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The Anime Expo 2015 thread of 100,000 people taking over LA

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JLynn

Member
Sentai Filmworks announcing the licensing of Legend of the Galactic Heroes is kindof a big deal.

That's the anime equivalent of Shenmue III.

The only major holdouts now are Macross DYRL and the sequel series. Goddamned Harmony Gold.
 

zugzug

Member
I wish I had gotten into the godeater premiere rather than the crunchyroll panel on the upside I asked one of the panel members and they told me crunchy is a profitable company and not merely eating venture money. HELL the lady Lauren I think her name was said she even lives in San Fran where the office is she perhaps she is making nice money.

Guess I'm surprised Crunchy is profitable is all.
 

Hubb

Member
I wish I had gotten into the godeater premiere rather than the crunchyroll panel on the upside I asked one of the panel members and they told me crunchy is a profitable company and not merely eating venture money. HELL the lady Lauren I think her name was said she even lives in San Fran where the office is she perhaps she is making nice money.

Guess I'm surprised Crunchy is profitable is all.

Wasn't the GodEater premiere canceled? I was hoping for a GE2 announcement at that panel.
 

Narag

Member
Wasn't the GodEater premiere canceled? I was hoping for a GE2 announcement at that panel.

From what I read, they showed an incomplete version of the OP, said it was having production issues, and the first ep would premiere on the 12th (?).
 
From what I read, they showed an incomplete version of the OP, said it was having production issues, and the first ep would premiere on the 12th (?).

Also heard they used up the remaining amount of time to show off other Daisuki titles lol

Such a shame something so heavily advertised had such a terrible panel lol
 

Wanderer5

Member
Well I came back home yesterday. Three days was a lot of excitement and fun heh. AMV competition and Little Witch Academia 2 were the big events for me, and were quite enjoyable. The nendoroid exhibit was quite a joy to go through, and had a great time at the Pokemon cosplay gathering. Got some nice goodies too, including the cool fight club mako nendoroid.

20150703005848_zpszig8zfwj.jpg

Also picked up the second artbook of Monster Hunter, which is REALLY cool. Well think it finally time to retire team rocket grunt and hopefully move on to team aqua grunt lol.
 
Wasn't the GodEater premiere canceled? I was hoping for a GE2 announcement at that panel.
No game announcements of any kind at that panel.

Last night was not my best moment, since I woke up with a raging hangover in the wrong hotel (Westin) and in a pool area that everyone else got kicked out by management. At least I managed to get another guy in a similar predicament get back to his own hotel. It was a shame I can't remember any details, since I know I had a great conversation with a cute 3D post conversion manager that was rather illuminating about how the industry works. If only I could remember it lol
 

Wanderer5

Member
Guess God Eater 2 seems more unlikely now, since I would think that be a really good time to reveal a oversea release.

No game announcements of any kind at that panel.

Last night was not my best moment, since I woke up with a raging hangover in the wrong hotel (Westin) and in a pool area that everyone else got kicked out by management. At least I managed to get another guy in a similar predicament get back to his own hotel. It was a shame I can't remember any details, since I know I had a great conversation with a cute 3D post conversion manager that was rather illuminating about how the industry works. If only I could remember it lol

Wow that not good.
 
Guess God Eater 2 seems more unlikely now, since I would think that be a really good time to reveal a oversea release.



Wow that not good.
I'll be honest, it was terrible. According to the people that were still around when I woke up, management was called in because people are assholes trying to take advantage of people. The only good thing that I did there was helping that other guy, I can't remember any actual details about I did that night. Mistakes were clearly made.

I found it weird that they had a Bandai Namco producer on that panel, but they only talked in terms of the Japanese releases. But then again, the focus if that panel was Daisuki, and there were other anime that were talked about.
 
No game announcements of any kind at that panel.

Last night was not my best moment, since I woke up with a raging hangover in the wrong hotel (Westin) and in a pool area that everyone else got kicked out by management. At least I managed to get another guy in a similar predicament get back to his own hotel. It was a shame I can't remember any details, since I know I had a great conversation with a cute 3D post conversion manager that was rather illuminating about how the industry works. If only I could remember it lol

Protip: a full glass of water between each drink. ;)
 
Checking out. Roomed with gaf and it was fun. Over 1600 pictures to go through and bought over 700 of stuff. About 500 to 600 is for my friend lol
 
8 nendo ( only one is mine ) 2 pokemon monthly plushy, 1 monokuma plushy, 1 monomi plushy, 1 Alcapacs plushy, 1 ookami plushy (that's mine), 1 koei tecmo plushy thing (mine ), 3 or 4 shirts ( those are mine ), and that's about it. O and hentai gag gifts rofl. And a few posters for myself.

There is this super cool x23 poster i want but forgot to get it

Edit.
will post more details about what i did later. Went to all my panels really. Danganronpa, uchi, aksys, fate concert, momoiro clover, etc
 
Back from my flight, unpacked everything and managed to settle down.

All in all, I would say AX was pretty good this year. Good on them to make pre-reg the fastest it could possibly be, too bad they screwed up by making it pretty impossible to get into any of the popular panels by not clearing the room and letting people basically camp there.

Spent way too much though lol

Staying so close really made the whole carrying everything you bought a pain point moot since I was able to run back to the hotel to drop stuff and more and more dealers/artists were accepting cards which made the whole limited cash less of a problem. Hell, my main problem ended up being making sure everything fitted in one bag and one suitcase at the end.

Pretty much gotten everything I probably wanted so that was cool.

Oh stayed with GAFers and that was pretty fun! Met two others as well so that was pretty cool.

All in all, pretty exhausted from all of this, lol
 

zugzug

Member
In a motel 6 in Buttonwillow now sleeping the night then finish drive tommorrow man my knees and feet are killing me. I drove south to Aline Village and picked up $160 in canned German goods and deli meats and sausages.

That moment when you have left Anime Con and you regret not 3 or 6 Artbook ranging from $35 to 65 each. I reasoned myself into buying zero #regrets

that second moment when on day 3 the manga books you wanted are cheaper and you talked yourself into not buying another 4 mangas for $20 when you already spent over $100 on Mangas and you see more that you wanted while driving away you realize that 4 books for $20 was best price you'll see all year
 
Another two hours to go on our way back to the East Bay. Currently stopped at Harris Ranch for a late night dinner and to hopefully wake myself up.

All I gotta say is, working tomorrow is going to be a bitchhhhhh! (Especially since I was basically working at the Degica booth, booth#53, all weekend!)
 
Another two hours to go on our way back to the East Bay. Currently stopped at Harris Ranch for a late night dinner and to hopefully wake myself up.

All I gotta say is, working tomorrow is going to be a bitchhhhhh! (Especially since I was basically working at the Degica booth, booth#53, all weekend!)

Yep, we're both sitting here at the bar at Harris Ranch waiting to fill our stomachs for the trek back.

And it was definitely an experience actually working at a booth this time versus doing T-Ono press work, but working the Degica booth made for a great time.

Exhibitor badge is pretty awesome and it was oddly fun seeing teardown once everyone was kicked out of the exhibit hall.
 
Well I came back home yesterday. Three days was a lot of excitement and fun heh. AMV competition and Little Witch Academia 2 were the big events for me, and were quite enjoyable. The nendoroid exhibit was quite a joy to go through, and had a great time at the Pokemon cosplay gathering. Got some nice goodies too, including the cool fight club mako nendoroid.

How much did that set you back? That one sold fast and everyone else overcharged. Only thing I saw higher was Saber 10th Anniversary Nendoroid that a friend bought for $120 as it was the last one he could find in the Exhibit Hall.

And damn if I wasn't bit by the nendoroid bug this year and got 7 of them. I'm fucking pissed that the last booth that had Houki today from Infinite Stratos not only upped the price from the day before but someone else beat me to it. Should have just bought it the day before.
 

Wanderer5

Member
How much did that set you back? That one sold fast and everyone else overcharged. Only thing I saw higher was Saber 10th Anniversary Nendoroid that a friend bought for $120 as it was the last one he could find in the Exhibit Hall.

And damn if I wasn't bit by the nendoroid bug this year and got 7 of them. I'm fucking pissed that the last booth that had Houki today from Infinite Stratos not only upped the price from the day before but someone else beat me to it. Should have just bought it the day before.

I got Fight Club Mako on the 1st day for the GSC price. And sold out fast? She was around for like 2 full AX days and a half. Maybe you thinking of the regular Mako? Now that one along with the other KLK nendos went out pretty fast. Thank god they stocked up on Fight Club Mako well.

I now I have 4 nendos since Dec lol, 5th one via Snow Miku 2015 coming in a couple weeks. Probably won't check out another one for the rest of the year hopefully, unless Marth comes out so, which I doubt.XD
 
I got Fight Club Mako on the 1st day for the GSC price. And sold out fast? She was around for like 2 full AX days and a half. Maybe you thinking of the regular Mako? Now that one along with the other KLK nendos went out pretty fast. Thank god they stocked up on Fight Club Mako well.

Sold fast, not sold out. If anything the last two days I heard a lot of grumbling how not only how hard it was to find but how what booths that had it upped the pricing on it a lot. I saw a few of the Ryuko's and regular Mako's.

I now I have 4 nendos since Dec lol, 5th one via Snow Miku 2015 coming in a couple weeks. Probably won't check out another one for the rest of the year hopefully, unless Marth comes out so, which I doubt.XD

Managed to find Gertrude and Lynette from Strike Witches for a good price and Archer is looking good next to my screen. Gotta say these are nice to look at and pose though I wish Archer came with another face.
 

Superflat

Member
So crowded. Holy fuck. Last time I went to AX was maybe three years ago and I swear it had like half the number of attendees back then. Complete insanity.

Atlus had like 5 segmented lines you had to go through to get into their tiny booth.

I went to the Momoiro Clover Z concert as the main event and catalyst for getting me there in the first place. It was an amazing concert (aside from weird intermissions and the somewhat awkward KISS award ceremony), so glad that more people attended than I expected, and the entire place was lit with pen lights. I was practically in the first row. Unreal.

The next day I prioritized the Little Witch Academia 2 screening, which was super fun and longer than I expected (40+ minutes!), and at the last minute I got tickets for Anamanaguchi , but mostly for Porter Robinson who was announced at the last second. Seriously, how was he kept as a mystery special guest? If he headlined, the entire venue would probably have been booked lol. Anamanaguchi had a fun setlist but the crowd wasn't feeling it, and the general feeling of the concert was kinda awkward. I was starting to get worried that this vibe would carry over to Robinson, but once he got started, he really lit the crowd up and put on a really really amazing show.

On the third day I prioritized getting an autograph from the creators of Little Witch Academia, and that was a 10 hour journey. Woke up at 4am to line up for the autograph ticket distribution which began at 8am, and there were STILL 100 people in line by the time I groggily walked to the convention center. After I got my ticket at 8am, I lined up for the exhibition hall for two hours until it opened, and did some shopping. At 1pm I lined up for the Little Witch Academia 2 panel, and then rushed over to the actual autograph hall which was located on the other side of the damn building. By 3pm I was done with the whole thing, and I was just completely dead. But I got my signed poster, so I supposed that's all that matters lol
 

Wanderer5

Member
Atlus had like 5 segmented lines you had to go through to get into their tiny booth.

Oh man, while I sure it got better later on, I saw the line going all the way to the side of the exhibit hall at one point, much like what I saw of the line for GSC booth, and I was like NOPE.
 
So crowded. Holy fuck. Last time I went to AX was maybe three years ago and I swear it had like half the number of attendees back then. Complete insanity.

That's because it did. It's grown by like 15,000 attendees every year. At least they were somewhat prepared this time around. AX2014 was horrendous and you could tell that they didn't expect such growth year over year for three straight years.
 

Superflat

Member
That's because it did. It's grown by like 15,000 attendees every year. At least they were somewhat prepared this time around. AX2014 was horrendous and you could tell that they didn't expect such growth year over year for three straight years.

LACC is getting really tight for AX. I fear for them next year (and myself if I end up going). The only alternative I see in South CA is San Diego :T
 
AX was super fun but with like 30 million people there. Just by chance I was at the Viz booth when they started lining up, I was like what for and some dude was like it was the Japanese voice actor for Naruto, & I had just bought a naruto wall scroll an hour before that so me and my friends jumped in line. Funimation booth had signings Fri, Sat & Sun with the english voice actors for Goku, Vegeta, & Freeza. So lined up for that, they couldn't sign items unless they were this revival of F poster they gave out for free or an official funimation product, just like the voice of Naruto could only sign Naruto items. Justin Cook was also at the booth during the DBZ signings on Friday!!! Went to the screening of Naruto the Last Movie in the marriot on thursday night and it was crowded but so good to watch.

Throughout the whole convention people kept screaming out "Just do it!" Food inside the convention is insane. 2 slices of pizza and a drink for 19 bucks! Little Kuriboh had his own booth and was signing posters for $10 so got him to sign one for me :). The only thing i couldn't stand is people walking in front of me just stop to take a picture of something and expect me to know they are gonna stop and I run right into them, happened like a billion times :/
 

zugzug

Member
I can't believe I saw a preview for the movie Boruto. I drifted off after Pain never saw that big war they had after.
 
Oh man, while I sure it got better later on, I saw the line going all the way to the side of the exhibit hall at one point, much like what I saw of the line for GSC booth, and I was like NOPE.

I only saw it got better like twice.

Once on Friday afternoon after they ran out of P5 bags, lol

And again on Saturday afternoon after they ran out of like everything else expect DDS1/2 and XL shirts but they still had P5 bags

The line was closed multiple times, I would say it was probably one of the more popular booths

LACC is getting really tight for AX. I fear for them next year (and myself if I end up going). The only alternative I see in South CA is San Diego :T

AX is staying at LACC for the next five years, lol

They did do better this year compared to last's in usage of the space. More of the convention center was used so at least some parts were not as crowded. Moving Artist Alley downstairs next year might make Exhibit Hall less crowded.

I think they really need bigger panel rooms though. Having panels lines cap out at least an hour before it starts and allowing people to camp in the damn panel room is really souring the reason I wanted to go to AX in the first place.
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
LACC is getting really tight for AX. I fear for them next year (and myself if I end up going). The only alternative I see in South CA is San Diego :T

Not going to happen, Anime Expo will probably just keep the cap at 100,000, start raising badge prices, close chick Hearn Ln and offload more rooms and programming to the JW Marriott, Club Nokia, and Microsoft Theatre.

If they really want to go crazy, take over the staples center too.
 
Not going to happen, Anime Expo will probably just keep the cap at 100,000, start raising badge prices, close chick Hearn Ln and offload more rooms and programming to the JW Marriott, Club Nokia, and Microsoft Theatre.

If they really want to go crazy, take over the staples center too.

I really wish they would offload more rooms to JW, since the meeting rooms/ballrooms there are quite spacious enough to hold programming and panels there. Not sure they could pull off taking over LA Live like the X-Games did a few years ago, but part of me would like to see Marc Perez go HAM and try that, considering that con-goers constantly cluster around LA Live when looking for food or just space away from the con.

Also, Grand Central Market is a really great place for food though I missed out on Eggslut. On the other hand, the Breakfast of Champions milkshake I had from McConnell's was fantastic.
 

Lucis

Member
Security checked my bag and saw my gatorade, he just told me "I'm suppose to take away your drink but I'll pretend I didn't see it" and lets me through. Good smiles company booth was insane, line went all the way to the back. Pretty packed for day 1, tomorrow and Saturday will be crowded for sure.

pro tip, don't go in through doors where there are checks

Saturday will be insane. I was surprised by how much more crowded it was this year in the exhibit hall for Thursday than it was last year. Hell I needed to get in line to get into the Kinokuniya booth and I've never had to do that in any previous year.

The bad today though was waiting 3+ hours in the ticket line for the FSN panel on Saturday. I'm just thankful they had canopy tents set up.

the will call line had... well no line XD


AX done,
I am glad I didn't attend line con this time, no line waiting at all. went to fate event, IA/wakkagi concert, EVA event. did photoshoot of my wife and just relaxed in dealer hall trying to look for stuff to buy (and not buying almost anything coz.... shit's way cheaper in japan).

The 2 main thing we did buy were 2 dolfies though.... Really supprised Volks brought sold out limited DD into this event, got saber extra and asuna... they are way cheaper than whaty ou can find on auction sites in Japan, (but still 800$+ each). Asuna was also a raffle buy (you win the raffle you get the chance to buy it lol.

It's pretty LOL that nothing good smile was selling really couldn't be gotten in Japan at a reasonable or cheaper price.

end with an AX selfie lol
11692630_10152870215761356_5356288399179991568_n.jpg
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Sucks, I really wanted to get a copy of the Artist Black SMT doujins, but I hear it was too chaotic for my friend to get near them. :(
 
I really wish they would offload more rooms to JW, since the meeting rooms/ballrooms there are quite spacious enough to hold programming and panels there. Not sure they could pull off taking over LA Live like the X-Games did a few years ago, but part of me would like to see Marc Perez go HAM and try that, considering that con-goers constantly cluster around LA Live when looking for food or just space away from the con.

Also, Grand Central Market is a really great place for food though I missed out on Eggslut. On the other hand, the Breakfast of Champions milkshake I had from McConnell's was fantastic.

Moving more things to the surrounding area sounds like a great idea.

Hopefully this year with moving some of the video rooms over there was a good success cause the small panel rooms in LACC just aren't cutting it anymore.
 
Moving more things to the surrounding area sounds like a great idea.

Hopefully this year with moving some of the video rooms over there was a good success cause the small panel rooms in LACC just aren't cutting it anymore.

This is one of the areas where Fanime/Sac Anime is quite smart in that they have lots of the panels/video rooms in the nearby hotel(s) whereas AX consistently would rather have everything centralized at LACC.

There are pros and cons to both approaches but with how AX continually is expanding yet there is only so much space to move, they really should start considering offloading some programming content to at least JW or even back at the Westin (since shuttles go back there regularly).

Especially now since they're utilizing the backside of LACC for food trucks, gatherings and line control - this area also is in dire need of more tents rather than just the ones for lines. So as it stands, nearly ever inch of LACC is now being used during AX and it would definitely be wise to at least offloading some content to JW to relieve the glut of people during the con.
 

Wanderer5

Member
It's pretty LOL that nothing good smile was selling really couldn't be gotten in Japan at a reasonable or cheaper price.

Eeeeeh? The prices of figmas and nendos at least seem pretty reasonable, the usual $40-$50, hell quite a few of them got it pretty harsh in the aftermarket, especially if they were exclusives, so this was a great time to get them if you were lucky to through (looking at you original Mako).XD

And nice selfie.:p
 

Lucis

Member
Eeeeeh? The prices of figmas and nendos at least seem pretty reasonable, the usual $40-$50, hell quite a few of them got it pretty harsh in the aftermarket, especially if they were exclusives, so this was a great time to get them if you were lucky to through (looking at you original Mako).XD

And nice selfie.:p

That's one of the rare one which is actually some what limited to event print first

but it's 4500 JPY which is 36 USD in japan which you can order in like 3 weeks online. diong mass shipping from japan to US is kinda cheap too. not worth the wait in line for the agony. However I think that one wasn't sold out until like day 2 or day 3 anyways.

I am not saying the price at the booth is not reasonable, it's just not worth waiting hours for.
 

Wanderer5

Member
That's one of the rare one which is actually some what limited to event print first

but it's 4500 JPY which is 36 USD in japan which you can order in like 3 weeks online. diong mass shipping from japan to US is kinda cheap too. not worth the wait in line for the agony. However I think that one wasn't sold out until like day 2 or day 3 anyways

I guessing you mean Fight Club Mako (was talking about the regular Mako that has shot up sky high in price) which is only going to be on the GSC store for preorder online, which then it going to be 6500 JPY including the shipping, being $53 then.

You said "reasonable or cheaper price," so yeah. But the new Mako was around for a couple days indeed, so there were times where the lines weren't that long when she was still around.
 

Lucis

Member
I guessing you mean Fight Club Mako (was talking about the regular Mako that has shot up sky high in price) which is only going to be on the GSC store for preorder online, which then it going to be 6500 JPY including the shipping, being $53 then.

You said "reasonable or cheaper price," so yeah. But the new Mako was around for a couple days indeed, so there were times where the lines weren't that long when she was still around.

reasonable or cheaper
not
reasonable and cheaper
 

Wanderer5

Member
reasonable or cheaper
not
reasonable and cheaper

Doesn't change the fact that you led those two words into price, making it either or price wise, but whatever.

And on a different note, heh LA officially declare July 3rd Anime Expo day eh? I guess this was where the news of AX being at the LACC for the next 5 years at least happened too.
 
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