Anime Expo 2017: All About Day 2
This is a special blog entry that details my Anime Expo 2017 experience on day 2. I cover the following topics in this order:
- Welcome to the Ballroom
- We are X: The X Japan Documentary
- Shall We Date? Booth Experience
- Losing my Kabe-don Virginity to Hiroto
- Gintama hauls
Please feel free to scroll to the section you’re most interested in but I of course think it’d be best if you read my entire entry. 😉 Happy reading!
I had purchased a 4 day pass for Anime Expo 2017 with the determination to attend AX all four days. That didn’t happen, unfortunately since I didn’t attend day 1. And while this may come across as a bummer, it was actually a good thing I wasn’t present for day 1 since day 1 was only about lines, lines and well, more lines. My friend/coworker was actually waiting in line for four hours just to obtain her badge. Can we say what!?! Yeah, so not cool. So, I’m glad I wasn’t there on day 1 to be part of that hot mess.
Anyway, enough on day 1. Let’s talk about something more exciting: day 2 at AX 2017. Unlike my first time experience with AX back in 2015, I came quite prepared to conquer this time around. I actually knew what I wanted to do. (That AX 2017 app was helpful in planning out my own AX agenda.) And I got to do what I wanted to do. For the most part anyway.
The first thing I did after getting my badge and going through an entrance line was head over to the main events hall. Didn’t know where the heck it was but I somehow figured it out with the map, thankfully.
Welcome to the Ballroom
I think a good amount of attendees already knew the story behind this anime most likely from having read the manga to it or something. I came in there clueless. lol So I had some wtf moments whenever I’d hear front attendees cheering for a particular character that first appears on screen.
Anyway, for those that haven’t read Welcome to the Ballroom (ahem, like me), it seems to be a pretty good story about determination, skills and talent. I’m not going to say anything more than that simply because I don’t want to divulge in any spoilers to anyone that’s yet to read/watch Welcome to the Ballroom.After the premier ended, I rushed to head off to the JW Marriot. (I wasn’t too thrilled with having to exit the Los Angeles Convention Center to get to video 1 (a room inside the JW Marriot hotel). To make matters worse, I, for whatever reason took the long route there. Ugh. *facepalm*). So, why did I head off to the JW Marriot? It was to attend “We are X: The X Japan Documentary”.
We are X: The X Japan Documentary
On my must do no matter what list for day 2 was to meet Yoshiki. lol It was supposed to happen. And it would have happened however Yoshiki wasn’t able to attend AX2017’s “We are X: The X Japan Documentary” due to a scheduling conflict. (There was a video greeting from him, though.) I was a bit bummed out but not completely bummed out since I’m not what you’d call a fan. I like him but I like Yoshikitty more, even though I’m not exactly a fan of Hello Kitty. In other words, it’s Yoshikitty that I like…? wtf I hope I made sense. In regards to J-rock, the style/fashion associated with this genre of music never fails to please me. I love almost all fashion styles associated with J-rock. No joke! In regards to visual kei specifically, it’s probably the only type of music genre in which I find myself being okay and attracted (to some extent) to men donning makeup. I know men have the right to wear makeup and all (and they all do in showbiz except it’s usually just makeup to make you look naturally flawless) but let’s just say I am not cool with male Kpop stars donning eyeliner and stuff. Just no. Not my cup of tea whatsoever. And I think that’s why I no longer find male Kpop stars attractive even if they may actually be attractive. The fact that I’m too old for Kpop doesn’t help much either. But I suppose that’s good news for all the fan girls of male Kpop stars. One less person to like their bae, right? lol (I effin do not know why people at my workplace think I have a thing for male Kpop stars, though. Because I don’t. I will be honest and say that I did have a thing or two for them when I was younger but that was a long time ago. lol All the ones I liked are either divorced or married. rotflmao FYI: Baek Kyung was one of them…) Anyway, how the heck did I end up talking about Kpop?
Allow me to go back to Yoshiki. Yoshiki’s sense of style is like an A+++. A lot more subdued and simple in comparison to his younger years but nonetheless super kakoi. lol (Heh…so-called “fangirl” moment here.) He’s also a good looking man and to make things better, he looks rather young for his age. (I’m sure the makeup helps with that, but still…) Based on what I’ve been talking about so far, you can tell that I was oogling at his sense of style throughout the documentary. lol wtf I did pay attention to the documentary, though and did learn quite a lot. If you can become a fan from watching a documentary, it’s probably from this documentary. I don’t want to spoil the documentary for anyone that hasn’t seen it but I’d like to share a few things from it. (If you’re a fan of his, you may already be aware of these things.)
From the documentary, I learned that despite how good (health wise and looks wise) Yoshiki appears on the outside, he’s actually quite sick. Neck issues. Carpel tunnel syndrome. Arm pain. Hand pain. And so on. He’s dedicated to his fans and knows he’s an influencer so he basically is always smiling in public while in pain (physically and emotionally). The worst thing I learned from this documentary is how he basically is clinging on to his dear life after each performance ends. (Concert attendees think it’s part of the performance but the reality is that he’s in need of oxygen and once he reaches backstage, there are oxygen tanks waiting for him.) The documentary shares a lot of gloomy things and these gloomy things weren’t all just about Yoshiki. It just happened to revolve mostly around Yoshiki. On a happier note, Pata (I believe it was him) shared that he wasn’t worried about Yoshiki since he’s a lot stronger than people think.
After the documentary ended, “The birth of Yoshikitty” was shown. This was a special screening since it was the first time being shown. I won’t say much about it, but let’s just say that it was Yoshiki that came up with the Yoshikitty name. Also, Yuko Yamaguchi’s first design of Yoshikitty was approved by Yoshiki; she didn’t need to make alterations. (This makes Yoshiki seem like an easy person to work with…If he ever is in need of a personal assistant or blogger, let me know! :p)
At the end of it all, an AX staff member does a giveaway for the documentary through a game of rock, paper and scissors. So silly. And no, I didn’t win the blu-ray. lol
Shall We Date? Booth Experience
I’m a sucker for freebies and an even bigger sucker for them when it involves things I actually like or have an interest in. Because I missed out on attending AX on day 1, once inside the Exhibit Hall, I made a beeline for booth 1400. I wanted to make sure that I would get all of the freebies offered by Shall We Date? I came to conquer this booth and conquered I did because I managed to get every freebie offered by them… The only freebie I didn’t get was a towel since that was specifically for attendees that cosplayed as one of their games’ characters… Something I might have considered doing had I known at least 6 months in advance. lol
Anyway, the face mask was a simple snag. I asked for it and got it. (I realized later that an employee would eventually approach people in lines to the booth and ask if you wanted a face mask. lol) As for the other freebies, they made you “work” for it…
For their bag, you had to complete a survey. I don’t know about the other booth visitors, but it felt as though I took a longer time than some to finish the survey. I think it’s because I actually cared enough about the company (NTT Solmare Corp.) since I’ve played their games (like Ninja Assassin) in the past before. The games I used to play are still on my old mobile device. (It’s unfortunate that I’m not able to transfer/recover these games though.) I also just started playing Ninja Shadow before the start of AX.
After getting the bag, I moved on to to work for Shall We Date?’s pins. I was informed by an employee that participation in their augmented reality (AR) event with a Ninja Shadow character would grant me the pins. So, I of course participated in the Ninja Shadow AR event. I got in line and when it was my turn, chose to do the AR event with Makoto. Choosing Makoto was kind of special in a way simply because it seems like most participants chose Ukyo over him. (Even if they were equally chosen, I think my first pick would still have been Makoto.) This AR event was silly, fun and super embarrassing to an extent. Silly because I started “acting out” for the event before it actually even started simply because I thought it had begun. wtf Let me explain the AR event a little further in case you’re also having a wtf moment. lol The AR event was basically an event where you get recorded with Makoto or Ukyo. Neither character is actually present and you’re actually just acting out to thin air, save for the nice backdrop and a bunch of people that are watching you. But he (Makoto or Ukyo) IS there. He’s on a screen across from you and you’re in that screen, too in his world, basically. So, this is basically what it looks like. Oh and excuse me for my overly casual style of dress. (#dontjudge lol) While I dress casually practically everyday, I usually try to put an effort to sizzle the casualness a tad bit when on an outing or attending an event. I didn’t have time nor did I really care enough on day 2 since my main concern was to get to AX early enough to get my badge and attend the Welcome to the Ballroom premier. With that said, here are pictures of the AR event I did with Makoto:
The pictures may be a bit blurry but keep in mind that the event staff member had actually taken a video recording of me. That’s right. I had to make photos from the video recording myself. (I got tired after creating two for you guys, though. lol) After finishing the event, the employee hands me a card to access my embarrassing AR moves to Makoto via their website. I’ve yet to download it and must do it before the end of the month. I was happy to hear this since I believe the video of me on their site will be more epic. lol But we’ll see.
I should also mention that the staff member “ordered” me to kiss Makoto. Never been told to kiss someone in my life, but hey, I did what I was told. All for the sake of the AR video and a pin. lol 💋
I got my pin from the staff member. Yes, I said pin, not pins. It turns out that I had more “work” to do for the other pins. Next stop was the Lost Alice section of the booth where I got my photo taken with the character cutouts, who were lovely but not as lovely as the Ninja Shadow characters, to be honest. (There was a beautiful Ninja Shadow background adjacent to where I did my AR event and I had meant to come back to the booth to take pictures of it but never got the chance to. So upset at myself.😭)
<iv class=”paragraph” style=”text-align: left”>Sop>, I forgot to mention that while I was preparing to tweet for the sake of my second pin, a young girl asks me about how to get the third pin. Lol Did I look like a booth senpai? (I did come prepared to conquer this booth for the freebies, though… lol) It turns out I was equally clueless since at the time, I had only one pin and the young girl already had two. Lol So, after getting my Lost Alice pin, I asked the staff member how to get my final pin.
By now, you could probably guess that I had to “work” for my final pin. There happened to be another section to this booth and I had to take another photo and of course, publish it on social media again. This section was the Moe Ninja Girls section. Not exactly my cup of tea since I think this game is targeted to male players. Regardless of who the game’s target audience is, I’m not crazy about the female characters’ “ninja” outfits. Meh Anyway, after posting this photo, I received my final pin. Can we say yay?
Losing my kabe-don virginity to Hiroto
Such a spicy title, eh? Lol Well, I hope you like it however I have a funny feeling you’ll like what’s coming up next a lot more. Lol
Kabe-don. It’s something I’ve never experienced until 7/2/2017 (day 2 of AX). And as the title says it, I lost my kabe-don virginity to Hiroto, who was “Nico” at cybird’s booth. And I’m happy I lost it to Hiroto. Lol (This sounded so effin wrong but is it wrong that I kind of like how it sounded so wrong? Lol wtf So shameless.)
So, my first goal at the cybird booth was to get a bag (since I’m a sucker for freebies, right?) however they had already ran out of bags by the time I got to their booth. The staff member tells me to come back the following day, EARLY to obtain a bag. She then tells me of the Princess Lesson that was about to begin in about 30 or so minutes and I was like, I am down for this and for some interesting reason, I already happened to be standing behind wherever the line for the Princess Lesson ended. (A win for me, right?)
So what is the deal with this Princess Lesson? The Princess Lesson is basically a lesson that “Nico” (Hiroto) gives to participants. Participants get a choice between the following “lessons”: kabe-don or back hug. I, like many other participants opted for the kabe-don choice. I chose kabe-don because I never experienced a kabe-don before and because I was afraid that the back hug “lesson” would be a bit too much for me. It turns out that the kabe-don “lesson” is the “lesson” that got most female participants’ hearts racing/swooning/melting.
As for me, as a participant in the “kabe-don” lesson, I’m not sure why my face throughout the “lesson” looked so odd/stupid. I never knew I could hold such a stupid looking expression. Lol So not funny. I think I was just unprepared and confused. You see, I thought there were a few more people in front of me waiting to do their princess lesson but it turns out that I was next. Omfg, right?
The weirdest part of it all was how I didn’t realize how odd my facial expression was until I created photos for this entry. Yes, you read that right. I had asked the staff member to video record my kabe-don experience with “Nico”.
Nico” (Hiroto) on the other hand was confident throughout. I looked so dorky throughout the lesson. Just keep in mind that these photos I’m about to share with you came from the video recording. Thus, if my stance looks awkward, it’s because the picture is originally from a video recording!
After the princess lesson ended, I received a photo card from a staff member of Hiroto as Nico which actually contained his autograph on the back. Let me say something about his photo card. He looks a lot better in person. While I didn’t go googoo gaga over him like some of the females in line for the princess lesson (one participant even fainted after receiving the lesson or so I heard), I did manage to hold a very odd/stupid expression on my face. Not sure how all the participants before me looked so cute and I ended up being the one looking so bizarre during the “lesson”. Yeah, if you can’t already tell, I’m so not over this weird facial expression I had on. I need a kabe-don redo with him. The problem is I might need at least 10 re-dos with him before my face can be perfected to look more normal throughout the kabe-don. Lol :p
Gintama Hauls
I will be sharing about these hauls as well as other experiences at Anime Expo 2017 in my next blog entry. Stay tuned to learn about my day 3 and day 4 experience! As a sneak peek, allow me to mention that I manged to take another lesson with Hiroto (“Nico”) on day 4. Stay tuned!