Pacific Media Expo 2009 took place at the LAX Hilton on November 7-9, 2009. The event hails itself as the crossroads of East Meets West For Scarlet Rhapsody, Pacific Media Expo started late on Friday as we did not arrive until seven at night. We had a few panels prepared for the show; Thriller and Horror Anime and Convention War Stories. Unfortunately, we never got word back whether or not we would be presenting our panels at con. All I knew from programming was that we were doing "Horror" on Friday and "War Stories" on Sunday. While waiting for the traveling party to arrive, I recorded the usual Zero Hour Vlog:

The traveling party arrived come supper time. We stopped by the local Carl's Jr. on the way over. Deb, Andrew, Ethan, Jared, and I checked into our hotel room. Luckily, Stan was one step ahead of us and checked in with the press department. The team also squared away problems we were having scheduling our two panels ("Horror" and "War Stories"). It turns out that the programming director went MIA and never relayed our panels to programming. Luckily, Pacific Media Expo had two open slots on Sunday for our panels. Though it would conflict with the fashion show, it was better than nothing. Many thanks to Jinnie for taking care of this situation.

Friday night did not have much going on. There was a panel about an upcoming documentary about anime fandom entitled, Fanime, but by the time we were settled in to our hotel room, it was already over. The team - Deb, Jared, and I - changed into our Sailor Moon S costumes to film Professor Tomoe Laughs at Things. Like Friday night last year, it was mostly otaku hanging out in the main lobby area just hanging out or playing card games. Uno and Apples to Apples were the games of choice among Lolitas and otaku.

The pocky tasting room was open. Though we were full from Carl's Jr, we got a good idea of where we were having lunch on Saturday. The artist alley was up and running into the evening hours. People were just making the most out of their time on Friday evening. However, it should also be mentioned that there was a demonstration outside of the LAX Hilton which resulted with a foul stench of rotton eggs seeping into the main lobby area.

A lesser known venue was the swap meet. Unfortunately, I discovered it when they were about to close up shop. I was able to find rare Tsukihime doujinshi featuring Akiha. While discovering rare treasures, I was able to reconnect with Tiffany Marie Austin (USA Musume). She and Kimi were selling their old otaku wares. I was able to pick up fabric, a dollfie pattern book, and an X/1999 artbook.

Pacific Media Expo's space is limited to the main floor and the second floor. Fortunately, this allows guests of honor to roam around the area. Unlike larger conventions, like Anime Expo and Fanime, you can easily spot a guest of honor. Case in point, I was able to say "hi" to Maki and Asuka of Angelic Pretty. Jared and I found Shinichi "Nabeshin" Watanabe, director of Excel Saga, in the main lobby cosplaying as Nabeshin.

At one point, the three of us Sailor Moon people decided to take photos of ourselves. We were overjoyed to have a few cosplayers recognize who we were cosplaying as. Last summer, the three of us started watching Sailor Moon S again. Deb cosplayed as Hotaru Tomoe, Jared cosplayed as Professor Tomoe, and I cosplayed as Mistress 9. The only bummer about the LAX Hilton is the dark lighting.

We also made a fan film about Professor Tomoe as he explores the world of laughter at PMX.

In addition to what was going on Friday, we just chilled on the Japanese-esque garden on the third floor outside of the Anime Los Angeles con suite. Suffice to say, I did not go to the con suite as often as I did last year, only because I felt there was much more to do at PMX this year. However, it was still a nice place to meet up with my SoCal buddies for the usual hijinks.

Pictures are copyright by Scarlet Rhapsody. If I took your picture, feel free to use it on your site or cosplay gallery. While you're here, do sign the guestbook. This site was brought to you by the font MadAve. Many thanks to Chaz Boston Baden for the image resizing and watermarking program.