Atelier Kurotsuki

Anime Expo 2014

Anime Expo, Convention

In the series of long overdue post, here is the one on Anime Expo.
I most likely delayed this one the least despite this anime expo being the most terrible of all the years I went so far.  So bad the the Chair of SJPA event wrote an apology later.  All too late as far as I’m concerned, but yes it happened. I’ll start by getting off from my chest the major points that make me so angry about this year before I can focus on the positive.

First of, I believe the musical guest roster this year was particularly poorly presented.
I explain; they got Aoi Eir to come , but they bundled her live with an unnecessary Kill la Kill package that not everybody was interested in. I won’t even mention the terrible schedule because that would be redundant in AX’s case.
Then angela. This is what makes me the angriest. They get the occasion to receive a super guest like angela, and not only do they not give angela a proper live schedule, they manage to stick them under Industry guest. That means, no angela panel. How is it that they allowed something like that to happen is beyond me. I’m not even sure I want to know at this point.

Secondly, A problem that AX has had for years and refused to address finally blew up in their face: The lack of crowd control, or rather “CAP” if you prefer. I understand that money is good and fun, but AX had become too big for it’s own good for the past two years, the refusal to implement a proper decent cap on attendance resulted in a clusterfuck of epic proportions on Friday and Saturday. There’s absolutely no one that won anything out of this.

And finally the staff. I believe that it’s about time that Anime Expo stops relying on volunteers to run at cons operation. There is such thing as professional convention staff, hire them for fuck sake. Most of the volunteers didn’t know what they were doing, took stupid line management decisions, but they cream was probably being asked by “staff” what is it that we were lining up. This is over the top ridiculous.

I actually have way more issues than that, but I’d probably need a second post on why AX14 was the worst thing ever. I’d want to say that I can’t take Anime Expo seriously anymore, but I think Anime Expo stopped taking itself seriously a long time ago.
But enough groaning about something that will never change, let’s get to the sorta positive stuff
.

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Day 0

A pretty uneventful day, beside the mess that was pre registration day, but I’ve complained enough up there, so I won’t elaborate on this.

Day 1

­ Aoi Eir Panel

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The Aoi Eir panel more or less was a blip to me, after being in line for god knows how long, this panel was rather generic with the same usual fan questions. The plus side is that Eieiru is pretty cute.

­Amisuke & Yuzunee Panel

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I was pretty hype for Amisuke at first, but the event that transpired during this panel made me fall in love with Yuzunee.
I want to kick myself so much for not knowing how lovely she was. Not being a Satsuki fan, I never really was interested in finding out who was the voice behind her. Great mistake because Yuzunee actually did roles I rather enjoyed before, so I can’t really describe my shock and awe when I found out who she was.The panel was seriously beyond brilliant, the two of them have such a great complicity it’s just fascinating to observe.


(Video from Anime Diet)

The panel was seriously beyond brilliant, the two of them have such a great complicity it’s just fascinating to observe.

­Urobutcher and Nitro+

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This panel was basically some sort of love letter from Nitro+ to Nitro+
The president DIGITAROU had a funny Freudian slip of sorts when he introduced himself as being of Good Smile Company, whatever that implies.
He also explained that they work in the same building and that their shiny new office was mainly financed by Madoka’s revenue and then went on to showcase all their work.
Then were was a Urobutchi Q&A but I had to leave that to attend ANI-ON!….except that one got cancelled on that day. Orz

Day 2

“AnimeMaru Panel”

Which is basically a huge inside Joke, in which Kevo got his AM people to gather the dealers hall and had a Q&A . It was a pretty “packed” panel, but for whatever reasons, attendees would walk around buying stuff rather than listen to the Q&A. eh.

angela autograph

I’m not sure how to introduce this without starting to rage at Anime Expo again, so I will skip details on the massive fuckup and miscommunication about the autograph location.
All I can say is that I am glad to have been able to get their autograph in person and tell them how much I love them. Also I did Sieg Zeon for Katsu, that was pretty aight.

Kill la Kill Special Event

As I remember them, the events of this event consisted of a bunch of KLK cosplayer coming on stage, telling you that you can’t use your KB or cyalumes because that sucks and you should use AX’s own whatever thingie.
Then we suffered through the first episode of KLK dubbed, while the fangirls were destroying their vocal cords every time somebody was appearing on screen.
As the credits rolled, they had EiEiRu come on stage and perform the TV version of the opening.
Then The Aniplex Guy introduced Amisuke, Yuzunee, Nakashima, Toba and superstar Animator : SUSHIO (everybody was chanting SU-SHI-O at every available occasion) .
Amisuke and Yuzunee arrived on staged cosplaying their respective characters, and that’s probably the most awesome thing that a guest ever did at AX. There was a Q&A with everybody on stage while SUSHIO was sketching on the side.
It’s pretty funny to note that Aniplex Guy interrupted AmiYuzu’s moment of Tsukomiboke at some point because he had no idea what was going on anymore and wanted to move to other things. And he got a super cool pic with them. All my jelly.

After this, EiEiRu’s mini-live started.
I can’t remember the set list, but she did all her big hits such as Memoria, Aurora, Innocence, Sirius and even a cover of ambiguous by GARNiDELiA. I think she also did Ignite, but I can’t be sure. I have the feeling she did, because I avoided all the SAOII previews and I knew the song when I first started watching SAOII.

I have to admit the light effect with AX whatchacallit light stick was pretty interesting.

im@s panel & Offkai
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Exciel, Kome and I had to leave EiEiRu early and run to host a panel on im@s.
I’m pretty please that the room managed to get capped despite being pretty huge.
We tried to go over the basics as much as possible.
And then we did calls with the everybody, it was pretty awesome.

http://youtu.be/eJ8h7kgT7cw

After the panel, we went to offkai with Tsukigami Luna, that was pretty cool.
and fun stuff happened

Erofigures panel

 

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Dropped by Mamitan and Mikatan’s along the president of Native’s panel on ero figures.
It was pretty entertaining, they are a fun bunch, and if you like collection figures of the genre, I recommend you drop by this panel the next time.

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The After party more or less happened in Kevo’s room after. In the middle of that Exciel left for Shini’s room and I followed him not long after. Not seeing him come back, Kevo and friends started a search party for him on twitter which is pretty hilarious.

Day 3

K movie+ angela mini live

As per Anime Expo policy, this panel was delayed beyond good measure.
When the event finally started, it was Masakazu Morita that went on stage to briefly talk about his character. Then the movie started. I was unfortunately stuck between eardrum piercing subwoofer, and eardrum piercing fangirls screaming every three seconds. The movie was pretty much in the same style of the series, so if you enjoyed that, you’ll like the movie.
Thanks to delays and whatnot, when it was angela’s turn to perform , they were cut short of their final song so they only got to perform two.
On the plus side, this time Atsuko did ask us to do the wave during KINGS

KILL la KILL Panel with Kazuki Nakashima, SUSHIO and Yousuke Toba

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Super Animator SUSHIO and his merry friends returned once again for a special KLK panel.
It was mostly the generic Q&A as usual, but it was always fun to chant SUSHIO’s name.

Hentai Festival

aka Project H panel , aka, gdi DMI, give me back those three hours of my life.
I do not even know where to begin, this panel was absolutely disastrous.
I really love what Project-H is doing on NA, I own several of their releases, but this 3h panel, was just most terrible.
I’m not even sure what was the worst part, the Terrible Q&A they did to stall and pass the time? The fact that they showed a freaking 20min FANSUBBED episode of the OVA of their first releases? Or was it when their president started a 30min preach about how ”doing scanlation is being a dick, BUT hey , if you do scanlation…come work for us”?
No, no I think really the worst part as far as I am concerned is the way they handled the giveaway.
See my sole reason for going there in the first place was to win the YAMATOGAWA shikishi.
Sure they had bunch of other cools Shikishi, but I wanted none of them.
For whatever reason they decided to more or less place them in the following order :
Mouse Pad – Shikishi – Manga – Shikishi – Manga – Shikishi – Manga – Shikishi – manga
And then when they drew names they would give out the prices in the order from right to left under the pretence of the Mouse Pad being the most sought out item.

uh, first of, let me say this, a Shikishi is worth more than an effin manga, why they heck would you think they are the same value ? Let’s not even talk about a stupid mouse pad.

Secondly, if you are going to giveaway shit and bunch of cool stuff at the same time, it’s best if you make the prices drawing random as well
because what happened was me wishing my name wouldn’t be called for 90% of these things.
Well shit luck Kuro, my name was called for the Aria bullet something Shikishi.
Yeah, I was mad.
I still am apparently.

Project-H panel , never again.
Never.

Day 4

The day I didn’t really do shit at AX beside wake up early and line for hours to get KLK’s staff Autograph.

Then I dropped by the dealers room as Tsukigami Luna was finalizing commission and a Miki drawing on Shikishi was acquired. I can’t thank him and Shini enough for that.

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Miki sketch by Lunatic Joker

A post shared by Chris A (@kurotsukih) on

A bunch of us then headed to Karaoke.
Exciel and I went in MinhP’s car which was pretty effin awesome

Twas pretty awesome way to send off.

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that 2014 was the most disastrous year for Anime Expo.
I mean, I had fun a certain degree, it wasn’t all bad, but not only is the bad drowning the good, but all the good was basically not even at the convention.
Had way more fun at the hotel, at dinner and at Karaoke than on at the freakin convention center.
Really I had more to tell about the cool hanging out I’m sure, but just remembering the disaster that was AX this year makes me angry and gives me a blurry memory.

Every year that goes by , my interested in anime expo diminishes,
as such the chances of me going back to AX next year are next to zero.
They will need a serious contender guest for me to go back…and they won’t because it’s AX.

At this point the only reason for me to go back would be if they bring Kalafina, JAM Project, angela, nZk, 765PRO, or any other musical guests I really care about.

Hopefully they don’t because I definitely won’t miss going back there.