AX Expo 2003 from Panda’s Point of View
**DISCLAIMER**THIS ARTICLE MIGHT OFFEND SOME PEOPLE**
I first heard of AX from my friend while we were out jogging and got hooked up with a free complimentary pass from a friend. Then I decided to ask my brother if he would be interested in going as well and he said yes. So off we went to AX Expo 2003.
Thursday, July 3, 2003 - Day 1
The first day of AX also happened to be the last day of my summer classes and I finished the final within an hour and planned to leave right away to drive to Anaheim. But my prof decides to ask me and this other guy to go over the old tests and find the questions with the wrong answers so the class can receive credit for those questions. Of course, the system was slow as hell and we never got past 1 test in the span of an hour. PCC sux. anyway, we decided to do it at home and submit it by e-mail. By that time, it was noon…>=| and Kaiser said to meet at 1 with other A-S people and it takes about 45min to drive to Anaheim.
(some Chobit girls lying around)
The opening ceremony started at 10 a.m. so I already missed that and the exhibition hall opened at noon and Rei said there might be some specials for the opening. Traffic was clear until somewhere on the 5, there’s always an accident and everything slows down to nothing. We finally get there 1:30-2ish and I didn’t know where to park so I called Rei for help and found parking in Coast Hotel. We (my brother and I) find Kaiser, his cousin, Ayanami_Rei, and his friend. The Anaheim convention center was REALLY nicely designed. Everything was window panels so you can see inside. I forgot to take pics of it at night when it was pretty cool. Kai and Rei said they would come with us to get our passes since we didn’t know where to go.
(A badass from Akira)
The Hilton Hotel looked nice on the inside, there were more cosplayers around…which was a little bit weird but not as weird as I thought it would be. Since we had the lil red postcard confirmation, we got to skip the lines and go straight to get our passes. The guy mentioned that there was another person with the same name that was here too. I was like weird…anyway, then we got goodies from the next table over and the hang to hang our tags on. We meet up with Kai and rest outside and turns out Kai’s cousin has the same exact name as me…which was kind of weird. The thought of distant cousins came into mind. Next, we headed over to the dealer’s hall at the convention center.
(a cool Haruka from FLCL)
The dealer’s hall was like every other exhibition hall. Each store has it’s own booth. The “room” was pretty big. We started to wander to this booth and the adv booth. The prices were sooooooooooooooooooo expensive. I expected a lot less. They were $23-27 a dvd and each exhibitor was like “it’s cheaper than retail.” I’m thinking best buy sells dvds for 19.95 and same with online prices. The lack of buyable dvds was pretty disappointing. We decided to split off on our own and meet back in an hour to go watch “Junkers Come Home.” Since dvds were too expensive to buy, we looked around for wallscrolls…which seemed like what everyone else was doing since it was somewhat cheaper. We were wandering around and then there was like people chanting something the next aisle over. We move over and it’s this guy from the Bandai booth leading a train of people chanting Bandai I think. It was pretty random, we were like what the hell. The booths had dvds, toys, wallscrolls, posters, clothing, keychains, etc. Animenation had this dinky little booth promoting their new dvd, Risky Safety. They should’ve brought part of their store over since they have a lot of small stuff. It wasn’t really anything exciting. Then it was time to meet up with Kai and rest again when we saw a crowd gathered at ADV’s booth. Turns out they were throwing free stuff at people. I went up for a closer look and it was pretty scary, people were stepping over each other to grab stuff. We were like uhhhhhhhhhhhhh nevermind.
(.hack//SIGN)
Then we found rest of the group outside and decided what to do next. Rei and his friend got free goodies from the booths…including a rei toy from the nurse at the hentai booth. (they spent a lot of time oogling at that booth) We basically forgot that we decided to meet in an hour so we can go watch “Junkers Come Home” and decided to eat and catch the AX Idol event. Then we ran into a problem of where to eat…there wasn’t much around the area and the hotel food was expensive. Being the Asians we were, me and my brother bought sandwiches. Found out that there’s a Carls Jr nearby and Kai’s cousin, Annie concluded we would go in her car. There’s 2 girls and 4 guys. Guess who got shotgun? ^_________________^. Both Annies in the front and the tall guys get squished in the back. It was pretty funny. Kai didn’t know what to order. No burgers in Canada! :O We ordered and ate at Carls while I ate my sandwich cause my bro wasn’t going to eat it. Me and Kai’s cousin changed passes since she had a press pass and my was a normal one and our names were the same. (which I still think was weird) We looked at the program again to decide what to do after we finish eating. AX Idol show was starting soon so we decided to go to that.
(A familiar looking couple from Scrapped Princess)
When we got back to the convention center, a guy from forums called up Rei and asked where to meet. We said to meet outside the AX idol place. Me and my brother went in first while they waited outside. Like 2 min into the idol thing, we were like ok no. The judge panel were the dubbing people, “major” actors/actresses from the companies and a random fan. It was pretty stupid actually, the room was barely ¼ full and it was a REALLY big hall. So we went outside and waited around for the forum guy and wondered what kind person he was. Most of the building was made of glass and metal so the railing was glass and we were on the third floor. My brother was afraid of heights so he wouldn’t get anywhere close to the railing. It was pretty funny. We took pictures and he would stand far back from the front cause we were all leaning on the railing. While we waited, people started to show up and it looked like they were looking for people to meet up with. This guy showed up like he was looking for someone. We were like o shit, that better not be him. O shit o shit o shit. And then we were like turn off your cell phone!! Ahh! It was pretty funny. But it turned out not to be that guy and the forum guy showed up after. Since the idol show was stupid, we decided to see if there was any anime showing that we can watch. We went back to the Marriot hotel to see what was showing and saw a panel going on with no name on it. We went in a sat down…then we couldn’t figure out what was going on and so we left. Then kai saw that Hellsing was showing and we went to see that. Me and my bro never saw it before and it was pretty interesting. After that, we went to see the jrock concert they were doing at the Hilton. There was staff outside watching the door and made us and other people wait in line because the room was at capacity. When we finally get int, the room was like….half full. I was like um..sure.. There were supposed to be two groups performing and they were ok. It was too much noise to tell what they were singing anyway. And finally, there is nothing else to do for the day besides watch anime they have on in the ballrooms or wait for the scavenger hunt…which was another 2 hrs. After some time for the guys to play in the arcade, I decided to leave and so we went home…after figuring out where kai’s relatives lived, THEN we left. Luckily, we made our way there without getting lost.
(Not sure who they were supposed to be but damn were the costumes there impressive)
Friday, July 4, 2003 – Day 2
The next morning, we decided to sleep in and arrived at AX around 9ish. Found kai, rei, and zero at the convention center and waited for lep to get his pass. There was a REALLY LONG line to get tickets for the AMV contest that was starting at 8pm, but rei said that he had friend in line for tickets so we didn’t need to worry about it. While we waited for lep, me n kai decided to go to the TOKYPOP panel and rei took off somewhere. The panel wasn’t boring as I thought it would be because we dropped by another panel yesterday and couldn’t find it on the program and thought it was boring so we left quickly. They showed a short video on their new upcoming dvds and then a flash presentation on their new manga/anime titles. And they also introduced the creators of their new line of manga drawn by Americans and the winners of the manga contest.
(A cool Escaflowne crew)
After the panel ended, lep finally got his pass and we headed over to the mini-masquerade. We got there as they were about to start and a high school percussion group was performing songs from Xenosaga and had costumes from the game. After they finished performing, other cosplayers came on stage. Some people made a short skit based on an anime…and others just walked on for a brief second and walked off. Kai grabbed me part way through and we went up to take pictures and notes on the cosplayers. My favorite one was this guy from FLCL dressed up as the robot that came out of _____’s head. But the crowd favorite was probably “the box” from Metal Gear Solid. The guy couldn’t see well from inside and almost ran off the stage (and hurt himself). It’s kind of interesting to see the intelligence level of the people there being so..obsorbed…by a box. The host started to make fun of them by bringing out a stick and going “…stick…” and then people starting chanting “box box box” and he’d be like “…stick…” It was kind of funny. Then the masquerade reached halfway point and our watches said it had already been…hour and half or two hours. We didn’t want to stay anymore since there was going to be another one on Saturday night. So then…we decided to find the press room and see if there was anything of interest there. Got lost in the hotel for a little bit because the map was off and then the elevator took forever to come. Finally it came and we went to the press rooms. It was really, really quiet down there. Kai got kind of nervous and so did I with our press pass incident. We saw where they were holding interviews of the Guests of Honor but ended up not going just cause. But I got coaxed into signing us up for press seats for the Yuki Kajiura Concert that night, on the way out, I grabbed some folders from the companies prepared for the press. Then I decided to order a box of pizza so we can all share instead of driving somewhere and pay another $10 just to park again. The guys took off somewhere and left me waiting in line with money. -_-. Eventually I ordered and sat around waiting for them to cook the damn thing. ( I was really hungry). Lep found me sitting in the window and started to talk to me in Japanese and I was like buh…no I haven’t been studying. (he asked me if I was studying). Kai and my bro eventually float back to the pizza place and we wait around…..and finally!! FOOD IS READY.
(Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess!)
After we finished eating…we meander to the exhibition/dealer’s hall again. Along the way, kai and lep kept stopping and taking pictures of cosplayers while I kept walking with my brother just looking at them. Then we ended up getting separated and we went on to wander in the dealer’s hall by ourselves. I bump into a friend and wander around with him since my brother got tired of walking. We looked at totoros for awhile. They were kind of scary looking and cute at the same time, but it was soft!! I eventually gave in to impulse and got one of the chibi holding the rice wrapped in bamboo leaves. I find my brother outside with kai and turns out the lep left to go his party instead. We decide to watch one of the movies they’re showing on the third floor while waiting for the Yuki Kaijura concert to start at 5pm. But we first decide to see what was next door and….turns out to be an anime trivia thing. The questions were HARD, the volunteers were stumped quite a few times. After the round was over, we headed next door to the big room and……it was practically empty except for the volunteers and some random people. On another note, almost NO ONE in the AX staff knew where things were or what was doing on.
(A great classic - Lupin III)
After sitting for awhile in the film room with nothing getting put on, I look at the program and saw that there was nothing showing at the time in the room we were in. I think there was a mix up in the program and the actual rooms available cause we never found the movie place. Then we saw the LONG ASS line forming for the concert which went outside and started to twist around. Kai said the press room people said to meet outside the door at this time and we didn’t see anyone and NONE of the volunteers knew where the press people was supposed to meet and we got sent around in a circle. Finally we end up back at the entrance and they just let us in because we had the press pass. The room was the same one for the mini masquerade and the ax idol show. We ended up sitting second from the front in the center with other press people. That was pretty cool. Then they started to let the rest of the people to come in and of course, nothing starts on time and it was delayed for about 30min. The front row was reserved for Guest of Honors and none showed and random people started to sit down and by the time the staff realized it, there wasn’t any seats left except for the VERY back I think. They debated that for a long time and we’re like get the concert started!!
(Awesome Utena cosplayers)
The Pioneer president came out to welcome people and said some stuff. He was kind of funny with his English. Then Yuki Kajiura came out and introduced herself and introduced the vocalist and the guitarist. She performed songs from hack sign, noir, aquarian age, and a new song not from an anime. Inbetween each song, she would talk about the process in making that song. In the beginning, she got stumped on English and started calling out “oh translator~ hello? Translator~~” and finally the president came running out again. It was cute. Through all the talking, Kajiura gave away a major spoiler in hack sign before realizing it after people in the audience started going “SHHHHHH SHHHHH” and she gave another spoiler in noir too. She was pretty embarrassed after realizing what she did. At first it didn’t make sense to me when she said the spoiler to hack sign then I eventually figured it out….o well. The concert ended and the audience called out for an encore and they came out again and did 'canta per me' again. After it ended, me n kai thought getting a cd would be neat since it was..$12? But by the time we decided to, it was already sold out. We found my brother and lost rei and zero so we went off in search of food.
More on the Yuki Kajiura Concert @ AX2003
(I love Asuka.. heh)
We went back to the Hilton in search of food and ended up paying too much for sandwiches and water. The AMV contest seating started at 8pm and the actual thing was supposed to start at 9pm. It turns out that we didn’t have any tickets for kai which sucked, but kai said he would go watch some anime or something while we were in it since I still had to take him home. So…we go back to the convention center and there’s this long ass line that starts all the way on the second floor…the line to get ON the escalator. Yesh. Then we get up to the terrance and it wraps around a bunch of times and we probably waited for 40ish min and watched fireworks and talked and played with the totoro I bought. My brother was being funny and just played with it. FINALLY, we get in and meet up with rei and zero again. The place is not even full so we didn’t understand why there was a fuss on getting tickets to see the stupid amvs. There were some empty chairs next to us and rei came up with idea on how to get kai in so I took his ticket and went off to find kai. We found each other on the first floor since he was watching the end of EVA in a video room or something like that. Go back upstairs and waltz in like we just went to get some food and woo hoo, now everyone can watch the amvs.
(Another badass from Trigun)
They started out with the old amv winners from a few years back and of course, nothing starts on time and it was already an hour late or something like that. People were getting rowdy and it was kind of annoying. The room was the same one from the concert except with 4 big project screens hanging from the ceiling which looked pretty cool. AX blotched up on the order of the amvs in the dvd they made and took out time to change the numbers on the ballot and it made more people get impatient. These guys were yelling behind us and me n rei were just like shut up. Then the guy was trying to provoke us by saying he knew where we were sitting and some crap. It was like grow up and just watch the show. The guy who was hosting the contest had a good sense of humor, he put up with the cat calls and the rowdy people. I liked euphoria, center of the sun, and mitternaucht. The good comedy one was The Chibi things that kill. By the time it went to the last category, it was like..1:30. I was sooo tired and wanted to leave, but we stayed for the last category which was good cause I got to see euphoria.
MORE ON THE AMV Contest @ AX2003
The cool thing about it ending so late was that we got to skip out on paying for parking. The booth closes at midnight I suppose. My brother fell asleep right away when we got in so it took me a lot of concentration and effort to stay awake and drive straight. Conversation while driving:
Kai: are u swerving?
Panda: not that I know of
Kai: ok….
I had to start singing to keep awake. Then after dropping off kai, my brother was still dead asleep so I had no one to talk to, to keep me awake. It was really hard. But we made it home in one piece and that was the end of the day.
Saturday, July 5 Day 3
Saturday was a slower day, the big event of this day was the Masquerade. As a result, there was a TON of cosplayers dressed up all ready to strut their stuff across the stage later that night. Most of us A-S people spent the day hanging out in the exhibitors’ hall and spending hard earned cash on anime merchandise or watching some anime on the big screen.
(Cool Kakishi from Naruto)
Yuki Kajiura also did some autographing for fans at the pioneer both which attracted a lot of attention especially from her concert which sold out EVERY SINGLE COPY of fiction at AX2003. Kaiser tried in vain to get one but couldn’t in time for the autograph session.
You can witness the fun with our Photo Gallery here.
(from .hack//SIGN ?)
The Masquerade started out with a surprise from a Power Rangers like show which at first I didn’t know if it was a joke or supposed to be dead serious. It turned out to be the latter and the show was called Powered Sister. The preview they showed us was hilarious though.
The Masquerade was pretty standard with some outstanding costumes and some people who should of thought of what they were doing before they actually got on the stage and made a fool of themselves. The host who looked sort of like Will Farrel (from SNL) made some funny and sometimes insulting comments and some people in the audience started yelling at him. Pretty soon insults and flaming were coming from both the host and some audience members which was pretty hilarious.
Sunday, July 6 Day 4
(Few of some of the legions and legions of Final Fantasy Cosplayers)
Pretty much nothing special except trying to get some last minute deals off the exhibitors and an auction show to raise money for Charities. Most of the A-S members didn’t stay for the auction (because none of us had any money) and were too burned out from 3 previous full days of anime to stay for the closing ceremonies. It was a much fun trip for most A-S members and god were we tired…
Round 2 in 2004? Who knows? Maybe =)
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