Voltage Otome Romance at Anime Expo 2019

Voltage Otome Romance had a booth at the Exhibit Hall this year. I want to say enough said but really, I have so much more to say. If you visited Anime Expo last year, you probably didn’t see a booth for Voltage simply because it was their gap year for whatever reason. (They were present elsewhere at AX2018, though.)

So, I of course was quite pleased they decided to booth this year, in addition to holding panels!

Unfortunately, with a one day pass, my time was quite pressed and I didn’t have much time to appreciate the booth. Heck, I didn’t even have enough time to ponder what I should and shouldn’t buy.

I realized after the day was over that I didn’t even get around to taking photos of the booth. And it made me feel a tad bit bummed considering the fact that it’s become a tradition for me to photograph the booths I care for. (I just didn’t have sufficient time.)

So, let’s talk about the booth at a more in depth level, shall we? Because I couldn’t find any info beforehand on what the Voltage booth would offer at AX2019, I had no flipping clue what I could do/get/etcetera until I actually arrived at the booth. This to me was good and bad. Good because it was a surprise for me. But bad because I’d prefer to plan in advance. (It’s just in my nature to plan and for events like AX, an attendee should really not just go with the flow. This is especially so for those that have a one day pass.) To be fair, they did disclose on social media beforehand on what type of merchandise would be available at the booth. The amusing thing is that I don’t think every single thing they had available for sale at the booth was shared on their social media. (And yes, I will be sharing what I purchased from the Voltage booth in a bit.)

There was a board(s) that helped you to figure out things. As helpful as the board was, it was a lot of information for me to process and I honestly felt a bit overwhelmed by it all. (Then again, perhaps I couldn’t think straight since I had not yet eaten breakfast or lunch when I was visiting the booth.) Anyway, what I managed to learn from the board was:

• You get a FREE bag if you spend $40+. This was interesting simply because in the past, booth visitors would get a bag for free while supplies lasted or something like that. I wonder if this change was implemented in an attempt to deter non-fans from just stopping by for the bag only. I don’t know…
• If you find a heart on a lanyard tag, you get to take a print home. I got confused with this and had to inquire a young employee about it. Basically, you need to purchase a lanyard tag to find out if there’s a gold heart on your tag. The catch with participating in this is that the lanyard tags are random and the chances of selecting a lanyard tag donning a gold heart is probably slim.

  

• Get an omikuji fortune with every $10 you spend. The thing with this omikuji fortune is that it gives you a chance at winning a special pose photo opportunity with one of the cosplayers cosplaying as Koga, Kuya or Toichiro from Ayakashi Romance Reborn. While this is one purpose of the omikuji fortune, depending on what fortune you select, you may receive a special message instead. I personally think this whole omikuji thing is cute, but at the same time complex. I say this because omikujis can actually be purchased alone at $1. This is ideal for anyone that just wants an omikuji fortune experience. Lol The other complexity with this omikuji fortune thing is that the bestest of best fortunes is the fortune that gains you the special pose photo opportunity with Koga, Kuya or Toichiro. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but I believe I read this correctly on one of the many boards they had at the booth.
• There’s a virtual date opportunity at the booth as well. I forgot how much a date ticket costs but I believe in addition to the date experience, you get a photo from it. The interesting thing is that I managed to obtain a free virtual date ticket from a Voltage panel I attended BUT the panel was at 7 pm, which means the Exhibit Hall was already closed, which only translates to me needing to pay AX2019 another visit but how can one do so when my AX badge is valid for one day? (bummed out) I know both Saizo from Samurai Love Ballad Party and Eisuke from Kissed by the Baddest Bidder were the two main characters available for the virtual date. If neither of the two is a fave of yours, they had four other guys you could choose from. I’m not sure who the other four are, but I want to think that Hotaro, Saizo’s brother was one of the other four. If I was able to partake in the virtual date, I definitely would have chosen Hotaro as my date. LOL (If not him, I think I would probably choose to go out with Saizo. Lol)
• There are app specials for Love 365, Samurai Love Ballad Party and Ayakashi Romance Reborn. The main thing to do is to log in everyday during the AX2019 timeframe. There’s a little bit more to it as well, but allow me to just leave it at that. On second thought, here’s some 411. Input the codes “ax2019slbp” for Samurai Love Ballad Party and “oncall” for Love365. 😉
• There are two panels: Voltage Otome Romance Panel and A Look into the Otome Game Localization Process. The localization process panel is a joint panel with cybird and NTT Solmare Corp.

The Panel

As mentioned earlier on in the entry, I attended a Voltage panel and it happened to be the Voltage Otome Romance Panel. Attendees got Ayakashi Romance Reborn stickers and a virtual date ticket. The panelists gave attendees insight on what to look forward to next and provided answers to some questions that attendees had. It got a bit loud in there with these two particular attendees that just had to express excitement at every little thing. Wow is all I can say! Some attendees also got the chance to win an additional goodie. (If an attendee found a piece of paper taped under their chair, they won a Voltage goodie. It may be a bag or even a poster of one of the Ayakashi Romance Reborn cosplayers.)

Back to the Booth

So, going back to the Voltage booth. Let’s take a look at what I got. A Miyabi keychain. Lanyard tags. (None of them contained a heart but it’s okay since I’m just glad all three of these random lanyard tags were different from one another.) Ayakashi Romance Reborn stickers. “Business” cards. Omikuji fortune from the many eyed demon. And a bag!

Photos with Ayakashi

My most favorite part of Voltage’s booth would have to be seeing Koga cosplayed. Seriously.

The cosplayer (Lorentz, iWood Cosplay) made a wonderful Koga. There’s a post on the Ayakashi Romance Reborn twitter page that describes “Koga” as handsome and I cannot disagree. Many cosplayers (male and female) come off cute/hot/pretty/whatever adjective, but people fail to realize that it’s all thanks to the amount of makeup they use along with their makeup abilities. For this particular cosplay, it was easy to see that “Koga” is naturally good looking. On top of that, it seems to be that he naturally has a good personality. Sure, I didn’t really communicate with him but he came off as humble and that trait along with natural good looks is hard to find in this world. Definitely a rarity. (We need more people like that in this world!)

In addition to Koga, there was Kuya, cosplayed by Frenzy Cosplay and Toichiro, cosplayed by Tasu Suwabe. I think I should be happy that I managed to get a photo with both “Kuya” and “Toichiro” since I had arrived to the booth thinking I’d only get to see “Toichiro”.

Their poses in the photo were on point with how Kuya and Toichiro pose in the game.

Well, I think this basically wraps up my experience with Voltage Otome Romance experience at Anime Expo 2019.