Event

Anime Expo 2017: About Day 3 & 4

July 16, 2017 /

Blue Spring Ride

On day 3 of Anime Expo 2017, I had sweated my way to the JW Marriot to watch Natsume’s Book of Friends only to learn about 5 minutes before the showing (from an employee/volunteer) that they weren’t able to get a hold of it and thus won’t be able to show it… Can we say wtf? There wasn’t a lot of people in the video room to begin with but everyone present was silent. They all were having a wtf moment. I obviously was bummed out since I really wanted to see Natsume’s Book of Friends. Oh well, right?

Instead of Natsume’s Book of Friends, AX played Blue Spring Ride for us. I can’t tell you how close I was to leaving. I’m glad to have stuck around though because I found myself liking Blue Spring Ride. I think I liked it because I was able to somehow relate to the main female character. It also helped how the main male character’s voice was nice… Like, you make me melt type of nice. Lol (If I could fall in love with a voice, it’d be this particular voice actor ‘s voice. Lol)

After three episodes of Blue Spring Ride, the room got cleared and it was time for me to get some grub.

Cheese Pizza from LA Convention Center
$10.50 cheese pizza at LA Convention Center (AX2017)

Didn’t want carbs. Didn’t want pizza. Didn’t even want to eat cheese. But it was the quickest thing I could get my hands on. It was unfortunately gross and overpriced. At $10.50, you’d think it would at least come with a drink and a small fries. Heh.

Cybird booth. Again.

Ikemen Sengoku bag

After eating, I headed to the exhibit hall to visit cybird’s booth. I was on a mission and this mission was to obtain a bag from them. By now, you should already know that I’m a sucker for freebies. On day 2, I tried to get a bag but they were already all out of them. :/ Thus, I came back to conquer on day 3 and managed to get a bag. Yeah!

Since I was already at the booth, I decided to take pictures around the booth. Save for the girls that were in line to purchase who knows what, the booth wasn’t exactly busy. In fact, “Byron” (Imari Yumiki) was there. And “Byron” was alone. In other words, I had the opportunity to take a good photo of “Byron” (or with “Byron”) but didn’t. wtf lol Don’t ask me why I didn’t. All I can say is that if I could go back in time, I would’ve asked to take a photo(s). Oh well, no can do now. The funny thing about this is that I actually saw “Byron” a lot. At the cybird booth on day 2 while I was lining up for the princess lesson. On day 3 while photographing the cybird booth here and there and last but not least, again on day 3, when I was at a booth doing my Hakuouki (er, Chikage Kazama, rather) haul.

Chikage Kazama is bae

Hakuouki Charms and Keychains
Hakuouki Charms and Keychains

Remember the booth I did my Gintama haul at on day 2 of AX? Well, I went back there on day 3, learned they had Hakuouki items and ended up splurging on keychains/cell phone charms that featured Chikage Kazama simply because Chikage Kazama is my most favorite Hakuouki character. Although Chikage Kazama is my most favorite character, I purchased two other Hakuouki items that didn’t feature Chikage Kazama. (They featured Saito Hajime, my other favorite Hakuouki character and Sanosuke Harada.)

This particular booth was packed. So packed and successful that I think they were able to end their booth on day 3. (Tried looking for their booth again on day 4 but they were already gone.) Had I known on day 2 that they had Hakuouki items, I probably would have begun my Hakuouki haul then. Hmmph. Heh, it was probably a good thing I didn’t know, though since splurging can’t be a good thing even when it’s done on rare occasions…

I believe some of the items for sale at this booth are items you could actually obtain for “free” from game/DVD purchases, but if you can’t or didn’t buy the particular game/DVD, how do you get the “free” item that comes with it? (It’s something to question yourself on when you begin to feel guilty about buying a bit too much, especially if one or two of the things you want may have originally been created as a “freebie” for a particular DVD/game.)

I like free.

Yes, I like free and no, I’m not talking about the anime, “Free!” (Sorry, I couldn’t help being “punny”.) I’m talking about free as in freebies of course!

​On day 3, I visited the kokowa tv booth to obtain a fan featuring chewy hams. Not really a big deal but it’s a pretty sturdy fan compared to all of the other freebie fans I’ve received from AX and it’s kind of cute, I guess. I found this booth a tad bit interesting simply because I was in line to get the fan only to receive attention from the booth worker after the person that was in line behind me was tended to. Can we say wtf? I really don’t know wth this was all about but it left me with a somewhat bitter experience. The bitter part was more so when I entered their drawing for a chance to win a free trip to Korea and retrieved a fan only to be informed by the worker that she’d give me the fan herself. I just didn’t get wth that was all about. It’s not like I was trying to take 2 fans or anything. Plus, when the person behind me had taken a fan before me and as mentioned earlier got tended to before me, she wasn’t informed by this worker not to do so. I really don’t know wtf this was all about but I can’t help but to wonder if it’s because I didn’t come across as someone their company would typically serve. I’m not sure what the heck it was all about, however I’ve lost interest in their company and their hamster. I mean, after all, hamsters, in reality bite despite looking docile and cute. Heh.

​On the brighter side of things, the Terra Battle 2 booth workers were amazing! They were friendly and had smiles on their faces the whole time. Heck, they were so friendly that one of their male workers personally approached me to insert a fan into my purse. I had a wtf moment because he had caught me off guard but once I knew wth was going on, I was like wow. So, I just wanted to give a free shout out to the folks at Terra Battle 2. Girls sometimes can be bitchy towards me for whatever unknown reason, but the girl working this booth was equally awesome!

​Diagonally from the Terra Battle 2 booth was the Idea Factory booth where they were also giving out freebies. Their freebie was a face mask and it was easily obtained, since all of their masks were located on a table, unmanned. I was thinking of donning the mask but wasn’t too crazy of the smell of paper/color and decided that I’d just save it for usage at a later time. Halloween, perhaps? Yeah.

The interesting thing about the Idea Factory booth was that I had passed by on day 2 to take a selfie with a Hakuoukiguy (Okita Souji) but never noticed that their Hakuouki stands were actually up for auction until day 4. Wtf, right? I honestly thought I was having a major wtf moment when I revisited their booth on day 4 because Chikage Kazama was on display that day but wasn’t there on day 2. To make matters worse, I recalled that Okita was there on day 2 where Harada Sanosuke was now on display on day 4. Sounds confusing eh? Well, if it sounded confusing, imagine how confused I was at that moment. Also, I don’t recall ever seeing a “Bid for me” sign on any of the guys until day 4 where it was somewhat visible on the bottom of Chikage Kazama’s stand. Then again , I might have been able to notice that there was a sign simply because it was on my favorite Hakuouki character. (Keep in mind that I failed to visit their booth on day 3. If only I had known that Saito Hajime would have been on display and up for grabs on day 3! So upset. Lol I would’ve loved to have at least been able to take a selfie with him. Ugh)

Because Chikage Kazama is bae, I told myself that I’ll come back to the Idea Factory booth to bid on him after I receive my second princess lesson from Hiroto (Nico) at the cybird booth.

Another Princess Lesson with Hiroto

If you read my AX day 2 experience , you probably already know how I experienced my first kabe-don ever from Hiroto (Nico) as a “princess lesson” offered through the cybird booth. Since kabe-don was simply one of two princess lesson options, I decided to attend cybird booth’s last princess lesson opportunity for AX 2017 in order to participate in the back hug option from Hiroto (Nico). The line for the princess lesson was long. I guess by day 4, “everyone” knew about the kabe-don offer and wanted to participate. Had I known that there was going to be an excessive amount of people wanting to participate, I would have lined up earlier. A lot earlier. The cool thing about lining up was that despite being at the back of the long line, I actually was the cutoff person in line. In other words, I was the last person the female booth worker allowed to line up for the princess lesson. That was kind of cool and kind of made my day in a way. This feeling was a bit short lived though since there a group of 3-4 girls that came afterwards that ended up being the new cut off point for the princess lesson. Lucky them, eh?

Now here’s the thing that irked me and a decent amount of other girls who were patiently waiting in line for their princess lessons: people were cutting. So not cool. Not really the booth’s fault but at the same time, the booth could have possibly manned the lines better to prevent people from cutting and even worse, prevent people who weren’t even in line in the first place (ex.passerbys) to mingle their way into the line and cut. Wtf Ugh

​Stuff like this just annoys me. There was actually a group of 5 that acted like they were in line to purchase something but actually ended up hanging around and mingling their way into the line.

There was a reason why the princess lesson session took forever and there’s a reason why the cybird booth had to cancel Hiroto’s last autograph session for the day. I heard that there was a chance for the princess lesson session to end exactly at 2 pm even if not everyone in line got the chance to participate in the princess lesson. Obviously this rubbed a good amount of people near the ends of the line in the wrong way especially since most of us were aware that people were cutting! Fortunately, the cybird booth decided against the whole 2 pm thing and cancelled the autograph session instead. I’m sure there were some unhappy people about the autograph cancellation but thank goodness they didn’t decide to end the princess lesson session at 2 pm because by the time it was my turn to get the princess lesson, it was already past 2 pm. No joke. I’m serious.