gallia!’
It was now 6:00 PM and I was starting to get hungry. My friends met me outside the convention center and we began making our way up South Figueroa Street. We made our way to the Nokia Plaza when out of nowhere a guy says to me, “Free Beer” and he immediately has my attention. At first I thought he was just messing with us, but the guy handed my friends and I a sticker that read ‘I <3 Ani.me’ and said we could use it to redeem a free beer at the bar. So we knew we couldn’t pass up an offer for free stuff. We got our beers, drank, talked and I kept on taking pictures. And thus ended our first day at Anime Expo 2010.
For more pictures of our first day, visit my Facebook here.
Anime Expo 2010 Friday (Part 1) is here.
Anime Expo 2010 Friday (Part 2) is here.
link a girl, nice, but not cool
bleachfreak73
7 months, 2 weeks agointeresting pics, nice costumes, and Kon that was knitted ok