The crazy Anime Expo 2008 adventure begins at a restaurant in Torrance. Mary, an Elegant and Gothic Lolita (EGL) friend, and I were celebrating our ten years at Anime Expo together. We couldn't believe it we were attending the nation's largest event of its kind for this long. We celebrated our milestone by having dinner at Curry House on Day Zero. Followed by that was Tom's arrival into the Los Angeles area. Shortly, Stan and Deb arrived at my house. We did not have a hotel room this year, but rather, just stayed at my house - commuting to downtown Los Angeles.

We started out by hitting Albertson's to grab some sushi lunch boxes. $7 for two sets: can't go wrong with that. I couldn't resist the urge to take photos of Deb cosplaying as Honey by the cake.

Neither could Tom resist the urge to punt the cutest thing out of Ouran High School Host Club.

We arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) at 11AM. We got through press registration with no hassle. We also noticed that there was hardly a line for registration. This was not just a Thursday thing, but people were going through regular registration without problems. People were able to get their badges within minutes, opposed to hours from previous years. Could it be that Anime Expo finally developed a registration system that works?

Anime Expo 2008 Day One had a very light crowd. Not to say that the convention was dead, but Day One was a Thursday, a day usually associated with work, school, and other mundane things not associated with the holiday weekend. In previous years, Day One started on a Friday or even a Saturday!

Tom and I had sushi while waiting for the Exhibit Hall to open. It's no surprise that there's nothing much going on a Thursday morning, aside from standing in line waiting for panels and the rest of the rooms to open. I had to go through Anime Expo blindly when my glasses broke. Once the otaku shopping mart was open, there was a mass exodus to the hall. Being half blind, I did not get to see much of the products. Tom was very happy to score some Transformers. He wasn't the only one though, we ran into Chris Tang who spent over $300 on Transformers paraphernalia!

And now to our Full Metal Panic cosplay photos! Thanks to the Bonta-kun and to the other Kaname for posing with us!

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