Mer at AX09
Jul. 13th, 2009 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteTyped the first few paragraphs last week and then procrastinated to all hell for posting this. Oooops.
Ah, back from Anime Expo. Actually, I got back late on Sunday night, but yesterday I was so exhausted that I ended up taking Monday off work and sleeping a lot. When I didn't sleep, I played my newest acquisition: Final Fantasy Anthologies, featuring FF5 and FF6, neither of which I've ever beaten. It's making me nostalgic!
I probably should have posted entries each night after I came back, but I was usually so exhausted from volunteering that I didn't. I did do some Live Tweeting though, so I'll touch on a few of the things I mentioned then.
First off, I went to AX with Adam, a guy I actually met online via the website OKCupid.com (And while it may be a "dating website," that's not the original reason why I signed up there. It IS possible to meet people without wanting to date them right off the bat, and that's almost always the case with me). He ended up introducing me to GamingDead.com, where I'm now an Associate Editor (!), and since he'd previously been to AX and was planning on going and volunteering again this year, he invited me along for the ride.
For Day Zero, the volunteer room was surprisingly packed. We had an orientation and attempted to knock some hours off volunteering.
Adam and I started out our volunteering doing "packet stuffing" behind the registration area. What this entailed was putting postcards and flyers into the program guide and then into the goodie bags that would be given out after people got their badges at registration. Adam and I ended up working at a table with a bigoted so-called orthodox Jewish girl and a happy go-lucky guy who didn't know the meaning of "personal space."
I say "bigoted so-called" because this girl
a) opposed gay marriage because someone made a really good argument against it that she couldn't remember, but she agreed with them completely
b) said that if gay people were allowed to marry, then the next logical step would be people marrying animals. Namely sheep. (I shit you not.)
c) said she never breaks the Sabbath...except for Anime Expo. Because really, God's an anime fan, too. He doesn't mind. Riiiiiiight.
Needless to say, I tried to avoid them both like the plague after that. Adam and I were shooting each other so many "She did NOT just say that" looks while packet stuffing that I about exploded. With laughter or righteous anger, I'm not sure, but I would have exploded had doing the same thing repeatedly (and getting loads of paper cuts) not calmed me down. Somehow, though, it was tiring. We played a game about naming states/countries/cities (and later, anime titles/characters, which was my idea) that started with the last letter of whatever the previous person had said, but some people just couldn't have fun with it....
When we tried to register later, or at least get our volunteer badges, we discovered that we couldn't get our official volunteer badges until we had our actual all-con registration badges...and registration was closed already! The line had been too crazy to attempt when we first got there (we should have gotten it while we were packet stuffing, we were so close). It was interesting how there were already cosplayers and people there on Day Zero, even though there wasn't really anything to do.
There was also the startling revelation that for my food refund (because supposedly none of them menu options were pork/ham-free), I'd have to wait until THE END OF THE CON. Adam was super-nice and bought stuff for us both at Trader Joe's, but we also discovered that technically, we weren't supposed to have outside food in the convention center, and to top it off, even if we did sneak some past, they certainly didn't have a microwave we could use to heat up our pasta. Needless to say, I was a bit peeved, since they were more or less relegating me to STARVE while working my tail off to earn my 22 hours or $65 all-con badge. (I was basically working for $2.95/hour. Geez, that sucks in ANY state, let alone California!)
But as it turned out, the meal options were better than expected: turkey sandwiches! They weren't half-bad, but I'll take my campus' Subway sandwiches over the Gordon Biersch ones any day of the week.
Day One, I didn't cosplay, but I tried to knock off as many volunteer hours as humanly possible. I signed up a little too gung-ho for a shift that ended up as packet stuffing, but thankfully transitioned to "swag bag distribution." At least, that's what I called it. Somehow it devolved into a competition with Bigoted Jewish Girl (BJG), because she kept trying to get into everyone's faces as they were approaching the Swag Bag tables and make sure they got bags from HER table. As if there was any difference....
Me, I was having fun with it all. I adopted a carny (you know, carnival) voice and was giving out the bags like "Swag bags, getcher swag bags here! Come one, come all...everyone's a winner!" People seemed to like it. I tried to switch accents (or use no accent) later, but it was actually kind of hard! I tried to throw in cool comments to people if I recognized their cosplay, though.
I grabbed lunch and then ended up grabbing another shift in registration. But rather than work behind the badge distribution desks (which would have meant blissful sitting down), I ended up standing up and directing people where to go after paying for their registration (assuming they weren't pre-reg).
I was hoping for a shift that didn't involve me standing up and looking stupid the whole time. While I'm sure attendees appreciated being able to look ANYWHERE and see someone in a vest that could feasibly help them out, it felt a bit silly to just be directing people to follow the blue arrows on the floor to get their badge and goodie bag.
I ended up extending my shift so I could work behind the desks, and that was neat for a while, though the lines seemed to really trickle down. I played that same "name an anime title/character" game with two of the other girl volunteers there (needless to say, they were MUCH cooler than BJG), but behind the desks, it was a bit difficult to do much. Even the computers were so pared down, there was no Minesweeper! Thankfully, they brought us dinner: pasta with an apple cobbler. The sauce was meatless, which is what I guess made it "vegetarian." It was pretty tasty, although the oil from the pasta ended up on the bottom layer of my apple cobbler and made it taste a bit weird.
They closed registration early and sent us volunteers to do more "cone-guarding" (basically standing in front of a construction cone and smile a lot), and then BOATLOADS of people started to come in! They had to re-open reg, but they didn't ask us go to back behind the desks. Soon enough, we ended up back upstairs, and I was so exhausted! Actually, there wasn't much to do that day besides volunteer.
I did see Helen, though. She was the only person from the San Francisco group that I saw, and since we didn't know each other that well, we only chatted for a bit before she went off to find some other friends.
I had a super-late shift at the arcade with Adam and even got to join in a spontaneous play-through of DDR SuperNova 2, but I never got the chance to play Para Para Paradise 2nd Mix, my favorite Bemani game. There were some SUPERSTARS playing that game, so it being "booked" almost the whole time wasn't surprising....Of course, when it WAS free, I didn't have any money or time. Yeesh.
Day Two, I dared to cosplay as Songstress Yuna. I decided with the weather being as hot as it was, I didn't need to bother with pantyhose, but I ended up regretting it later, because it got DAMN cold at night (for me, anyway). Even though the cosplay's garnered a lot of attention in the past, at AX, I had more people asking me who I was "supposed to be" than people that immediately recognized me and said anything. The only people that DID take my picture needed to know who I was cosplaying first...they didn't know themselves. That's kind of sad...maybe it was my hair? I know it's too long for Yuna, but I didn't have the earring/hair piece for Lenne....
Actually, speaking of the earring, I actually had a young volunteer dare to bitch at me for having it be something I hung off the top of my ear or bobby-pinned into my hair, rather than be an actual earring. "It's supposed to be an earring," she said in this snotty, condescending voice, and I somehow managed a smooth and quick reply of "Maybe, but we don't actually see it attached to her ear in either of the games." Really, we don't. A lock of hair always obscures it! Assuming she is right, it's my fault for not making the earring of something lighter, like balsa wood. In the meantime, I work with what I have to have the most "complete" costume, and I won't make myself uncomfortable in the process. If having more costume and being comfortable means I'm not 100% "accurate," then SO WHAT!? It's my damn costume.
If I do cosplay Yuna in the future, I'll probably try and style my hair better (or get a wig, but that seems a bit crazy to me. Wigs are hard to take care of!), get new sleeves, use fabric tape to get the "arm ribbons" right, and get balsa wood beads for her earring. The skirt and the boots I'm not picky about. I think everyone's permitted SOME creative license with cosplay.
I was playing "Sailor Moon" bingo in my head at the con, trying to see if there were any Sailor Moon cosplayers. I was surprised by how quickly I spotted Sailors Moon, Venus, V (always a favorite; there aren't enough Sailor V cosplayers out there), Mercury, Pluto, Saturn, a Chibiusa, Black Lady, a Tuxedo Mask...I later ended up spotting Sailor Star Mars and Sailor Star Saturn, whose pictures I snapped.
That night was the AMV competition, and thankfully, Adam's friends David and James saved us spots in the line. We got in with no hassle, and while we were heading over there, we saw previews of other cool anime/game music videos...including parts III, IV, and V of Monty Oum's "Dead Fantasy" series, pitting Final Fantasy heroines against Dead or Alive girls! Because it had been so long since the last release, and Monty's work is always top-notch, I was really excited to get inside and see the rest.
Oum revealed LONG versions of all 3 new episodes, and I was so thrilled that a bunch of people recognized it (in retrospect: DUH!) and liked it so much. When the emcee revealed Oum was actually in the audience, I got the idea to interview Oum for GamingDead.com, something I put into motion the next day. (By the way, I have yet to see the three episodes hit the 'Net yet, though the previews from Fanime and Anime Boston are up. Catch them as soon as you see them; they're INCREDIBLE!)
I was exhausted that night, and freezing to boot, so I was very happy to go home. I think the AMV competition was awesome, but hard to choose some of the winners. I did hear a lot of cool music I liked, so my new mission is to find a lot of those tunes!
Day Three I slept in. There wasn't much I wanted to, and after the past two days of working and staying up late, I was grateful for the chance to catch up on my Zs. I had planned to cosplay Anzu at AX no matter what, but my old pair of denim shorts no longer fit comfortably, so I had to go to Old Navy to find a pair. Online, they had lots of them, but when I got to the store, I was told that I had to check the clearance rack and hope for the best! Luckily, after some digging, I found a pair that fit comfortably and was only $10!
I'd contacted Oum through his DeviantART account and left him my cell's text email, and he responded! He told me he'd be in the Artist Alley, so I planned to volunteer a little and make my way over there. The exhibit hall was absolutely ASTOUNDING (in size), though not a lot of the dealers had things I was interested in. The Manga Gamers booth (the pavilion with the cute bishoujo all over it, giving out fans and the like) was a disappointment: total porn. Whatever happened to true visual novels without the sex/romance element? Why does stuff like that always have to denigrate into "pick your favorite girl out of a harem inexplicably interested in you!" Ugh. Plus they had masturbation toys (for both genders!) in there. Amusing, but honestly disgusting to me, at least because it's an anime expo, not a porn expo. Then again, the fan line doth oft blur....
When I made it to the Artist Alley, Oum wasn't easy to find, because the aisles didn't seem to be numbered or lettered in any sensible way. It wasn't as if aisle A was across from Aisle B, or even numbers were on one side and odd on the other. When I did find his table, I was surprised to see it was a plain white table with no crazy decorations, a small sign, and only a few posters of Tifa Lockhart artwork. Actually, Oum himself was checking out the Alley when I came by, so I waited a bit with some guys who were cosplaying as Hollows/Arrancars from Bleach, I think. The guy manning the table was a friend of Oum's, and perhaps the "producer" of the DF series (at least that's what I gleaned while talking to him; he said he knew who I was when I mentioned my name and why I was there).
Soon enough, Oum came back, and after some photos and handshakes with other folks , I got down to the interviewing. I'd plotted 10 or so questions with Adam on the way there, and I figured the answers would be comprehensive enough to make for an interesting interview. You can read the awesome result here. I got to take a picture with Oum too, which bowled me over enough, but he also gave me an autographed poster of Dead Fantasy! I can't wait to find a good frame to put it in and hang it up on my wall.
I went to grab the dinner of the evening, despite my lackluster volunteer hours that day, and the meal was just as bad: Sloppy Joes. Sure, they were beef, but they were SLOPPY. While the previous night, Adam and the guys ended up getting some In-N-Out, I'd declined, out of broke-ness and a general nauseous feeling. But I knew that I'd be hungry because plain ol' Sloppy Joes just didn't do it for me. I took mine to the Fanfiction Panel anyway (with the longest line I'd ever seen for a fic panel in a VERY long time), but I never ended up eating it, for fear of looking like a complete lunatic in front of the panelists....
The two male panelists. The ONLY two panelists. I was kind of peeved about that at first, but as the panel went on, it turned out that while they shared some fandoms in common, they were actually very different writers with different styles. Still, I'd love to see more females and people of a different age range on the panel. (Besides, don't more women write fic than men anyway? That certainly seemed to be the case based on the audience composition!) What sucked was how short the panel was: only 50 minutes. They basically opened it to questions from the get-go, and some people took longer than others to ask questions. Some questions just required more time to answer. And worse, some people asked two unrelated questions at once! Not fair! Urgh, so the panel needs better planning and more representation. I kind of would volunteer, if I had any idea where I'd be next year during Independence Day weekend.
I finished off some more volunteer time at the Manga Café, but I still had several to go before being "done." I wish I'd gotten credit for helping out at the Maid Café (which I almost thought wasn't going to be there, judging by the program guide) the other night, when Adam and I came up with the idea to interview the maids and hosts to see what video games they liked to play. I also wish I'd had the money to actually go to the maid show, but again...broke + priorities = no go. In any case, we got kicked out of the Maid Café after trying to do our interviews, and we missed any fireworks in the area that there might have been. According to my sources, there weren't any good ones, anyway. Everyone in California is BROKE.
The day was cut short, so arriving late and having hours to complete was not a good thing. I worked some shifts near the Exhibit Hall, and that was where I saw another person I knew...let's just say it's a person I wish I hadn't seen, namely because I DON'T LIKE HER and to make things worse, she was cosplaying one of my favorite characters. *sigh*
I got off one hour before the Exhibit Hall was due to close (so of course I went inside and tried to see as much as I could with the time I had left), and managed to finagle finishing off the last 45 minutes of my volunteer time by agreeing to help clean up the "Vol Hole" (my name for it, not theirs) after the awards ceremony. I didn't even know there was an awards ceremony until that day!
I missed lunch, but I made do with some of the snacks I'd smuggled along in my backpack. The volunteer trickle turned into a drove, and before long, most everyone was there and they started the awards ceremony. Adam wasn't there for the first part, but he won--I knew the moment they ended up describing the "Eager Beaver" award that it'd be him! I accepted the award on his behalf, claiming to have a really awesome cosplay. *grin* I actually ended up winning an award myself, the "Sugar and Spice" award (I had a feeling I might win something when one of the VolStaff asked how to spell my name), which consisted of:
-Please Save My Earth manga 8
-Kodocha DVD Vol. 7
-Cromartie High School DVD No. 1
-Time Bokan DVD
In other words, not the greatest of gifts, but it's still cool to get something! The award itself was for the volunteer that was nice and friendly, but also funny and sassy. Very me, I think! :) It's awesome to get an award not just my first year at AX, but my first time volunteering at a con, ever!
After everything was said and done, the guys and I made our way to Little Tokyo for some ramen. The restaurant David knew about was really packed (despite the B-grade on the window; I guess those health inspection grades don't mean much after all), so we waited. In the meantime, we swung by a nearby anime/music store where I picked up Kilala Princess volume 4! Whoo-hoo! I hadn't found much I wanted in the Exhibit Hall, aside from the latest volumes of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and Kitchen Princess. It would have been nice to get some Copic or Touch markers, but I couldn't even afford the cheapest sets. Oh well, some other time. :P Maybe when I have art skills in addition to money...haha! I also bought Final Fantasy Anthologies for only $20 and a volume of Antique Gift Shop that I forgot I already owned. Oops!
When we got into the restaurant, I ordered my staple of tempura, which came with a salad and miso soup. I ate the salad and most of the soup, but the tempura bowl that arrived later was HUGE! I mean bigger than my face huge! There was no way I could eat it all, but I tried. It was nice to finally be able to pay for my own food with the refund money. I paid Adam back for the parking, snacks, and the Day Zero's dinner at CPK and had just enough to get dinner and Kilala Princess with.
All in all, a good con experience, even if people didn't recognize my cosplays (even fewer people recognized Anzu than Yuna. I had some people say "Oh, is that a Duel Disk," but no one who actually said "Are you Anzu/Téa?" or anything like that). I wouldn't mind going again. Even better, Monty Oum said that AX was his best con ever and he wants to premiere DFVI, VII, and VIII there next year! It'd be so cool if I were still with GD next year and could interview him with a follow-up. Well, we'll see!
Ah, back from Anime Expo. Actually, I got back late on Sunday night, but yesterday I was so exhausted that I ended up taking Monday off work and sleeping a lot. When I didn't sleep, I played my newest acquisition: Final Fantasy Anthologies, featuring FF5 and FF6, neither of which I've ever beaten. It's making me nostalgic!
I probably should have posted entries each night after I came back, but I was usually so exhausted from volunteering that I didn't. I did do some Live Tweeting though, so I'll touch on a few of the things I mentioned then.
First off, I went to AX with Adam, a guy I actually met online via the website OKCupid.com (And while it may be a "dating website," that's not the original reason why I signed up there. It IS possible to meet people without wanting to date them right off the bat, and that's almost always the case with me). He ended up introducing me to GamingDead.com, where I'm now an Associate Editor (!), and since he'd previously been to AX and was planning on going and volunteering again this year, he invited me along for the ride.
For Day Zero, the volunteer room was surprisingly packed. We had an orientation and attempted to knock some hours off volunteering.
Adam and I started out our volunteering doing "packet stuffing" behind the registration area. What this entailed was putting postcards and flyers into the program guide and then into the goodie bags that would be given out after people got their badges at registration. Adam and I ended up working at a table with a bigoted so-called orthodox Jewish girl and a happy go-lucky guy who didn't know the meaning of "personal space."
I say "bigoted so-called" because this girl
a) opposed gay marriage because someone made a really good argument against it that she couldn't remember, but she agreed with them completely
b) said that if gay people were allowed to marry, then the next logical step would be people marrying animals. Namely sheep. (I shit you not.)
c) said she never breaks the Sabbath...except for Anime Expo. Because really, God's an anime fan, too. He doesn't mind. Riiiiiiight.
Needless to say, I tried to avoid them both like the plague after that. Adam and I were shooting each other so many "She did NOT just say that" looks while packet stuffing that I about exploded. With laughter or righteous anger, I'm not sure, but I would have exploded had doing the same thing repeatedly (and getting loads of paper cuts) not calmed me down. Somehow, though, it was tiring. We played a game about naming states/countries/cities (and later, anime titles/characters, which was my idea) that started with the last letter of whatever the previous person had said, but some people just couldn't have fun with it....
When we tried to register later, or at least get our volunteer badges, we discovered that we couldn't get our official volunteer badges until we had our actual all-con registration badges...and registration was closed already! The line had been too crazy to attempt when we first got there (we should have gotten it while we were packet stuffing, we were so close). It was interesting how there were already cosplayers and people there on Day Zero, even though there wasn't really anything to do.
There was also the startling revelation that for my food refund (because supposedly none of them menu options were pork/ham-free), I'd have to wait until THE END OF THE CON. Adam was super-nice and bought stuff for us both at Trader Joe's, but we also discovered that technically, we weren't supposed to have outside food in the convention center, and to top it off, even if we did sneak some past, they certainly didn't have a microwave we could use to heat up our pasta. Needless to say, I was a bit peeved, since they were more or less relegating me to STARVE while working my tail off to earn my 22 hours or $65 all-con badge. (I was basically working for $2.95/hour. Geez, that sucks in ANY state, let alone California!)
But as it turned out, the meal options were better than expected: turkey sandwiches! They weren't half-bad, but I'll take my campus' Subway sandwiches over the Gordon Biersch ones any day of the week.
Day One, I didn't cosplay, but I tried to knock off as many volunteer hours as humanly possible. I signed up a little too gung-ho for a shift that ended up as packet stuffing, but thankfully transitioned to "swag bag distribution." At least, that's what I called it. Somehow it devolved into a competition with Bigoted Jewish Girl (BJG), because she kept trying to get into everyone's faces as they were approaching the Swag Bag tables and make sure they got bags from HER table. As if there was any difference....
Me, I was having fun with it all. I adopted a carny (you know, carnival) voice and was giving out the bags like "Swag bags, getcher swag bags here! Come one, come all...everyone's a winner!" People seemed to like it. I tried to switch accents (or use no accent) later, but it was actually kind of hard! I tried to throw in cool comments to people if I recognized their cosplay, though.
I grabbed lunch and then ended up grabbing another shift in registration. But rather than work behind the badge distribution desks (which would have meant blissful sitting down), I ended up standing up and directing people where to go after paying for their registration (assuming they weren't pre-reg).
I was hoping for a shift that didn't involve me standing up and looking stupid the whole time. While I'm sure attendees appreciated being able to look ANYWHERE and see someone in a vest that could feasibly help them out, it felt a bit silly to just be directing people to follow the blue arrows on the floor to get their badge and goodie bag.
I ended up extending my shift so I could work behind the desks, and that was neat for a while, though the lines seemed to really trickle down. I played that same "name an anime title/character" game with two of the other girl volunteers there (needless to say, they were MUCH cooler than BJG), but behind the desks, it was a bit difficult to do much. Even the computers were so pared down, there was no Minesweeper! Thankfully, they brought us dinner: pasta with an apple cobbler. The sauce was meatless, which is what I guess made it "vegetarian." It was pretty tasty, although the oil from the pasta ended up on the bottom layer of my apple cobbler and made it taste a bit weird.
They closed registration early and sent us volunteers to do more "cone-guarding" (basically standing in front of a construction cone and smile a lot), and then BOATLOADS of people started to come in! They had to re-open reg, but they didn't ask us go to back behind the desks. Soon enough, we ended up back upstairs, and I was so exhausted! Actually, there wasn't much to do that day besides volunteer.
I did see Helen, though. She was the only person from the San Francisco group that I saw, and since we didn't know each other that well, we only chatted for a bit before she went off to find some other friends.
I had a super-late shift at the arcade with Adam and even got to join in a spontaneous play-through of DDR SuperNova 2, but I never got the chance to play Para Para Paradise 2nd Mix, my favorite Bemani game. There were some SUPERSTARS playing that game, so it being "booked" almost the whole time wasn't surprising....Of course, when it WAS free, I didn't have any money or time. Yeesh.
Day Two, I dared to cosplay as Songstress Yuna. I decided with the weather being as hot as it was, I didn't need to bother with pantyhose, but I ended up regretting it later, because it got DAMN cold at night (for me, anyway). Even though the cosplay's garnered a lot of attention in the past, at AX, I had more people asking me who I was "supposed to be" than people that immediately recognized me and said anything. The only people that DID take my picture needed to know who I was cosplaying first...they didn't know themselves. That's kind of sad...maybe it was my hair? I know it's too long for Yuna, but I didn't have the earring/hair piece for Lenne....
Actually, speaking of the earring, I actually had a young volunteer dare to bitch at me for having it be something I hung off the top of my ear or bobby-pinned into my hair, rather than be an actual earring. "It's supposed to be an earring," she said in this snotty, condescending voice, and I somehow managed a smooth and quick reply of "Maybe, but we don't actually see it attached to her ear in either of the games." Really, we don't. A lock of hair always obscures it! Assuming she is right, it's my fault for not making the earring of something lighter, like balsa wood. In the meantime, I work with what I have to have the most "complete" costume, and I won't make myself uncomfortable in the process. If having more costume and being comfortable means I'm not 100% "accurate," then SO WHAT!? It's my damn costume.
If I do cosplay Yuna in the future, I'll probably try and style my hair better (or get a wig, but that seems a bit crazy to me. Wigs are hard to take care of!), get new sleeves, use fabric tape to get the "arm ribbons" right, and get balsa wood beads for her earring. The skirt and the boots I'm not picky about. I think everyone's permitted SOME creative license with cosplay.
I was playing "Sailor Moon" bingo in my head at the con, trying to see if there were any Sailor Moon cosplayers. I was surprised by how quickly I spotted Sailors Moon, Venus, V (always a favorite; there aren't enough Sailor V cosplayers out there), Mercury, Pluto, Saturn, a Chibiusa, Black Lady, a Tuxedo Mask...I later ended up spotting Sailor Star Mars and Sailor Star Saturn, whose pictures I snapped.
That night was the AMV competition, and thankfully, Adam's friends David and James saved us spots in the line. We got in with no hassle, and while we were heading over there, we saw previews of other cool anime/game music videos...including parts III, IV, and V of Monty Oum's "Dead Fantasy" series, pitting Final Fantasy heroines against Dead or Alive girls! Because it had been so long since the last release, and Monty's work is always top-notch, I was really excited to get inside and see the rest.
Oum revealed LONG versions of all 3 new episodes, and I was so thrilled that a bunch of people recognized it (in retrospect: DUH!) and liked it so much. When the emcee revealed Oum was actually in the audience, I got the idea to interview Oum for GamingDead.com, something I put into motion the next day. (By the way, I have yet to see the three episodes hit the 'Net yet, though the previews from Fanime and Anime Boston are up. Catch them as soon as you see them; they're INCREDIBLE!)
I was exhausted that night, and freezing to boot, so I was very happy to go home. I think the AMV competition was awesome, but hard to choose some of the winners. I did hear a lot of cool music I liked, so my new mission is to find a lot of those tunes!
Day Three I slept in. There wasn't much I wanted to, and after the past two days of working and staying up late, I was grateful for the chance to catch up on my Zs. I had planned to cosplay Anzu at AX no matter what, but my old pair of denim shorts no longer fit comfortably, so I had to go to Old Navy to find a pair. Online, they had lots of them, but when I got to the store, I was told that I had to check the clearance rack and hope for the best! Luckily, after some digging, I found a pair that fit comfortably and was only $10!
I'd contacted Oum through his DeviantART account and left him my cell's text email, and he responded! He told me he'd be in the Artist Alley, so I planned to volunteer a little and make my way over there. The exhibit hall was absolutely ASTOUNDING (in size), though not a lot of the dealers had things I was interested in. The Manga Gamers booth (the pavilion with the cute bishoujo all over it, giving out fans and the like) was a disappointment: total porn. Whatever happened to true visual novels without the sex/romance element? Why does stuff like that always have to denigrate into "pick your favorite girl out of a harem inexplicably interested in you!" Ugh. Plus they had masturbation toys (for both genders!) in there. Amusing, but honestly disgusting to me, at least because it's an anime expo, not a porn expo. Then again, the fan line doth oft blur....
When I made it to the Artist Alley, Oum wasn't easy to find, because the aisles didn't seem to be numbered or lettered in any sensible way. It wasn't as if aisle A was across from Aisle B, or even numbers were on one side and odd on the other. When I did find his table, I was surprised to see it was a plain white table with no crazy decorations, a small sign, and only a few posters of Tifa Lockhart artwork. Actually, Oum himself was checking out the Alley when I came by, so I waited a bit with some guys who were cosplaying as Hollows/Arrancars from Bleach, I think. The guy manning the table was a friend of Oum's, and perhaps the "producer" of the DF series (at least that's what I gleaned while talking to him; he said he knew who I was when I mentioned my name and why I was there).
Soon enough, Oum came back, and after some photos and handshakes with other folks , I got down to the interviewing. I'd plotted 10 or so questions with Adam on the way there, and I figured the answers would be comprehensive enough to make for an interesting interview. You can read the awesome result here. I got to take a picture with Oum too, which bowled me over enough, but he also gave me an autographed poster of Dead Fantasy! I can't wait to find a good frame to put it in and hang it up on my wall.
I went to grab the dinner of the evening, despite my lackluster volunteer hours that day, and the meal was just as bad: Sloppy Joes. Sure, they were beef, but they were SLOPPY. While the previous night, Adam and the guys ended up getting some In-N-Out, I'd declined, out of broke-ness and a general nauseous feeling. But I knew that I'd be hungry because plain ol' Sloppy Joes just didn't do it for me. I took mine to the Fanfiction Panel anyway (with the longest line I'd ever seen for a fic panel in a VERY long time), but I never ended up eating it, for fear of looking like a complete lunatic in front of the panelists....
The two male panelists. The ONLY two panelists. I was kind of peeved about that at first, but as the panel went on, it turned out that while they shared some fandoms in common, they were actually very different writers with different styles. Still, I'd love to see more females and people of a different age range on the panel. (Besides, don't more women write fic than men anyway? That certainly seemed to be the case based on the audience composition!) What sucked was how short the panel was: only 50 minutes. They basically opened it to questions from the get-go, and some people took longer than others to ask questions. Some questions just required more time to answer. And worse, some people asked two unrelated questions at once! Not fair! Urgh, so the panel needs better planning and more representation. I kind of would volunteer, if I had any idea where I'd be next year during Independence Day weekend.
I finished off some more volunteer time at the Manga Café, but I still had several to go before being "done." I wish I'd gotten credit for helping out at the Maid Café (which I almost thought wasn't going to be there, judging by the program guide) the other night, when Adam and I came up with the idea to interview the maids and hosts to see what video games they liked to play. I also wish I'd had the money to actually go to the maid show, but again...broke + priorities = no go. In any case, we got kicked out of the Maid Café after trying to do our interviews, and we missed any fireworks in the area that there might have been. According to my sources, there weren't any good ones, anyway. Everyone in California is BROKE.
The day was cut short, so arriving late and having hours to complete was not a good thing. I worked some shifts near the Exhibit Hall, and that was where I saw another person I knew...let's just say it's a person I wish I hadn't seen, namely because I DON'T LIKE HER and to make things worse, she was cosplaying one of my favorite characters. *sigh*
I got off one hour before the Exhibit Hall was due to close (so of course I went inside and tried to see as much as I could with the time I had left), and managed to finagle finishing off the last 45 minutes of my volunteer time by agreeing to help clean up the "Vol Hole" (my name for it, not theirs) after the awards ceremony. I didn't even know there was an awards ceremony until that day!
I missed lunch, but I made do with some of the snacks I'd smuggled along in my backpack. The volunteer trickle turned into a drove, and before long, most everyone was there and they started the awards ceremony. Adam wasn't there for the first part, but he won--I knew the moment they ended up describing the "Eager Beaver" award that it'd be him! I accepted the award on his behalf, claiming to have a really awesome cosplay. *grin* I actually ended up winning an award myself, the "Sugar and Spice" award (I had a feeling I might win something when one of the VolStaff asked how to spell my name), which consisted of:
-Please Save My Earth manga 8
-Kodocha DVD Vol. 7
-Cromartie High School DVD No. 1
-Time Bokan DVD
In other words, not the greatest of gifts, but it's still cool to get something! The award itself was for the volunteer that was nice and friendly, but also funny and sassy. Very me, I think! :) It's awesome to get an award not just my first year at AX, but my first time volunteering at a con, ever!
After everything was said and done, the guys and I made our way to Little Tokyo for some ramen. The restaurant David knew about was really packed (despite the B-grade on the window; I guess those health inspection grades don't mean much after all), so we waited. In the meantime, we swung by a nearby anime/music store where I picked up Kilala Princess volume 4! Whoo-hoo! I hadn't found much I wanted in the Exhibit Hall, aside from the latest volumes of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and Kitchen Princess. It would have been nice to get some Copic or Touch markers, but I couldn't even afford the cheapest sets. Oh well, some other time. :P Maybe when I have art skills in addition to money...haha! I also bought Final Fantasy Anthologies for only $20 and a volume of Antique Gift Shop that I forgot I already owned. Oops!
When we got into the restaurant, I ordered my staple of tempura, which came with a salad and miso soup. I ate the salad and most of the soup, but the tempura bowl that arrived later was HUGE! I mean bigger than my face huge! There was no way I could eat it all, but I tried. It was nice to finally be able to pay for my own food with the refund money. I paid Adam back for the parking, snacks, and the Day Zero's dinner at CPK and had just enough to get dinner and Kilala Princess with.
All in all, a good con experience, even if people didn't recognize my cosplays (even fewer people recognized Anzu than Yuna. I had some people say "Oh, is that a Duel Disk," but no one who actually said "Are you Anzu/Téa?" or anything like that). I wouldn't mind going again. Even better, Monty Oum said that AX was his best con ever and he wants to premiere DFVI, VII, and VIII there next year! It'd be so cool if I were still with GD next year and could interview him with a follow-up. Well, we'll see!
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Date: 2009-07-14 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 06:44 am (UTC)If I had to change one thing about AX, it'd be the the places they can get food from for volunteers/staffers in the LACC. If you're going to limit outside food, at least have a variety of options inside!
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Date: 2009-07-14 01:08 pm (UTC)