May Expo Report

hopeful_monster

Thousand Master
Ohh First post, yay.
Difficult to know where to start, so will try starting at the beginning. Got there at about 10.45 and after seeing the queue splashed out the extra £2 for a fast track ticket. Got in and failed to get one of the goodie bags, already all gone. Damn. But really wished they had put deodorant in the bags cause already the place had the smell of the bottom of my laundry basket at the end of the month. Quick wander round and anything anime was packed. be it shops selling dvd's, posters, or pocky there was a 2 deep scrum around it, yet the rest was fairly easy to get round.
The Distributors had a fairly good presence, with the possible exception of Manga, which seemed to have very little on offer. Beez, ADV and Revelations all had good special offers with ADV (who were really pushing Guyver) sellling things like the entire Rahxephon series and movie for about £25, all of Hellsing for £35, got all of Escaflowne for £45, and Revalation had Gunslinger Girls for £30 and a somewhat complicated FMA deal so on. Other shops had usual tonnage of Manga, but there wasn't that much in the way of imported DVD's or CD's. Lots of art books and 'toys' though.
The Cosplay was in full effect, and although there was a great range (in both subject and quality) most common were FMA, Naruto and Bleach, and while there was a fair amount of Final Fantasy there weren't the hordes of Cloud's and Sephiroth's that i'm used too seeing. My favourites were the Battle Royale girls (3 girls in the school uniforms covered in blood with their 'weapons'), the Gundam (card board box with Gundam written on it) and 4chan's Anonymous (complete with Pool's closed sign).
Didn't see much of the free anime screening (FMA, Conquerer of Shalaba was completely packed out), but did manage to seen Highlander which was ... bloodier than Elfen Lied and while fairly true to the mythos kinda meh.
Didn't do any of the signings, but the Dude from FMA had a queue round the anime stage, and the dude from Eva was almost empty... possibly. Since he was opposite the ADV stall, which was tucked in a corner and always packed, it was difficult to tell.
Best find was the Rahxephon Art Book or Kasugai Sumiyaki Coffee Candy (an espresso in a boiled sweet). Aslo got all of Escaflowne and Guyver (new one) Vol 1, and frissbee, t-shirt and bag, and a poseable and transformable VF-1A Fighter
 
I just got back.

I arrived at around 10am, managing to nab a goodie bag by speaking really nicely to one of the ladies controlling the stock of them. They had free DVDs in them! I got Bubblegum Crisis. (Okay, they weren't -great- DVDs...)

The show was excellent overall, but I thought it a little silly to pack up all the anime in the top right corner of the show floor. That area was completely overflowing - the rest was fairly easy to walk about.

I didn't get into any of the screenings, but the cosplay turn out was incredible. I was made particularly happy by the myriad of Haruhi's (including one in the full bunny suit, accompanied by a Mikuru) and a couple Shinkus from Rozen Maiden.

In the end I didn't buy any DVDs, as I could probably find them online for cheaper, but I did buy a "Kanji de Manga" kanji learning aid and a Newtype magazine, from United Publications.
 
Oh yeah managed to get bits of video of the The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya cosplayers doing the OP dance. Will try and get it onto Youtube or something.
 
This was the first Anime Convention I ever went too! I was dead excitied! We got there at 11amish and wandered around taking pictures of cosplayers and stuff :) I totally squee'd over the Haruhi Bunny Figure at one of the stores but alas could not afford it. £35 was waaaay too much. Got some ribbons instead.

I really loved it :) I took lots of pictures! So when I upload them to my comp I shall sticksome up here. The Sailor Scouts were awesome as was the one Cardcaptor Sakura I saw ^_^ Props to the Haruhi Bunny girl! She had guts! She looked amazing too! And the guy who looked just like Jack Sparrow it was uncanny!

Couldn't figure out how to get to the main stage though (yes yes stupid I know) I think there a queue for it but we kept missing when things started.

What was in the goodie bags?
And yes it did smell kinda bad in some places there! I agree!
 
i went to the expo today and was alright....but not better than the last one (well imo that is)
i didnt go purchasing mad like i usually do (and on the net lol) and only bought 3 things and got 2 signed stuff.
here are the pics

Monster vols 1-2
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Black sword...it's real!
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Signed Autograph from Van's voice actor from FF12
that's right....Adil is my name
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and my favourite item of the day......
Signed FMA TIN 1 from Ed's Voice actor from FMA
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i even managed to put back the factory seal back...just to protect the autograph. i had to like wait almost 45 mins in the que to get it signed...and i was like one of the last few to get it signed.....

i hope there are more voice actors next time.
 
Got there about 11:15, the ticket queue seemed massive; but was rather quick; said i was 14 and got the child ticket.

My mates rushed though the whole thing without looking at much at all. I sorta just walked off from them. The Manga collection was actually astounding; Still regretting i didn't buy Negima! Vol 1.
They had a few R1 things for example i saw the Black Lagoon: Special Edtion box and volume, £20, not too pricey. ONLY HAD £40, one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I'm hopefully going to start a Anime/Manga money collection and then by each Expo i can splash out. This dude bourght a Sailor Moon complete collection, The person behind the counter said "This is £200 Right" and the dude buying said "Go for It". I need that money.

They quite a lot of Film/TV memorabilia and things. they also were a lot of old Comics selling for high prices.

As I've said many a time, disappointed i got ******* dragged out of the expo and cant wait for next time.

Oh and, First Anime Expo
 
Here are some of the Cosplay pictures I took.I have so many, this is just a few! I don't know if any of them are any of you! Sorry if there's too many. Let me know if there is and I'll stick em behing a spoiler cut :)

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Phew ^_^
 
Engineering works meant it took me 2hrs to get to expo. and by god, it was packed, seriously, nearly impossible to move.

I bought one manga and then joined the queue to meet Vic. What was funny was the queue went round the Neo table and they were irked, I think it may have been the editor but he yelled, "What are all these people queing for?" because no-one could get to their table to fill out subscription forms. It took me an hour to get to Vic.

So... I asked him to sign my DN Angel dvd and he said he likes Dark. He then asked my name and looked at me blankly when I spelled it, he got most the letters wrong. I asked if we could take a photo and he was cool with it. And then... because I couldn't think of anything to say I said:

"I think you have a nice laugh." he didn't hear me so i had to say it again.

Feeling stupid, I elaborated, " I always liked your laugh when you played Dark."

then he looked:

:eek:

then he wore a big:

:)

then he:

:lol:

(chuckled) and said:

"Thank you. I don't hear that very often."

Then I hurried away from the table in full fan-girlish 'I've-met-Vic-OMG-mode!'

It wasn't until 5 minutes later when I looked at the DVD did I realise he'd spelt my name wrong, ending it with an 'a.'

I didn't care. I was so excited. I walked around hyper for a while, forgetting to photograph cosplayers and then headed back.

I don't blame Vic, he's such a lovely guy by the way. He had a Phantom Theif Dark motif on his jeans, which if he wasn't wearing them, I would certainly want to steal...

Anyway, that's Expo for me.

M.G xx
 
Brain Working in fits and starts. There was a Q&A session with the 4 distributors, only caught a few tid bits from it but seems unlikely that Black Lagoon will be coming out in the UK any time soon, while they all seemed to like the show, they all had a kinda 'yeah but no... sorry' look on their faces. Also there are no real plans to break into either Blu-ray or HD-DVD's. Manga said that they would like to do GitS: SSS as it is 'filmed' in High Def, but until there was a clear winner in the high def war they weren't going to risk it (there was mention of trying the Hybrid Discs, but nothing concrete).
 
hahah you got a lot of people i kept missing!!! Heres a few pics for now,which are all up at my deviantart also -

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will post more later.By the way my deviantart is -http://trashbat.deviantart.com/

Just quickly,i ended up buying a Naruto wallscroll,a death note necklace,a kakashi bookmark and Faith by HYDE :p Will do a proper report soon.
 
glad to hear you guys had a good time, plus there are some amazing cosplay outfits.

if anyone else from AUKN is attending tomorrow, i'll be there shooting lots of footage for another music video (like the naruto event from last monday.)

i'll be wearing a metallica 'and justice for all t-shirt'. plus i doubt you guys will miss very easily. i'm 6' 8" with long blonde hair, so i shouldn't be that hard to spot.

(if you want an picture to refer from to find me, look at my picture here (my myspace page) ,i'll look a lot like that.

if you see me, come over and say hi.
 
Dude you got photos of the Battle Royale Girls! We saw them when we stopped for a beer but I couldn't find them again after that! And that Rikku, she was really great! She looked amazing!
 
Was cool going to this, I'm not a huge cosplay fan, but this wasn't bad at all, thank god it wasn't like last year with every other person and their grans cosplaying kakashi.

Bought myself a Luaghing man bag..for 30quids! :S
was still worth it

Storm troopers confronting the red ranger('s) and a black ranger was intense, wanted to see a full scale war of epic proportions.

Then I noticed tekken going on, a real highlight, my Xiaoyu went undefeated thoughout the day.

Watching the robot wars was pretty cool, but I swear the way it was set up was not safe.

Watched part of the cosplay contest.. Elite Beat Agents were great, very funny, but I have to agree with Junipurr..that Rikku!

Overall was a pretty good day, have a few photo's I'll upload later.


Edit- Any one who was running around with signs offering free hugs needs to end. They're just annoying.
 
Manga Girls said:
I don't blame Vic, he's such a lovely guy by the way. He had a Phantom Theif Dark motif on his jeans, which if he wasn't wearing them, I would certainly want to steal...

Anyway, that's Expo for me.

M.G xx

Lol, MG, I think I would have wanted to steal them with him in them anyway!
Some great cos-players there. Thats really one of the main reasons I go ^-^
 
Psiq0ut said:
Edit- Any one who was running around with signs offering free hugs needs to end. They're just annoying.

What was with that? I only hugged one, the girls with the "Free Glomps" Sign because at least they made it in advance. most people had just written free hugs on bits of paper while they were there!
 
i agree...all this free hugs stuff is really starting to piss me off...i mean dont they get love and affection from their family and friends???
 
Ninja Boy! said:
i agree...all this free hugs stuff is really starting to piss me off...i mean dont they get love and affection from their family and friends???

They are just trying to be "cool" if it was me i would hug them but put a KICK ME sign on thier back while doing so. cus im coo like that 8)
 
I never understand 'FREE HUGS' thing; but i did find the dude wearing 'GEEK Looking for GEEK' or something similar quite humorous.
 
I definately hugged enough people that i DO NOT KNOW to last me a life time.I mean theres only so many Kakashi's you can take,offering you a hug.However i think there was only one group of kids running around,being overally annoying shouting for free hugs.Generally,everyone else was sweet about it.Especially the sweet little girls asking for hugs.too cute!

I think the best thing from saturday was a Light cosplayer asking me for a pen,then my name.

Then quite possibly a Sasuke cosplayer egging a Gaara on 'go on then,make a bloody sand castle!'

haha actually,constantly getting called Rebel Scum by the storm troopers never failed to amuse me.Though i wish i saw the confrontation between the rangers and troopers!

Did anyone see the hide from X JAPAN cosplayer? I was so impressed she thought to do him! Didnt get a pic though *grumbles*
 
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