This is the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. It is not really the Convention Center, but they're somehow connected. As in, you go in to the Exhibit Hall on the North side, in the Convention Center, and you somehow come out on the South side of the theater (which is this). It took a while to figure that out.
THIS is the Convention Center. We've been to AXes here before, before they moved to Anaheim. But it's real different from what I remember. For instance, I thought the Queen Mary was right to the north of this....but it's definitely restaurants there.
One of the problems of this AX was how spread out everything was. The theater and the convention center are like blocks apart (makes the exhibit hall too big) so everyone is spread apart. There wasn't a definite alley or hallway where you could regularly find all the cosplayers. And for me, cosplay is way more important than the exhibit hall. I mean, it took us two full days to get through the exhibit hall once. In other years we're in, we're out, and then we're sitting and enjoying the cosplay. So, for me, this year was a little reversed, and that was too bad.
But this is our hotel! The WESTIN. The morning we went, I told everyone to go to the Hyatt, but I must have been crazy, because we definitely booked the Westin. Silly me.The foreground is the fountains area in front of the theater, so that's how close we were. Also in the foreground is the remains of a really dumb Host Club gathering, where all the Host Club cosplayers (like us) showed up to take pictures.......but they didn't know what they were doing.
This is our amazing room! We waited forever to check in (actually made it through the badge line waaaaay fast, thanks to pioneering Greg). But it's a niiice room. Lot more floor space than we expected, which was good because three people were sleeping on the floor. Shhhh.
Our beautiful view of beautiful Long Beach, California.
THIS is the Hyatt, which was mysteriously connected to the Convention Center on the west side. This is us journeying to the more restaurants near the water. "Us" in this sense is me, Carolyn, Steven, and Steven's little friends.
This is US as in Carolyn, Me, Steven, Jennifer, Jacqi, and Greg. Marie took the picture.
See how Steven's is intense?
And Jacqi made Greg's allll on her own. They took a bus down to the AX from Santa Cruz the night before. Poor kids.
And here they are in their own set of costumes, cosplaying from Pokemon. Jacqi is Ash, and Greg is Dawn. We almost didn't recognize them when they came into the hotel.
Here we are enjoying our free Kodomono Nomimono (Kid's Drink). It says apple cider soda, and non-alcoholic...the Americanized bottle I brought home says Party Pop! It was like reaaaally watered down wine, or weak appley beer. But it was free!
Most of the time, me and Carolyn wandered the Exhibit Hall, just trying to find things to buy because there was too much of the same useless stuff. Sometimes we had Steven as Beelzenef, and I had to guide him through the crowds. But he got us lots of pictures because of how intense he was.
The rest of the time, we hung out in the hotel, or ventured over to the restaurants. The others kept journeying to the Vons in the ghetto bit of town hidden behind the hotels. But the touristy part of Long Beach was really nice. Once we walked along the harbor past the aquarium. There's a little peninsula with a light house on it and everything. It's very cute.
Watched a lot of Man Vs. Wild, lions and snakes documentaries, small people documentaries....Fantastic Four. Scrubs, Futurama. Some news.
Went swimming once. It's good to get my yearly swim in.
I've never really gone to any of the activities planned for AX goers, but the others made valiant efforts. There were concerts, panels, movies, all kinds of things. I ended up going to see Tokyo Godfathers the first or second night, and it's one of the greatest movies ever made. I need to buy it. I really really do. Other than that, I joined everyone in sitting in the auction on the last day when we'd already checked out and just wanted to sit someplace. They were selling signed sketches and posters and box sets of things for like thousands of dollars apiece. The caller also wasn't very good, but it was interesting enough to watch. And we sat through the beginning of the ending ceremonies (a first!) but then we had to leave. Awwww.
Here's just some random pictures.
Awww, they're sitting on the cute benches! I think Carolyn was also taking a picture, and Steven was off with his little friends like he did a lot.
Swirly lights from the arena during the auction.
Kyiiiaaaaaaaaaaar!
Says the face in the theater.
Cosplayers!!
Hitmonchan; Pokemon.
Maruchan Instant Lunch cups.
Mokona; Magic Knight Rayearth and Tsubasa Chronicles (the latter of which we cosplayed last year)
A Go board. You all remember the Go club?
Kanmuri, Azuma, Yoshino, and Kirisaki; Yakitate!! Japan.aka, the Bread Show I always talk about.
A Spartan, I assume. He was just cool because he was wearing that shiny cardboard face on the side of his real face...and that's just cool.
Hawkeye; FMA (don't you all remember those uniforms?)
Riku, I imagine; Kingdom Hearts II
These are Steven's little friends Karen and Hannah. They're pretty cool.
Mello, Matt, and Near; DeathNote. Not my favorite characters, but they were a cute little group.
Balthier and someone-I-don't-know; Final Fantasy XII
Balthier is my favefavefavorite from FFXII, and this guy just ROCKED as him. That other guy....I don't think he's from FFXII 'cause I just do not know him. But maybe I'm just not there yet. *shrug*
Axel; Kingdom Hearts II
She was pretty good. There were a lot of lame Axel's, just 'cause he's so popular.
Shuuichi from Gravitation.
Gravi is soo oldschool, but there's always a Concert!Shuuichi like this one.
This is blurry 'cause I was zoomed up, but.Mikami (we guess) from DeathNote.
You see, in DeathNote, there is an item called a Death Note, and "the human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die." So this guy? He was looking out through the registration line, jotting down names.
HARDCORE costume roleplay.
Florist-Aya; Weiss Kreuz.
Ah, Aya. If you know me online, you'll know the name Aya. Clearly, someone other than me loves him, too.
Zabimaru; Bleach.
In Bleach, the fighters have these swords, and the swords have different levels of strength, right? When you release the sword to it's second level (bankai), it sometimes stops looking like a sword. This is Renji's Bankai, a crazy sectioned snake thing. And some people cosplaying it.
Stealth shot of Cloud and Tifa from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
Yeah, it's still popular. It's hard to find non-Advent Children versions anymore.
Inside the convention center, second floor, looking out. Awww, what cute little anime fans.
One of the things I truly love about the AX is that it's a different sort of stranger. I mean, when you're walking down the street in a crowd at any other time of the year, the people around you are just strangers, and you don't have any idea about who they are. But at the AX, when the Convention Center as well as the surrounding streets are filled with anime fans...it's like you already know them. You can just walk by and say, "I like your shirt!" and he'll say, "thanks!" and you'll continue on. If they're cosplaying, it's even easier, 'cause you know automatically one of their favorite shows and can assume several others. And then you can talk about it. Or calmly take pictures of people you'll never see again. I was wearing my Naruto shirt, not even cosplaying, and I smiled at this Itachi crossing the street, and he knew why I was smiling; because we had Naruto in common. You can't just smile at strangers on the street, they'll think you're weird.
At the Anime Expo, you already know everyone else is weird.
You can walk up to someone dressed the same as you, invite her to a gathering of the show you're all wearing as, and then still be friends with her two years later. We caught Andrea only for a moment, and I was silly and didn't even take any pictures of her in her Tenchu cosplay, but that's the sort of bonds forged in an Anime Expo.
And here's us in the arena, between the auction and the closing ceremonies. Our group in the back (Carolyn, Jacqi, Marie, Jennifer, Greg), Steven's group in the front (Steven, Karen, Hannah, Maddie, and Sta..cey).
It was fun times, it really was. Till next year!
Also what happened over the weekend was that my Grandpa died. So now I have to go finish my laundry and pack again, 'cause we're leaving for Visalia at 3-ish. Funeral's tomorrow. So. I'll catch you next week.
-Steph
2 comments:
The cup things are pretty cool. And what happened to your glasses. Could you see? That would've sucked if you had to take all the pictures so that you could figure out what you looked at later when you found your glasses.
I like your costumes, they are super awesome and definitely worth the time. I want to go the AX it looks like fun to see everyone dressed up, but I would be totally lost.
The ramen guys? I didn't wear them--Mori doesn't wear them. That's the sacrifice you have to make when you cosplay. I could see okay, but I'd rather wear them. Heheh.
You should come! You know what Kingdom Hearts is, and Final Fantasy....aaaand. Zelda. They're not anime, but it's close enough. I saw all those guys there.
Post a Comment