Much like part of last year, the team decided to commute from the South Bay to Los Angeles for the four day otaku party. We had to drop off our friend, Hanyaan, at her hotel. We knew that the X Games was taking place concurrently with Anime Expo. We managed to stay indoors the whole time without having to deal with the X Games crowd. We were running a little bit late because of last minute preparations. It meant missing out on a few cerebral and academic panels on manga and anime in higher education. However, we decided to go with the tide.

Food Trucks by Jared

One of the hardest things to deal with at a convention is finding food. This year Anime Expo had a nice group of food trucks show up for the convention. There was a wide assortment of trucks on day one including: Greek food, Boba, Texas BBQ, and Red Robin. In addition, people from Speed energy drink were out giving free samples however, we were not sure they were part of the Anime Expo food trucks. It was very easy to come back with a good amount of food, plus a free drink for a very low price. Food trucks are one of the best things a convention can bring out to the event and it helped give our team a boost to being our convention.

War Storytime: Registration Adventures by Victoria

I never had an issue with Anime Expo registration since the disaster during 2005. When I was a regular attendee, I remember waiting nearly three hours to pick up my badge. Now that I was press, I would not have to wait in line for a while. I entered South Hall and I assumed press registration was on the third floor like last year. Focused on securing our badge, we went up to the third floor to find that registration was moved. We went to the press lounge and found out we had to go downstairs "across from regular registration" to pick up our press badge.

From the third floor, I saw the crowd at the ready waiting for the dealer's hall to open up. It was a sea of people. I'm not as claustrophobic as Jared, but it was extremely overwhelming.

We decided to take the stairs to get to the first floor. We took the stairwell that was right above Hall G. Once we got to the second floor, we discovered we were locked in the stairwell. However, the third floor door was still open. We had to think of another way to bypass the crowd. We tried the elevator, but someone was messing around with the buttons. However, we were able to make it to the ground floor just as the crowd was being let into the dealer's hall.

As it turns out, press registration was right at the entrance of South Hall. We checked in. However, registration found an error with my badge. Thankfully, this was professionally addressed and we were issued our press badges for Anime Expo. I have to commend Anime Expo for taking care of this issue swiftly with grace.

Cosplay Sociology 101 with Professor Yaya by Victoria

While Anime Expo is known for it's mixture of anime fan panels and industry announcements, panels that explore fandom and otaku habits from a cerebral point of view are few and far between. I have been familiar with Yaya Han's Cosplay Sociology panel as I have seen clips of it on YouTube. This was the first time Yaya Han held this panel at Anime Expo. Yay covered questions such as why people cosplay and why people get so worked up over community politics. I thought it was fairly interesting considering that I have been involved in the cosplay community for the past 12 years. Cosplay habits and attitudes sure have changed and it was nice to have a well known cosplayer approach these issues in academic fashion.

Video Clips

Inside the Voice Actor's Studio: Kyle Herbert by Victoria

Bang Zoom typically has an Inside the Voice Actor's Studio that spotlights on an American voice actor. These focus panels are modered by Bang Zoom ADR director, Tony Oliver. For day one, we had Kyle Hebert, best known for his role as the Dragonball Z narrator. Kyle talked about his early days in radio to getting his start in voice acting. Kyle talked about his love of cartoons and goofing around with silly voices that led him into radio. It was also revealed that Kyle could not get an agent in Texas and in order to have a wider range of roles to audition for he moved to California . Once in LA Kyle had a slow start but soon found himself in hit games like Street Fighter IV and popular anime titles like Bleach. The panel gave some great insite into the difficult transition between media and transitioning from different markets.

The other draw to Inside the Voice Actor's Studio are the live dub sessions. The second half of the panel invites lucky audience members to dub over a scene in anime. Both Kyle Hebert and Tony Oliver coached and critiqued the participant. We were treated to seeing scenes dubbed from Vampire Knight, K-On!, and Madoka. One of the bonuses of attending an Inside the Voice Actor's Studio panel is to see other people try their hand at voice acting while recieving some constructive feedback. Who knows, you might be the next lucky sap to be selected for voice over!

Longe 21: Traci Hines

In addition to having a place for older convention attendees to gather and drink Lounge 21 also provided entertainment. We were lucky to hear Traci Hines former AX Idol winner and member of AnimeTV sing a few songs. It was done with a recorded background track, but her vocals were nice and fit the atmosphere. Overall, the look and feel of the lounge was well done and there was a more relaxed vibe than the usual energy of the convention floor.

Tales of Arcade-dia by Jared

One of the staples of any anime convention is the game room. This year the game room was made up of three major sections. The first section was a really well done arcade. Not only was there the standard racing and shooting games, but there was also UFO catcher style games and air hockey. The second section was made up of several tables for table-top gaming. The final section had numerous game stations and a good amount of chairs for hours of console gameplay. There were plenty of things to do, but watching people play the various crane/UFO catcher games was one of the most exciting parts of the room.

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