I had such a great time at AX this year and I hope everyone that we met with did too. I hope next year more people will come but here are some pictures of stuff that happened. On the 4th of July after the con was over we went over to ChannelCat’s house for some quality entertainment but I forgot my camera. Also, I had no idea fireworks were illegal to shoot off in California even on the 4th of July! How unpatriotic!

AX took place in the heart of downtown Los Angeles – lots of heavy traffic, crazy people, and expensive parking. So we took a bus to the convention center (45 minute bus ride from our house full of screaming children and drunk Hispanics), picked up our tickets and took a shuttle back to our hotel. Thank goodness the shuttle service was included with the convention tickets this year! It saved our feet from many long and painful walks. Our room at the Westin also had a great view of the city and was very swanky. I feel very sorry for the maid who had to clean up after us.

On the first day Egoraptor and Suzy came to visit us and we had a mini pre-birthday celebration for Suzy! We were supposed to go to a party that never ended up happening, but we made different plans and went to Benihana and played Munchkin for a few hours in the hotel lobby. I even managed to get our chef on camera for a few minutes. Hopefully I wasn’t breaking any rules there since the guy didn’t stop me!

We managed to meet up with ChannelCat and Spencer at the convention and were also introduced to Adrian and David who were both swell people. Inside the con a lot was going on. We saw everything from anime & manga, to a real life functioning mech robot. Well, not the whole robot, just it’s ankle – but the ankle along was bigger than me. In the artists alley there wasn’t much going on or any art that particularly interested me except for ONE booth. I met one of my most FAVORITE artists in the WORLD! PIMMY!!! EEEE! I was so terrified and starstruck around her, but I managed to buy one of her prints and talk to her a little. I was happy to find out that she was really nice and managed to put up with my awkwardness. We also met the guy Tomamoto might be doing some voices for in a new fighting game called Skullgirls. We managed to get a sneak peak at how the game works and the main character – the animation and character designs were incredibly smooth and beautiful. Can’t wait to see more!

On the 2nd (or 3rd I can’t remember) night we all decided to have a night out and go to a dance at the Nokia Club. First, we got on a very shifty old school bus with a bunch of drunk/stoned otakus who continuously scared the hell out of us. I thought the bus driver was going to pull over and kick everyone off. It seemed like it took hours but when we got to the dance they were playing something called ‘speed-core’….which I guess, from my experience, is like techno with no rhythm at all and a jackhammer to your brain. Not the type of music you can actually dance to. :/ Needless to say, it was a bad and annoying joke so we didn’t stick around. Instead we joined up with Ross and headed to Denny’s for a nice 3AM dinner and socializing. We also got some snacks and went swimming in the hotel pool. We didn’t stick around for AX Idol because it was super crowded and noisy, but no one I knew got through anyway, so I didn’t want to stick around to see who won.

I didn’t think I would but I ended up getting a lot of stuff at the con. I usually NEVER spend money at these things but I figured ‘eh, why not.’ and lived it up a little. I bought a bunch things for my nephew as well who has very similar interests and would have probably had a lot of fun at Anime Expo. Too bad he couldn’t be with us…but at the same time, I wouldn’t want him to be terrified by the cos-players and odd adult booths from the con. My most expensive buy was a set of 36 Copic markers that burned a little hole in my wallet but I saved about $40 on them…and I’ve always wanted some nice Copic markers, so I thought it was well worth it. Also, note the brain slug on the right which I also found at the CuteStorm booth. CuteStorm sells some amazingly adorable plushies and hats and is looking for a web designer/programmer to make her a nice site. If you’re interested, drop her a line via facebook!

Well that’s about all I can think of to share at the moment. Overall it was a ton of fun! Here are some more pictures of some cos-plays and stuff. The best one I found was the Jake and Finn cos-play! They were adorable!