No convention pictures, so chibi Hikage reading and happily walking seems to fit the mood.

Which is/will be the only day I’ll go. Anyways, I went to my first anime convention and I have to say, it was pretty fun~ Except, I didn’t bring any friends so I felt a little lonely going with just my parents. Anyways, I had a fun, but I felt like an idiot walking around my first time…since I had no idea what to do. -_-

(Monthly Mania post will come next week, sorry for the delay >.<)

EDIT: Just found a picture of the Suu keychain on the internet, and added it~

But the convention was fun. I didn’t get to go to any panels I had planned to go to. I spent all my time in the Exhibition Hall xD. I was late going and so I missed the early ones I wanted to go to. I missed the Shugo Chara Party too, because I was late.

Besides going to the Exhibition Hall though, I got to go to the Morning Musume concert (which was free!~). It was my first concert too…so it was fun.

Okay, now to elaborate on my day~

Starting Off

Well, since it was my first convention, I had lots of chaos in the beginning. Hm…I was over 40 minutes off schedule just by waiting up. What’s worse was that after we had to run errands before the convention, suddenly we wanted to try out online registration. -_-;; And that…failed. After wasting 30 minutes, my parents decided not to do it. Over an hour off schedule. So because of that, I ended up missing the Shugo Chara gathering and the Photoshop Coloring 101. Anyways, starting off was rocky, and navigating my way was pretty tough. Luckily, I ran into a friend from school who helped me out. xD Then…we decided to get tickets for the main event…

Morning Musume Concert

Well, getting tickets, that was…long. But Morning Musume is pretty famous so I’m not surprised. I just got mad that I almost had to pay $20 because help wasn’t…”helpful”. But after waiting under the beating sun, we finally got in. Some people are so prepared though, setting up chairs in line. xD But overall, the concert was probably the best part of the day.

The concert was pretty fun for a first. The audience was pretty energetic in the front, even though the back…wasn’t as much. A couple people in the back were though, just…not the general crowd. They performed the full 3, 2. 1 Breaking Out! which I thought was a catchy song. Hm…my favorite part of the concert was during the break when one of the members shouted, “I had a cheesecake this morning…and it was…exciting!” I started to lol. It was nice to see them try to speak English though, nonetheless. I was actually surprised and happy when they mentioned concern about global warming later on in the concert.

Personal rant: I had terrible luck though at viewing the concert. I’ve mentioned before that I’m pretty short…at least I think I have. I guess everyone has this happen once before though. But I always had to have someone tall in front of me. -_- And then when the tall person left, I was glad that I could see again! Until…another tall person came. xD

They also announced the winners of the OPV Myspace Contest for 3, 2, 1 Breakin’ Out! Hangry from Hangry&Angry appeared at the concert as well as Tsunku? (that extra sign is bothersome >_>). There were three categories, even though I lol’ed at the factors in choosing the Morning Musume Prize (“Whichever made us look the cutest!”). I have to say, the OPVs were pretty amazing, and it’s no wonder why they won. Here’s a video with all of the winners:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh7331HZg1c

The concert was pretty fun, despite going through some obstacles. At the end the audience was cheering for an encore xD but I left too see if anything happened.

Exhibit Hall/Stuff I Got

We decided to check out the Exhibit Hall after the concert. It was pretty big, so I spent the rest of my time at the convention looking around. Since the items are pretty expensive, I only bought two items. xD

I ended up buying a Suu keychain, with her face going: oAo…or something like that. She has an egg tag attached to the keychain as well…similar to FuyuMaiden’s Eru one (which I saw at the same booth). Anyways, I really love the keychain~ It’s so cute and makes me smile and laugh whenever I look at it. I wish I could’ve attached a picture, but I having problems transferring all of my pictures onto my laptop. xD Maybe in the future… Suu costs $8, which I thought was pretty expensive, but then again, most merchandise is pretty expensive. But I think this keychain is my first real anime merchandise (like figure, keychain, etc.). Wow, lots of firsts. Anyways, I don’t really want to attach her to anything since a lot of my keychains have broken off and I don’t want that to happen to Suu (especially since she was $8 compared to 25 cents keychains…jk, it’s not just the money). I don’t want to lose my first ever anime merchandise! D:< EDIT: Found a picture of the keychain on the internet!~

I also got a tote bag. Not much to say about it. It’s super cute though~ Ah I love it. It’s a yellow bag with a bear in the front. Cute~ $25 if I remember right. But it was all worth it. Actually, I think both of these items were worth it in the long run. Can’t wait to put my stuff in this bag~

I ended up getting lots and lots of postcards, autograph of Brina Palencia from the Funimation booth, and a sticker. xD There were lots of great artwork there, and artists as well. There was a booth with posters and pictures, and omg! I saw an England x America picture! xD If I remember correctly, I don’t think it was yaoi. I think they were just together. I didn’t catch a good enough glimpse TT^TT. Crunchyroll had a booth, and so did Copic. I got so tempted to buy the markers. >.< I saw some examples with them before, and it was amazing how well they colored. Ah well.

Cosplays

Well, I didn’t cosplay, but I was on the look-out for cosplayers everywhere. We didn’t get lots of pictures, and I can’t transfer them anyways, so no pictures. :( Unfortunately my dad (who I decided would take the majority of the pictures, since he’s way better than me in photography) took pictures of cosplays I couldn’t recognize anyways. However, I finally got to see good cosplays in my life, and so now I think I have more respect for cosplay now and I’m more open-minded about it. So I’ve got to thank Anime Expo for that. But let’s see, the first cosplay I saw when I arrived was a Hatsune Miku cosplay, which wasn’t that bad (hair and outfit was down). Surprisingly, I saw a Mio cosplay there too (but I only got to see the back). There were some great Spirited Away cosplays as well. I was a little surprised to see some Avatar: The Last Airbender cosplays. Lots of Naruto and Pokemon cosplays, as expected. Unfortunately, I only got to see one Shugo Chara cosplay, of Nadeshiko (*coughtrapcough*). I saw a cute Sakura from CCS cosplay. It was pretty close outfit-wise, with a staff and everything. There were Chobits cosplays as well (yay for CLAMP love~). Um, however, I did see some guys cosplays as girls. Um…yeah. >_> Now on another note…my favorite cosplay. Well, it was a Final Fantasy cosplay X). My favorite cosplay was a of Yuna from FFX-2. The hair color, eye color, outfit, it was pretty close. Overall, I now have more respect for cosplays, since I saw some great ones that obviously took time and effort.

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Anyways, the convention was a fun experience despite not experiencing as much as I wanted. It was my first time, so navigating everywhere was harder. I still had fun at the places I went nonetheless. I hope to attend next year, hopefully with friends though. ^^ It was a new experience, and was pretty refreshing to me. I had other things to say, but I totally forgot xD, so that’s it for now.