This was my first time going to a con...especially an anime con so I might not critisize it hard enough or I might critisize it too hard. I might praise it too much or I might not praise it enough...But these are just my thoughts.
So the day started off kinda slow...check-in to the hilton was 12:00pm and the expo opened at 12:00pm. Perfect timing I say. After checking in, unloading all our crap (group of 6) and getting back out it was already 1:30-1:40ish. Now...Long Beach is one of the most confusing places I have ever been to and it was no fun trying to drive around and find parking. Parking was a bitch too...8 dollars to get in...and if you left and came back...even just drove out the exit and turned right back in...they'd charge you another 8 bucks. (good thing I'm a sneaky bastard though)
So we finally reach the convention center and wudduya know?! It's even more confusing than the entire long beach area combined! Since my group had absolutely no idea about what we wanted to do first or where anything was, we all just decided to walk around.......and we ended up standing in one place for 20 minutes. So all we had to do was turn around and there was an entrance to one of the buildings and we decided to walk in. We see about 4 doors with people flooding around it and so we walk over to the door and realize its the exibition hall. We're all like "fuck yea" and "time to go buy some stuff!" but some dude in a yellow shirt stops us and says "exit only. if you wanna get in you have to go around." So we're like ok lets go around and it turns out that the entrance to the exibition hall is exactly on the other damned side of the convention center. It should have been an easy walk around the convention center but...of course...we got lost. We found another entrance to a room which ended up being a theater with absolutely nothing going on in it. So we sat down inside, took out our guide books and found out that the entrance to the exibition hall was still further down the convention center.
So we finally make it to the front and WTFBBQ I say! It's not the exibition hall but the artist gallery!! Even though the map and the dude in the yellow shirt lied to us, since we finally got somewhere that was actually related to anime in some way we walked around and looked at the art that these independant artists had to offer. Some bad, some good and some awesome but all too damned expensive to buy so all we could do was look. After walking a little more we get to the middle of the artist gallery and THERE IT IS! the entrance to the exibition hall is in the middle of the artist gallery, hidden by a huge crowd of people and a big banner saying "Welcome to Anime Expo!".
We finally make it to the exhibition hall and it was quite a site. It was the most amount of anime goods I have ever seen in one place and I was ready to buy it all (if you know what I mean). So we split up into 2 groups...ok I lied...we got lost...and just walked around, checking out booths and buying stuff we really liked. I couldn't really tell if the stuff there was cheaper or more expensive than buying it online but I bought it anyway. So my group finally gets back together, we walk around a bit and there is a box of wallscrolls. The booth's security wasn't tight enough and that offended us. SO! we decided to teach them a lesson so they could learn from their mistakes and not let it happen again! Anyway, 8 wallscrolls later, we're walking around the exibition hall again. We got some pictures with cosplayers, visited some more booths, then decided to go watch the S.K.I.N. concert.
Now, I'm not hating on whoever it was in my group that wanted to watch them...but...lets just say the concert was a waste of time. So we get into the concert hall and the curtain is still up. The schedule says the concert will start in about 20 minutes so we bust out our DS's and play a bit of mario cart. One and a half hours later the concert still hasn't started and we're beginning to get bored. Two hours later and the curtain finally drops and out pops out 4 j-rockers known as Gackt, Miyavi, Sugizo and Yoshiki. I hear some guitar for about 30 seconds and for the rest of the concert I hear 2 girls screaming as loud as they can behind me. I was like ok...they are friken loud but I'll just deal with it. So I take out my camera and take some pictures seeing as everyone else in the hall was doing it too and some guy taps my right shoulder. I'm like whats up and he points to one of the staff members looking straight at me. Right when I look at him he screams louder than Gackt could ever scream and says "PUT YOUR CAMERA AWAY! I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE! YOU TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE AND YOUR OUTTA HERE DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!?!?!?!?!?!?" and I'm like "WTF MAN LOOK AT THE FUCKING CONCERT HALL?! DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM!" and he goes "I'LL DEAL WITH THEM!" and he leaves. That pissed me off and I wanted to grab him and throw him off the fucking stands onto the floor below but he dissapeared. S.K.I.N. finally finishes singing and I'm pretty much deaf in both ears from all of Gackt's, the 2 girls, and that security guard's screaming.
So the concert ended two and a half hours late which threw the rest of the convention off schedule and made us miss pretty much everything the first day had to offer and thus ended my first day of Anime Expo. My only complaints about AX so far was the horrible organization and lack of staff (that knew wtf they were doing). I mean...I walked up to a staff member and asked them where ******** was and they responded with a "I dunno...I'm just here". But I guess I can't really blame em because everyone is a volunteer and AX is a nonprofit thing. Another gripe I have is the fact that Long Beach Convention Center wouldn't let AX staff patrol the concert hall and used their own security instead. I wouldn't have complained if they weren't such big faggots. I don't really remember a concert I went to that didn't allow photos. Even that would have been ok if that one security guard didn't get a boner over my camera and scream at me during the concert.
My last complaint is that I can't seem to start a new paragraph without using the word "So". Anyway here are some pictures from Day 1.
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