During this month, there were a few things that I got that I failed to mention earlier. So now I’ll just lump them into one post.

The first item that you see is a Lucky Star poster. This was a free poster that I received at Anime Expo 2008. It was signed by a few members of the English dub voice cast (which reminds me; I forgot to check out the English dub of Gurren Lagann on the Sci-Fi channel, oh well). I actually didn’t really want signatures, but they were signing every poster so I guess I didn’t have much of a choice. It’s a pretty big poster, and I plan to put it up in the dorm in the future (when school starts that is).

Next up we have a purchase that I made at the Anime Expo:

Ooh, Master Grade (ahh)… I got this thing for 30 US dollars which I believe was a pretty good deal. Then again, since this was actually the first gunpla that I bought, it might not have been such a steal. Anyways, I have not yet tried to construct this model, since I don’t want to screw it up. I figure I need some practice before I attempt this one, since Freedom is one of my favorite designs.

Speaking of practice, I bought this last weekend while downtown:

Yup, it’s a gunpla. Yup, it’s a lame High Grade. And oh, I don’t have the necessary tools to make this thing look nice! Wonder what will happen. Actually, I already finished constructing it, and it’s a small story that I’ll save for when I show the completed junk (probably 100% due to my noobiness).

And of course, underneath are two volumes of Hayate no Gotoku. I swear, at this rate, I’ll have the whole set.

So that’s all the random stuff that I forgot to mention over the course of the month. It wasn’t a lot, but enough to knock the wind out of my wallet for a while. What kinds of things did you buy this past month?

Oh, and there should be some pretty interesting things coming into my possession very soon. Stay tuned!

For those who didn’t realize it, Yoko Ishida was also at the Anime Expo. She performed on Day 2 I believe (didn’t get to see it). She had a panel in the afternoon on Day 3, which I happened to go to. Most people may recognize her songs from Ai Yori Aoshi and Ah! My Goddess. However, I know her from the second ending song of the first season of Shakugan no Shana.

Waiting…

The woman to the right of Yoko was, I believe, someone who helped produce Yoko’s songs (don’t remember her name). The man on the left was an interpreter (must be a difficult job). The first portion of the panel consisted of the woman posing various questions to Yoko and then with Yoko responding to the questions. Then, fans had the opportunity to ask her a few questions. The first ten in line also got a free autographed poster.

Was he looking at me? o.O

And yes, at this point I had my camera again. ^^;

For those interested in seeing some clips, you can try KaraokeOK’s Youtube channel, or for those too lazy to sift through it, here are the links: Clip 1, Clip 2, Clip 3.

« Part Two – Cosplay

Let’s keep this short. Due to reasons mentioned earlier, I do not really have any images that I took to show you. But don’t worry, I have a few links that you can check out after the jump.

I don’t really know what the status of cosplaying is at other conventions in the US and around the world, so I have nothing to compare Anime Expo to. My first reaction as I stepped into the building was, “Wow. So many Narutos.” Really, if I had to name two anime series that were cosplayed, I’d definitely have to choose Naruto and Bleach. It was getting to the point of ridiculousness.

Sometime after the Shokotan concert, I decided to count how many Naruto related cosplays there were as I walked from the West Hall to the Exhibit Hall. Within five minutes, my count was already around 30. Another 15 to 20 minutes later and the number was in the high 80s. I finally just decided to quit counting, and thank goodness too. I’m pretty sure I would still be counting right now had I not stopped. That’s not to say that there weren’t any good Naruto cosplayers. There were quite a few that were very well done. It’s just that there could have been more cosplayers from other series. I was looking for Shana cosplays in particular, and I managed to find one person.

It’s kind of pointless to list these, since I don’t have any images, but I saw a few cosplays that caught my eye. One of them was Genesis from Crisis Core. Also, it seemed that most of the Yoko cosplays were very nice. Lastly, Final Fantasy related cosplays all seemed pretty good. And no, unfortunately I did not get to see the Masquerade event that night.

If you want to see pictures (I’m sure you do), then I’d definitely recommend that you check out the following flickr users:

• Joits (Day 1, Day 3)
• VideogameVisionary.com (AX08 Album)
• Jasmine21
• Mooshuu (Day 3)

If you want even more pictures, try this too.

Maybe next time I’ll learn to not own myself and actually get some pictures. ><

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P.S. You have got to see the McSephiroth picture in VideogameVisionary’s album.

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Part Three – Yoko Ishida »

« Part One – Shokotan

Alright, earlier on, I mentioned that cameras weren’t allowed into the concert. But hey, that didn’t stop some people from sneaking cameras in. So we actually have some shaky camera footage of parts of the concert. I’ll link them to the corresponding songs later on. Sadly, they have been taken down. Let’s get started shall we…

Shokotan’s concert (Shoko Nakagawa) was held at the Nokia Theatre, right next to the convention center (her first concert in the US!). Those who did not have pre-ordered tickets could get free ones from the convention center at around 11:30 or so. I believe seating started around there too, but since the tickets had assigned numbers, it didn’t really matter when you got there, as long as you arrived before showtime (1:00 pm).

My ticket for the show.

It’s hard for me to visually describe the inside of the theatre, so I don’t think I’ll try (perhaps this may help). I’ll just mention that there were two giant displays on either side of the stage. They were used during the concert as a mix of live footage and music videos. A few songs were played while everyone was being seated. I remember one of them being “pretty please chocolate on top.” Being in the JJ row was kind of unfortunate, since I was rather far from the stage. But at least the seat number was smack in the middle, so Shokotan was directly in front of me.

Those who know a little about Shoko know that she likes to cosplay, and there was a lot of it at this concert. I think it’s best to organize what happened based on what she was wearing during the concert.

First Outfit – Ah… can’t find a picture of it!

Sorry, but I really can’t find a picture of it anywhere. Anyways, I don’t remember if she did multiple songs while wearing this one, but she definitely sang 1/2 by Kawamoto Makoto, since she wore the same outfit as the one in her music video.

Second Outfit – SOSOSOS

It’s pretty crazy, but she changes outfits in only a few minutes time, and it all turns out great! She sang a song from Sailor Moon and also from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (well look at the outfit, duh!). I can’t remember if there was another cover that came before or after the Sailor Moon one, but there was a song after Hare Hare Yukai. In fact, she asked us to sing and dance along with her for the third song.

Songs Performed:

• Moonlight Densetsu
• Hare Hare Yukai
• Sukashikashi Pan Sukoshi Hen

My reaction when she did the Hare Hare Yukai dance: “WAH! SWEET!”

Third Outfit – Mmm… Rei…

Well, looking at the image, what do you think she performed?

Songs Performed:

• Cruel Angel’s Thesis

Fourth Outfit – Tokyo OWNlympics

Sorry about the quality, that’s as best as I can do for now…

The first song she sang is going to appear as the theme song in the Tokyo Onlypic 2008 Special, which to my knowledge, is some movie screening in August. Technically speaking, the single for this song isn’t even out yet. In the music video, she was basically competing in an international idol contest, set in an Olympic Games format. At the end of the video, she scores a 9.88 and places first overall. What’s funny is that China gave her the lowest score compared to the other judges (a 9.85 I think). Was it an intentional poke at China? Who knows. She then sang her debut single, a song from her appearance in Hakaba Kitarou, and the most recent single to be released.

In the song from Hakaba Kitarou, she says “mero mero” a lot. The first thing I thought of when I heard that was melon-pan. So, for the rest of the song, I decided to sing “melon melon, melon melon, melon-pan” in the chorus. ><

Songs Performed:

• Shiny Gate
• Brilliant Dream
• Kimi ni Meroron (Anime Clip)
• Snow Tears (Music Video)

Fifth Outfit – Yoko!

This was the one that I was waiting for. First, we saw a small trailer of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in English (can’t say I liked Kamina’s voice =/). Obviously, Sorairo Days was performed. She also performed Tsuzuku Sekai, which is the theme song for the upcoming Gurren Lagann movie.

Songs Performed:

• Sorairo Days (Concert Audio Only)
• Happily Ever After
• Tsuzuku Sekai (Concert Audio Only)

Encore!

As an encore song, she sang one of her favorites, which happens to be from one of her favorite shows, Dragonball.

Songs Performed:

• Romantic Ageru Yo (Music Video)

I don’t remember this, but did she sing Calling Location, or was the music video shown? I remember hearing the song from the concert, but I can’t remember when.

Closing Thoughts

Well, in my opinion, this concert itself was worth the AX08 entrance fee. Sadly, I couldn’t go to her panel or her autograph session. It was definitely a fun concert, and I think she has one more fan now. ;D

Phew, that took a while to type. I really am slow. I think I’ve sat here for over an hour… I need sleep.

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Cosplay images from Shokotan’s blog (there is also an English version).
Credit for the concert videos go to MomoUraKinRyuu, Nazgulkiller, and Spokeydokey00. Thanks a lot for the ninjaness!
If any images or videos have broken links, then they may have been taken down.

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Part Two – Cosplay »

« Anime Expo 2008 – Why I have almost no pictures.

Despite only attending the third day of Anime Expo 2008, I’m going to break up my day into multiple posts for a couple of reasons. First, there are a good number of things that I could talk about, and if I lumped them together, then you may get bored by the blocks of text rather easily. Another reason is that, quite frankly, I’m a slow blogger. Generally, it takes me forever to type up a blog post about anything, and since I don’t have the ability to cast fuzetsu, I’d be here forever, trying to compile everything together. So each part will be posted whenever I have the time.

So why do I have almost no pictures from the event?

It’s simple really, I owned myself. I didn’t anticipate this, but apparently cameras were not allowed at all at the Shokotan concert. This was annoying since I had to store my bag away at the bag check area, which costed me a freaking four dollars (then again, compared to some of the prices there, it was okay). Anyways, to me, the bag check location was quite inconvenient, and so I never really went back to retrieve it till much later in the day. This, combined with the fact that I forgot about even storing my bag away meant that I couldn’t take any pictures. Yeah, I know, it’s lame, but that’s the explanation. I’ll try to find some links to other people with pictures so you can check them out later on.

The first part will be about the Shokotan concert. Stay tuned.

Temporary Add-On: For those interested in images, try this person’s flickr account. Have fun!

Part One – Shokotan »

With July just around the corner, what will you be doing? What are you looking forward to the most? Leave a comment with the biggest, greatest, most epic thing you’ll do/see/any other verb in the month of rubies, larkspurs, and Cancer (not the bad kind).

You’re expecting something exciting from me right? Okay, I admit, I have nothing too exciting in July. For some reason, a bunch of the things that I’m waiting for all involve burning a giant hole in my wallet. It’s definitely not a good sign:

• Anime Expo 2008 (My first convention experience)
• Konata figma
• Fate figma
• Zero no Tsukaima: Princesses no Rondo

As for some of the things that I’ll be doing in July… There’s research here. I’ll probably try to look into CSS and PHP to improve my web design abilities. Also, I definitely need to learn some Japanese. ^^; And lastly, I’ll have to sign up for classes for the next school year (I’ma gets me an edumakashon!).

Oh, and if you haven’t noticed, I added four more banners to the rotating banner script, making a grand total of, I believe, eight banners. Try to destroy my precious bandwidth see them all!