Ayame-chan's AX04 Con Report

Yes, it's finally up here and running! Whew, what a trip. Though it seemed more quiet than last year, 'twas still fun. Plus, I had a stress relief once it started because I had moved about two days beforehand. And the start of my summer school class (which I dropped afterwards due to lack of time).

"Dancing robots...robots"

*coughs* Here were my cosplays for this year:

DAY ZERO

Well, this day was, of course, the day before AX started. After some personal issues taken care of, I arrived at the Clarion Hotel where I met the rest of my gang (will be known as Torch, Maulie, Kupochan, Swedmex, J, Sephy, Seras, Walter and his brother) to check in. After figuring out what to do with the food that was brought up (as well as settling in), we just chilled for a while. Well, chilled out before we could meet Sephy's friends Pip and Walter#2....AND Torch's boyfriend (whom I will call...er...Torch's b/f).

Didn't get into registration line until about 9:30 at night, assuming that the line would be less and faster. Unfortunately, it was really long, and we were told before on our way there by some informants walking back from registration that it was closed and wouldn't accept any more people. Well, we went in anyway out of curiosity ^^. After some minutes of boredom, Maulie finally found someone on her walkie-talkie that she brought with her.

That was fun entertainment but the dude we were talking to didn't want to tell where he was at in line. Towards the end, though, he finally let us know where he was. Poor guy and his group was waiting in the unpaid-unregistered line.

Came back at around 11:30pm, told Sephy, Pip, and Seras about the lines (as they didn't come with us) and then hit the lights out at around 12:30am, setting the alarm to wake up early to get to opening ceremonies.

DAY ONE

This was perhaps my favorite day out of all days. Maybe it was because I was the only Kurenai that I could find ^^. Somehow, the alarm clock in our hotel room rang at 1am, but none of us except for Torch heard it and she had to turn it off ^^; Waited in line for AMV tickets (which was fun...cuz I got to find my Team 8 ^_^....and Kupochan, in her Rinoa costume, got to glomp a very cute and tall Squall) before heading out to the Gaia Panel with Kupochan, Maulie, and Swedmex.

Gaia panel was fun. Unfortunately, they chose a bad time to set the panel because 1) people heading in line for Dealer's Room to open, and 2) people just getting out of opening ceremonies. But gosh, poor lOcke....he got hammered by whacking noodles (you know, the ones you throw in the pool) by so many people, especially his g/f Ling. [If you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, head on over to http://gaiaonline.com and you'll see]. We saw lots of previews of new features coming up (including some really random pictures that were set in there....like Lanzer an lOcke's piccy of just arriving the night before with bottles of beer...and lOcke in a chicken suit) as well as a sort of outline of what's going to happen when the beta version of GaiaOnline will be coming. Which was cool.

We tried to do the social afterwards, but there wasn't much except for drinks and a huge ass cookie to eat. So, we just headed off to the Dealer's Room.

That was when I lost my camera T_T.

*coughs* Camera-lostness aside, Kurenai was perhaps my most famous costume as of yet. I've never had so many pictures taken before now O_o.

Got some nifty free stuff from the console gaming rooms and the dealer's room before heading back to the hotel to rest and head off for the seating to the Anime Music Video Contest (aka the AMV Contest). We had to wait about 45 minutes after it was supposed to start, but it was pretty cool since they were showing all the nominees and winners from last year's AMV (much shouting for "Leaves of Happaness" and "Stop the Rock" ^__^).

AMV's this year was...okay. The drama category was pretty good, as well as the action category and some few select comedy sections, but overall, I thought last year's contest was much better. The poor guy who organized the contest was saying what had happened to his computer with the AMVs on there (it was totalled, to get to the point) and unfortunately, one of the vids for the AMtv category couldn't be voted on because it couldn't be shown (the DVD was replaying the video previous of it again). I hope that dude got a consolation prize...because that totally sucks.

Some highlights from the AMV Contest:

--- Whenever the screen would go to the next vid --

Audience: OooooooooOOooo.... (cuz it was either a blue or orange curtain blowing against the wind via powerpoint)

MC dude: *with strange accent* Fancy.

--- When the 1st Kingdom Hearts vid in the Drama Category went up ---

Audience: Awwwww... (so kyoote!! ^^)

--- When "Disney in D" (comedy category, and I believe the winner in comedy) came up --

Audience: *shouts of joy since it was a "Naruto" vid*

--- When "FOOTBALL!" arrived (last one in comedy) ---

Audience: *bursts of laughter*

[and this is how "dancing robots, dancing robots....ROBOTS" came up]

--- When ANY Naruto music vid came up (I believe there were only 2) ---

Audience: *shouts of joy*

Crashed back at the hotel room at around midnight, but didn't head off to sleep until one or two something (I don't remember...I was the one who crashed first).

DAY TWO

Ah...hell day. I had four gatherings to go to (which, I will tell you now, is NOT POSSIBLE when 3 of them are all within a one hour timespan), and random wanderings afoot. I woke up early to wake up Walter#2 and give some ideas of what to do with his Reno costume, borrowed Sephy's digital camera (cuz he wanted pictures), and then headed off to the Final Fantasy Gathering.

One word from it: chaos.

Some highlights that I remember (I got me a Cloud! XD):

~Some person: Everyone, attack the Cactuar! (Yes, there was a Cactuar cosplayer out there)

~Midvalley the Horned Freak from Trigun playing the Chocobo theme music when a Chocobo cosplayer arrived, on his back a Reno cosplayer

~in the midst of the FF7 pictures, a Tifa cosplayer's cell phone rang, her ringtone that of the Final Fantasy victory music

Well, it was a bit more organized than last year, but still it was disorganized. FFVII gathering was set at the same time as the FF:Complete gathering, so we had to go back and forth. Fortunately, there were some people who tried to tell us what to do and eventually the pictures for each Final Fantasy began. It started off with FFVII, since we were the ones shouting the most, and then re-arranged from FF 1-6, FF8, FF9, and FF 10 and FFX-2. After that, I headed back to change back into Kurenai (after getting some rest, handing my brother and his g/f their registration stuff, and some semi-organizing things) and headed off to the Naruto gathering.

One word from Naruto gathering: insanity and chaos combined.

First off, we (meaning me and Sephy who was in Kakashi costume) were late so there was this HUGE crowd. Then once Sephy came in to join the other Kakashis, more people came. The stairs were packed with people taking pictures, the balconies were packed with people taking pictures, the floor in front of the dealer's room were packed with people taking pictures, there were a LOT of people there crowding around to take pictures.

I left early to change into my Kagura outfit (complete with a Kyo hat and Kyo plushie), but here's some highlights from what I remember:

~Some person: All the sannins get over here! *much cheer from group*

~Another person: All the Jiraiya's do your legendary dance!

~A Shino climbed up a palm tree nearby

~A Kakashi did his "Thousand Years of Pain" on a Naruto

Then, Fruits Baskets gathering. That was a bit more organized (though I was late again) than the last two I went to, but the Naruto gathering was still going on when I changed, so again I arrived late for that gathering. I was probably the only Kagura in a dark green dress (instead of her light green one due to time constraints that I had to make it) and Torch, Maulie, Swedmex, and J eventually found me asking for the key to the hotel room. I headed back with them, telling Kupochan that I would be there for the Rurouni Kenshin gathering after I changed into Misao, and eventually just stayed at my hotel room the rest of the night. We showed Walter, his brother, and Torch's b/f to Naruto and was close to finishing the first arc before going to bed at around 2:30 am.

DAY THREE

My Misao day ^^. Headed off to the Masquerade line to get tickets. Here, we ran into a cosplayer dressed as Sadako from the original "Ring" (or it's said as "Ringu" here) who scared the crap out of Torch. Literally. She had gone to the floor and started crawling like Sadako coming out of the TV set...which was rather creepy.

I met this dude behind me and tagged along with him before heading off to the Seki panel. He was really fun, but I couldn't catch his name (or rather, I couldn't pronounce his name and he didn't tell me how to pronounce it). We were in dealer's room for a good part afterwards (him telling me about the Naruto game: Naruto - Narutimite Hero [sp?] and how awesome it was) and played some of the games that were there. Viz had the Ulitmate Muscle thing (in which I could barely hit, but my new friend almost hit the bell...twice) and the telephone money booth. Ah, the telephone money booth. I had gotten $28 from that and was only $2 shy of getting the next prize in line, which was a button and an Inuyasha magnetic sticky thing. The guy at the Viz booth handing me the prize asked me which one I wanted (after my new friend dealed with him that I was only $2 shy of the next prize), and being the indecisive me, I couldn't decide.

So, the guy gave me both prizes instead ^^; I honestly don't know what I did...maybe it was the look on my face or something.

Then Kupochan and I took a picture together at the Animerica booth [me as Misao, her as Kaoru] before heading off to the Seki panel. Which was a LONG and crowded panel.

Seki Tomokazu is cool ^^. (For those who don't know who he is, he's a voice actor who's done over 50 roles and spans from many different anime. Van from Escaflowne, Chichiri and Kouji from Fushigi Yuugi, Ken from Weiss Kreuz, Hiromu Shinbo from Chobits, Alexander Howell from Ayashi no Ceres, a random dude shouting "Oh no, it's a Gundam!" and dies, Kamui from X/199 the movie, and Souma Kyo from Fruits Basket to name a few from his list) When he had entered, we all screamed (of course) and he was so nice.

Random moments from the panel:

Seki: *after entering and after screams died* Hi! *pause*...How are you?

Audience: *much shouts of joy at seeing him*

~
[showing the current series he is voice-acting on, and his character shows up]

Audience: *shouts again*

~
Some dude from the back: I love you!!

Seki: I love you too!

~
Some girl from the front: [speaking in Japanese, but I could understand what she was saying, ironically] Will you marry me?

Seki: Yes! I will marry all of you!

Like I said, the Seki panel was fun ^_^. He even did a snidbit of a Chichiri voice from Fushigi Yuugi (when asked to do "Itai, na no da!"). After that, I headed back to the hotel room to eat some lunch and just rest. Sephy came over about an hour or so afterwards and wanted to watch the rest of the Naruto series that he left off on (I believe that he's only on episode 33 as of now) before the small group of us that waited in line for Masquerade headed off for Masquerade.

The MC was much better than last year, but this year's Masquerade there were more walk-ups and dances than skits. Not many made us laugh, but we did shout out for our friend cosplaying as Shuichi from Gravitation and his group who was #4 on the Masqerade entries.

I liked the Shinsengumi popping out of the box and fainting from the guy dressed up as a girl, though ^^.

The Gundam Astray, the last entry, was really cool. I mean, damn, why do Japanese cosplayers have to be sooo good??!? T_T

If you missed him, the Optimus Prime, and the transforming glow-in-the-dark car/Gundam, then check out the pictures of them on various cosplay websites (A Fan's view is the one that comes to my mind right now).

Crashed back at the hotel room at around 1ish, but had to wait until 2 something for Sephy, Pip, and Seras to come back from wherever they were because Walter#2 couldn't get into the other room.

We also have ideas to get a Naruto skit together (since we were so disappointed for there being a lack of one, considering all of the Naruto cosplayers out there this year) for Masquerade next year, so hey, maybe next year, you'll see us!

DAY FOUR

Final day, and extremely tired. We had to clean up our rooms (literally), bring down all the food brought to put in the car, pack, repack, and I waited for my brother down in the lobby. After we set my stuff away, headed off to Dealer's Room for one final look.

I won a DVD set of my choice on Saturday, without me knowing it O_o. 'Twas at the Funimation booth. Unfortunately, their sample set to choose from wasn't that much in variety (the majority was Fruits Basket, which I already had), so I eventually got Blue Gender vol. 1 just to see what it really was about, since I don't know what other anime Funimation publishes here.

Then got me Saiyuki vol 2, and the current 4 volumes of Please Save My Earth before heading back home.

Only I had to come back about 2 hours later to pick up my NERV bag that I accidentally left in the hotel lobby ^^;;;;;

~~~

Well, that's my con report and hope to see you next year! Pictures will be coming as soon as I can burn them off of my friends' digital cameras and what few I have from my disposable cameras that were bought on the 2nd day to replace my missing camera.