It’s now Christmas Day here on the west coast and I just want to wish you all a very merry one ^_^ Before the year is officially over, I plan to post some reviews of my recently finished summer/fall ’11 anime, as well as my “moments of anime” post which will be up on New Year’s. So I hope you all enjoy this wondrous day and I will be back with a proper post soon~!

Just wanted to wish you all a happy Halloween ’11 from MAY ^_^ Since Halloween’s just another day for me I don’t have anything to share other than this appropriate AMV from the most Halloween-ish anime of all, Soul Eater.

Well, hope you have a safe and frightfully enjoyable day! I’ll be back with a new post in a few days~

I had a fantastic four days at AX ’11, making it the fifth Anime Expo I’ve been to and the third in which I’ve stayed all four days. My coverage and cosplay photos of the con can be found after the jump…

Day 1 – Fri. July 1st

Getting started: I arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center around 8am on Day 1. After checking into my hotel and meeting up with my friend f0calizer, I waited about an hour and a half to get my badge. I had wanted to get my badge early on Day 0, but after hearing that the lines for Day 0 were much worse, I’m glad I didn’t XD

Exhibit Hall (preliminary shopping): After meeting up with friends Ultimatemegax and Skorpigeist, I spent about an hour in the Exhibit Hall after it opened around 12pm (at which time, we nearly got crushed in the sudden mad rush of human traffic that occurred as soon as the Hall opened!) I was planning to do my full perusal of all the dealers’ booths on Day 2, so I spent this preliminary visit sizing up the merchandise and buying a few things that instantly caught my fancy.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (dub premiere): Along with Ultimatemegax and Skorpigeist, I was the first person in line for the dubbed premiere of the Haruhi movie. We arrived about two hours before the movie was scheduled, with a decent sized line forming after us just a little while later. We got good seats in the third row, though unfortunately the lack of actual theater seating in Concourse Hall makes your viewing experience decrease drastically if a tall person sits in front of you (luckily that’s not too much of a problem with a dub screening). A goof up on the staff’s part was that they didn’t quite finish testing the movie before they let people in, and a bit of Kyon’s spoiler-filled final monologue was playing on screen as people were taking their seats XD But it was just for a few seconds and I don’t think most people realized they were being spoiled. Before the movie started, three of the dub voice actors (Crispan Freeman, Stephanie Shen, and Wendee Lee) talked about their experiences dubbing the movie and answered some questions from the audience.

Left to right: Crispin Freeman (Kyon), Stephanie Sheh (Mikuru), Wendee Lee (Haruhi)

Overall, I’d say the dub of the movie was excellent. The translations were accurate while still making the dialogue flow naturally in English. My only complaint is that Michelle Ruff (voice of Yuki) didn’t do much to change her “serious” Yuki voice to “moe” Yuki voice the way Minori Chihara does. But she didn’t have a lot of dialogue anyway, and the rest of the actors (especially Crispin Freeman’s excellent but exhausting performance as Kyon) did a great job.

Nihongo de Okay!: I hurried off after the movie to meet up with Neo-Shonen Fujoshi and go to this unofficial event called Nihongo de Okay!, a meetup of Japanese-speaking anime fans and those interested in learning Japanese. The meetup was from 6:30pm until 8:30pm, but both of us were occupied with other events until 7:45pm. By the time we got there, most people were already in a group talking, so it was kind of hard to butt in. But we found a couple of people to talk to and stayed for about a half hour or so. I haven’t had an opportunity to speak Japanese since my trip to Japan two years ago, so it was nice using it again however brief XD

Day 2 – Sat. July 2nd

Me with the Alphonse statue at Funimation’s booth

Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley (full perusal): After getting an early breakfast at the nearby Starbucks, I got in line to be one of the first people in the Exhibit Hall, which opened at 10am. By the time I got in line around 9:15am, the line was already outside! Thankfully I was able to get in not too long after 10am. From there, I did my full perusal of the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley, going row by row and visiting every single booth. Naturally I bought a bunch of stuff…

Plushie of Chibiterasu and adorable plush strap of Chi =^.^=

Lovely Haruhi figure from The Sigh episodes and Lucky Star complete DVD set for just $35

Showing my Chopper love with a T-shirt and towel!

Haruhi keychain and straps of Maria and Niche

Beautiful Madoka Magica art piece from Artist Alley

And an equally beautiful AnoHana piece~

Bandai panel: When I had my fill of shopping, I dropped my loot off at my hotel and joined Ultimatemegax and Skorpigeist in the Bandai panel line, which ended up starting about a half hour late due to technical issues. I was reminded how close to the Gundam franchise Bandai is, as the majority of their announcements were for Gundam releases and little attention was given to their many other series I like (Haruhi, K-ON, Code Geass, Kannagi, Lucky Star). It’s understandable though, as they have their long-lasting partnership with Sunrise, which is always churning out new Gundam material while my aforementioned favorites aren’t. The highlight of their panel for me was announcing a September 20th release date for their DVD/BD release of the Haruhi movie =D

Blogger meetup: Fellow blogger Shinmaru had organized a meetup for anime bloggers and Twitter users interested in meeting each other. We met at the convention center before walking to a parking lot of food trucks a couple of blocks away. We hung out there for a while and talked about things like our time at the convention thus far and whether or not Madoka Magica is a great series or not (yes, that actually got into a pretty heated discussion. Since I’m no good at arguing, I mostly just listened =P) It was a bigger turnout than last year, with bloggers zzeroparticle, Canon2D, Mike, Mystlord, Kylaran, and others showing up.

I stayed a bit later at the blogger meetup than most since I was one of the few who didn’t have to rush off to the Miku concert. I know the Miku concert was the most anticipated event of the whole convention, but since I’m not a Vocaloid fan I just didn’t have the motivation to buy a ticket and dedicate a bunch of hours for it. I heard it was an amazing concert though and I’m so glad for all the fans who went =D

Miku cars in the convention center

Nighttime dance at South Hall: After the blogger meetup broke up, I didn’t have much to do since most of my friends were at the Miku concert or elsewhere. I thought I’d look in the Console Gaming room to see if anyone wanted to play Pokemon with me. But there was a surprising lack of DS users in the room, and they were clearing everyone away from the Wii with Smash Bros. Brawl because they were getting ready for a tournament. So I couldn’t even play the one console game in the room I was familiar with XP So I left the gaming room and just hung out outside South Hall. Luckily I wasn’t bored for much longer as a group of energetic attendees brought a boombox to the large open area outside South Hall and managed to get a great free-for-all dance party started that lasted over two hours.

Random con goers have a rocking evening

I’m someone who doesn’t like dancing and hates late night noise and partying. But for some reason I greatly enjoyed this dance event. Maybe it’s because I know all the people involved are fellow anime fans who are having a great time simply being fans and not needing to consume alcohol in order to have a good time. There was a great feeling of togetherness going down at this dance that I greatly enjoyed.

Day 3 – Sun. July 3rd

A Survey of Music by Yuki Kajiura: After a quick breakfast with f0calizer at the local Denny’s, I went to another blogger meetup taking place at zzeroparticle’s panel about Yuki Kajiura’s music. He did a fantastic job giving an overview of her music style and discussing how it conveys the emotions and meaning behind each series it’s from. I believe his panel made me a slightly bigger fan of her music than I already was ;) Also got to see omo for a bit.

Exhibit Hall (final visit): For a couple of hours after the meetup, I returned to the Exhibit Hall one last time and bought some final goodies =)

Max’s Karaoke: Later that afternoon I met up again with f0calizer, Neo-Shonen Fujoshi, Ultimatemegax, and Skorpigeist, and the five of us had a two-hour karaoke session at Max’s Karaoke in Little Tokyo. Max’s is one of the few karaoke studios in SoCal that I know of that has an incredible collection of Japanese and anime songs (as well as English songs), both old and new.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (sub): Our group had to go separate ways after karaoke, so I hung out at the convention center for a while taking more cosplay photos. There were already a few people in line for the sub showing of the Haruhi movie when I arrived an hour and forty-five minutes early. I was later joined by Neo-Shonen Fujoshi and we managed to secure front row seats! It’s a good thing we did since the movie was again shown in Concourse Hall, which makes subtitle viewing a pain the more people there are sitting in front of you. The quality of whatever film reel they used wasn’t all that good as the picture didn’t fill as much of the screen as it should have, the focus had to keep being adjusted, and a few seconds of film got skipped or lost audio. Luckily having a front row seat made it better but I felt sorry for those in the back. With this showing I have now seen Disappearance of Haruhi during all of its four screenings in California – twice in San Francisco and LA last year, and now twice at AX ’11 =D

Day 4 – Mon. July 4th

Northrop Davis and WeMakeManga: After packing my things and getting (a surprisingly cheap and good) breakfast at my hotel, I met up with screenwriter Northrop Davis. He had taught a manga extension course that I attended at my university a few years ago and he’s an avid supporter of getting anime and manga acknowledged by American institutions. Lately he’s been supporting a group of young artists at WeMakeManga.com. They’ve done good work so do give them a look =)

Last hour of AX ’11: I spent my last hour of AX ’11 taking a very refreshing swim in my hotel’s pool before checking out at 12pm and loading my stuff into my mom’s car. I then bid a fond farewell to the cosplayer-run streets of downtown LA.

Cosplay Photos

I was really impressed with the cosplay at this year’s AX. So many exquisite costumes and lots of non-anime ones as well, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Here are my favorites of the ones I took:

F0calizer took great photos of the Madoka, Haruhi, Ouran, and Fruits Basket cosplay gatherings. You can find them here on his deviantArt =)

———-

To conclude, Anime Expo had a great 20th anniversary con this year ^_^ I didn’t attend any of the major events, but from what I heard everything went smoothly and was well organized. Besides the hectic wait on Day 0, lines for other events were decent and nothing started terribly late. Lots of amazing cosplayers, good staff, fun events, and a great feeling of intimacy among fellow attendees. It was a wonderful con overall and I look forward to another one at AX ’12! =D

We’re now two weeks away from Anime Expo, the largest North American anime convention that will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Although AX ’11 will only be my fifth AX, they’ve been my yearly highlights each time I’ve gone. The Anime Expo web site put up their schedule of events a few days ago, so now it’s time for me to get planning!…

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like AX ’11 is having any music or seiyuu guests I’m particularly interested in (especially compared to last year with the Macross Frontier concert and the Toradora! seiyuu!) The most anticipated concert is obviously the Miku Hatsune one, but since I’m not into Vocaloid, it doesn’t matter to me (I’m really glad for all of Miku’s American fans though!) But that’s all well and good as I have plenty of other things to do, meeting up with friends being one of them since I’ve lived in the Los Angeles area my whole life and have made many AX-bound friends over the years. So after some preliminary planning, here’s what my schedule’s looking to be:

Day 1 – Friday, July 1st

- 12:00pm-Exhibit Hall (preview round) : After I get my badge and check into my hotel, I plan to visit the Exhibit Hall right away. It’s always more crowded on Day 1 than the other days, but that’s also the day where you can find the best stuff as things get sold out later on. I’ll probably just have time for a quick perusal on Day 1 and do my more serious shopping on Day 2.

- 4:00pm-The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (dub): With this, I will have seen the Haruhi movie in all of its California showings! XD However, this is the first dub showing and I’m interested in seeing how it is (the Haruhi anime has an overall great dub in my opinion). I’m expecting it to be mobbed so I’ll make sure to get there early!

- 9:30pm-Name that Anime Tune: If I don’t have friends to meet up with or anything going on at this time, this event sounds fun. Since I love anime music and listen to it all the time, I wonder how well I’ll do =)

—–

Day 2 – Saturday, July 2nd

- 10:00am-Exhibit Hall (main round) and Artist Alley: I plan to spend the entire morning/early afternoon on Day 2 doing my usual “serious” perusal of the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley, which entails hours of visiting every single booth in both places, some more than once. I’ve been saving up the cash I get for my tutoring sessions especially for this! XD

- 4:30pm-Bandai panel: My friend Ultimatemegax wants to go to Bandai’s panel, so I figured why not. They’re the U.S. company that releases Haruhi and other anime I like after all =)

- ~6:30pm-Blogger meetup: Like last year, fellow anime blogger Shinmaru is organizing another meetup for anime bloggers (and fans who’d like to meet said bloggers). He’s actually organizing three meetups (more info on his blog here) and I plan on going to at least two – this one and/or the one on Day 3. If you’re at AX and would like to meet me and other anibloggers, hope to see you there =D

- Evening-Console Gaming room: I want to spend some time at the Console Gaming room looking for people to battle/trade with on Pokemon Black & White. There’s always an unofficial Pokemon tournament or two going on at AX, but I’m not particularly interested because the LV50 restriction they have makes me unable to use my best pokemon. So I’ll just be looking for casual matches with anyone who wants to play =)

—–

Day 3 – Sunday, July 3rd

- 10:30am-Yuki Kajiura/Blogger meetup: If nothing else comes up this morning, I plan to go to the final blogger meetup that Shinmaru has planned, which will be held during a panel about Yuki Kajiura that fellow blogger zzeroparticle will be having.

- Afternoon-Karaoke at Max’s: This afternoon I’m planning to go with a group of friends to Max’s Karaoke in Little Tokyo. They have a great selection of anime songs! XD

- 9:00pm-The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (sub): Yes, the Haruhi movie will be shown twice at AX, and I’m planning to go to both!

—–

Day 4 – Monday, July 4th

- I plan on leaving in the early afternoon on Day 4, so I’ll probably spend my final few hours at AX ’11 looking for some last good deals at the Exhibit Hall or meeting up with more friends.

—–

Additional things I’d like to do at AX are take photos of good cosplayers (anybody know if there’s a list going around of all the cosplay gatherings and when/where they’ll be held?) and go to this meetup of Japanese-speaking fans called “Nihongo de Okay” (which I didn’t put on my schedule because their site doesn’t have a date listed yet).

This will only be the third AX where I’ll be staying all four days. It’s looking to be a blast so far ^_^ If any of you are going, hope you have a great time too and hope to see you at one of the meetups~

Last night I preregistered for Anime Expo 2011 and booked a hotel for my stay there. Even though the con is still months away and hardly anything about its events is known yet, I can’t contain my excitement and am already making tentative plans in my head. It also got me thinking that, despite the fact that we all love anime, fans have a variety of reasons for why they go to conventions…

Some fans go to cons strictly for the guests – seiyuu, directors, singers, or whoever – and will wake up at the crack of dawn and stand in line for hours just to attend the guests’ events and get autographs. Whether favorable guests will be appearing or not often determines if they’ll even go to the con. Others go mostly for cosplaying and prefer hanging out in their costumes over going to other events. Still other fans go just to buy things in the Exhibit Hall or Artist Alley (I believe they used to sell passes just for those places). Casual fans of anime might spend most of their time playing video games in the arcade or console gaming room, or watching whatever anime is showing in the viewing rooms. Others make sure to attend all the industry panels because they’re interested in all the latest news from (what’s left of) the American anime companies. And still others care mostly for the big events like the AMV Contest and Masquerade, or making the cut in AX Idol. It really is interesting how there are so many reasons for why people attend big anime conventions like AX.

My reasons for going to anime conventions has been pretty steady for the past few years. I mostly enjoy perusing the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley for hard-to-find anime characters goods. Seeing cosplayers and snapping photos of excellent ones is fun too. If there are panels and guests I’m particularly interested in, I’ll work them into my schedule but they’re not the deciding factor for whether I’ll attend cons or not. I’m only willing to go so far when it comes to waiting in hectic lines for hours when I could be using that time to enjoy myself elsewhere at the con. It has to be something I’m dying for if I’m going to sacrifice many hours of my time at the con in line (also why I don’t have much motivation to attend the AMV Contest or Masquerade even though I love AMVs and seeing cosplay). Thus, as much as I loved May’n and Megumi last year, going to their concert was enough and I wasn’t going to jump through hoops to get their autographs (I don’t ever want another AX ’07 experience). If people like Nagaru Tanigawa or Satoshi Tajiri were guests however, that would be a different story XD

Buying goodies and attending events I like are major reasons I go to cons, but lately my main reason is to do something I rarely get to do otherwise – meet up with lots of friends and fellow anime fans in person. Since 2006, I always run into at least a few people I know that I wasn’t necessarily planning to meet at anime cons. At AX ’07 I coincidentally met ten people from high school or college that I hadn’t seen for years, and last year I managed to meet up with just about all my friends from my university anime club. Also at AX ’10, there were two meet-ups specifically to bring together blogger and Twitter anime fans. One was a larger, general one organized by Debi Aoki, and the other was a smaller one specifically for anibloggers organized by Shinmaru. If Shinmaru doesn’t want to organize another blogger meet-up this year, I’d be happy to (though it would probably be better for someone who will have Internet at the con). Hopefully everyone who came last year – omo, Neo-Shonen Fujoshi, zzeroparticle, CCY, Mystlord, and the staff of Anime Diet – will be able to meet up again. And I know f0calizer and Ultimatemegax would like to join too, and perhaps have a karaoke session in Little Tokyo =D

During every summer starting in 2005, I had either a trip to Japan or Anime Expo. Since I doubt I’ll be going back to Japan anytime soon, I want to make this AX ’11 one to remember! I was originally going to stay only three days until I realized that the 4th of July will be a Monday this year, which means I shouldn’t have work. So perhaps I’ll be able to stay the full four days after all =D It’ll be hard to make any concrete plans for a while until AX gets their schedule together and people know whether they’ll be able to go or not, but it can’t hurt to start thinking ahead ^.^

Another March 19th means another birthday for me. I turn 25 today, and even though my 24th year of life wasn’t as eventful as my 23rd, it was still quite memorable. The main reason for this is because it was the first year of my life where I was no longer a student (but I’m always learning and studying things on my own! XD) I still have the same part-time job I got in late 2009, and although it’s only the third job I’ve ever had, it’s the one I’ve been with the longest thus far. I only make enough to pay a few bills and buy myself anime stuff once in a while, but in these times I should be glad to have any job. Childcare is not for me though, so I plan to start looking for other work soon.

Looking at the sadness and struggles in the world around me, I don’t feel any reason to complain about things in my life. I’ve been quite content this past year working at my part-time job and still having time and money to indulge in the anime-related activities I love. Unlike other parents, my mom still loves having her college graduate living with her, and she cooks delicious meals for us and helps me out with things whenever she can. I blog during the week, watch anime every night, and see friends on the weekends. I wish things could stay like this for many more birthdays to come, but I know eventually the status quo is going to change and I won’t have the time and luxury I have now (or will I?) But there’s no point in letting the uncertain future ruin the happiness of the present. I’ll savor every moment while it lasts.

As usual, I like going to amusement parks for my birthday so I decided to take a day off from work yesterday to go to Disneyland. It was magical, especially the nighttime show – and tonight I’m going out to dinner with friends at a fancy restaurant. Gotta live it up while I can~

During February and March, mall tours promoting Pokemon Black and White are being held at various shopping centers across the U.S. in anticipation of the games’ release on March 6th. This weekend, the tour hit a mall not too far from me in Arcadia, CA. Being the hopeless Pokemon fan than I am, I of course had to go check it out…

Reshiram and Zekrom welcome visitors!

Couldn’t resist taking this picture ^^

The tour started at 10am, though there were already people lined up when my friend and I arrived around 9:30am. Besides buying merchandise at the Pokemon Center booth, the tour was completely free and was conducted as a “stamp rally.” Everyone participating received a pamphlet that had information and images about the games, as well as a page where they would need to get a total of five stamps from booths set up at different locations in the mall. Once they got all five stamps, they could spin a wheel and get a free prize.

A page in the pamphlet about some of the new pokemon

The page that needed to be stamped (with my completed stamps)

At each of the five stamp rally booths, there was also a certain Pokemon BW-related activity going on:

Information Booth

The booth most people started with to pick up their pamphlet and get their first stamp. Besides finding out information about the tour, this booth also gave out movie tickets for the dubbed version of the 13th Pokemon movie being screened at a theater in the mall. Since I’d already seen a fansubbed version of the movie (and I haven’t liked the dub since they changed the voices several years ago), I didn’t care to see it. I heard that the tickets ran out quickly and that you could exchange your ticket stub for a large promo trading card with Celebi and Zorua on it. I would have gotten a ticket just for the trading card but I realized too late XD

Activity Zone

The Activity Zone booth had a few events going on. At various intervals throughout the day, one of the three new starter pokemon (or to be precise, someone in a costume XD) would make an appearance and you could get your picture taken with them. You could also get your picture taken by a staff member against a green background and then go online and imprint the picture on a few different Pokemon backgrounds.

Backgrounds you could get your photo imprinted on

I didn’t care to do any of the photo-related things, and there was supposed to be something going on with the TV screen at this booth, but I didn’t see anything when I was there.

Nothing on the TV, just people lounging around playing Pokemon on their DS

The main attraction here was being able to spin the wheel for a free prize after you got all five stamps, which I’ll get to later on.

GameStop

For some odd reason there were two GameStop stores at this mall but they were both giving away the same stamp.

The event going on at this booth was a Celebi you can download into any of your fourth generation games (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Heart Gold, Soul Silver) via wireless Mystery Gift. If this Celebi is transferred into Heart Gold or Soul Silver, you’ll be able to access a battle with Team Rocket’s boss Giovanni. And if the Celebi is later transferred into your copy of Black or White, you’ll be able to get Zorua. It was funny because when I was getting the download, hardly anyone else knew how to do it. I had to show a few people how to use Mystery Gift in their games and get the Celebi. Apparently not as many people as I thought are experienced in getting similar Pokemon downloads from stores like GameStop and Toys R Us.

Game Demo

The fourth booth I went to was letting people play demos of the English versions of Black and White.

View of the game demo booth from the 2nd floor

The line was very long, and since I’ve already played through my Japanese copy of Black, I didn’t feel much of a need to try a demo of the English version. So I just got my stamp here and moved on. I wonder if they’ll still have this booth at the tours that will be held after the games come out on March 6th. Can’t imagine it’d attract a lot of attention then ~_^

Liked the design on this side of the booth

Pokemon Center

This was the most popular booth since it was the place where you could buy exclusive Pokemon BW merchandise!

The line was very long because each person was taking the time to pick out what they wanted to buy and then had to wait until their payment transaction by cash or credit card was completed. Something went wrong with the credit card machine right when it was my turn to pay, but thankfully I had just enough cash to pay for what I bought.

People waiting in line to buy their poke-loot

Plushies!

And more plushies!

View of the Pokemon Center booth from the 2nd floor

The photos below are the signs that showed all the available things to buy – T-shirts, plushies, and figures.

Unfortunately the T-shirts were all youth sizes that wouldn’t fit me (c’mon, they must know by now that adults want Pokemon shirts too XP) So I instead blew my money on plushies and figures.

My haul: plushies of Tepig, Oshawott, and Snivey…

…and figures of Reshiram, Zekrom, Pikachu, Zorua, and Zoroak (along with the styluses I won later)

Spin the Wheel

After getting the five stamps, my friend and I headed back to the Activity Zone to spin the wheel that would determine which free prize we would get. We soon found out that the staff wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of people that showed up at the tour – first we waited in an incredibly long line to get a wristband that would let us spin the wheel at a certain time. After waiting for who knows how long, we realized that they scrapped that idea and just had everyone wait in line to spin the wheel right away (instead of wristbands, they just stamped our hand to show who already got to spin). In order to prevent blocking traffic in the mall, we then ended up waiting in another line outside. Luckily we were in the parking structure but unlucky people at the end of the line weren’t covered when it started raining! After about an hour, it was finally our turn to spin.

The prizes all featured Tepig, Oshawott, and Snivey – a stylus with one of the three on it, a patch of one of them, a phone charm with all three of them, or a free plushie of one of them. Since I already bought all three plushies, and I had no use for a patch or stylus, I really wanted the phone charm. But alas, I won a stylus and so did my friend (she gave me hers =P) A little boy waiting in line next to me wanted to trade his Tepig stylus for my Oshawott one, which I did XD

Took one final photo with the big Reshiram and Zekrom blow-up dolls XD

———-

To sum up my thoughts, the tour was fun and a fantastic way to promote what’s probably the most unique generation of Pokemon. It still amazes me that even after all these years, Pokemon is still so popular with such a variety of ages, and even an event like this would draw in more people than anticipated. I had brought my DS to perhaps battle people (and show off my Japanese copy of Black, though most people were too engrossed in their own DS to notice XD) but by the time I was done getting all the stamps and waiting in lines, I was pretty much spent. There were a few Pokemon cosplayers at the tour, but not many. There were lots of families with kids, groups of teenagers, and of course older, veteran fans like me. My only complaints about the tour was a slight lack of organization which resulted in very long lines (and probably lack of any activity with that TV in the Activity Zone), and I also would have liked merchandise that featured a better variety of the new Pokemon. I know they’re important and all, but the three starters and two version mascots were kinda hogging the spotlight.

Anyway, the last Pokemon event I went to was almost four years ago, so it was great having this one. I hope there will be further events for this incredible franchise that I can go to ^^

It’s now Valentine’s Day here in the U.S. Just wanted to wish you all a happy one. As usual, it’s just another day for me…but I do have a few anime Valentine’s pictures for you after the jump…

If nothing unexpected comes up, I’ll be back with a new post on Wednesday~

It’s once again Christmas here in CA and I just wanted to wish all my visitors a very merry one~ Unfortunately I get to spend this Christmas fighting off a cold ~_~ But it could be worse…at least I have the weekend to recover.

And as usual, I’ve posted some nice anime Christmas pictures after the jump…

Hopefully I’ll be better by Monday so I can resume posting again. Until then, hope you all have a safe and happy holiday weekend~!

For my fellow American anime fans, today is Thanksgiving, a day to spend time with family, eat good food, and contemplate all that you’re thankful for…

For the past several Thanksgivings, my mom and I have been going to my (very wealthy) cousin’s house for dinner ’cause she cooks a fabulous feast. Unfortunately she’s out of the country this year, so we’ll be going to a home-style restaurant with a couple of friends for Thanksgiving dinner.

Since this is my twenty-fourth Thanksgiving, I decided to list twenty-four anime related things that I’m thankful for as a way of celebrating here on the blog:

- I’m thankful for the diverse genres of anime, from shonen and mecha to moe and shojo. They’ve all brought me enjoyment and have helped me become a more knowledgeable fan.

- I’m thankful for anime songs and the talented j-pop and j-rock singers who perform them. From beautiful voices that melt in your ears, to catchy melodies that make you smile, anime music has brought me almost as much pleasure as anime itself.

- I’m thankful for the dedicated fans who create myriads of anime fan works, from doujin games to fan fiction, that spice up the fandom and show more than anything how much we love what we love.

- I’m thankful for anime fan art and the artists who make them. I’m forever amazed at how they can create images of my favorite characters that are more beautiful and compelling than official art.

- I’m thankful for AMVs and their creators. The hours of meticulous work they put in to creating some of the most hilarious, gorgeous, and fun anime videos I’ve ever seen could entertain me for years to come.

- I’m thankful for the sometimes appalling and sometimes wonderful thing that is the anime online community, especially the blogsphere. My fellow bloggers and online friends have taught me more about anime than I can tell.

- I’m thankful for anime seiyuu and how their talented voice acting can magically evoke sympathy, laughter, and fangasms in 2D characters.

- I’m thankful for the often unfairly overworked and underpayed anime animators, artists, and character designers. Anime would be nothing without them and the visual style and character expressions they convey in their works have touched my heart more than anything.

- I’m thankful for American anime companies, particularly Bandai, Crunchyroll, and Funimation, and how they’ve been providing us English speakers with legit copies of the latest anime as best they can despite these difficult financial times.

- I’m thankful for the many dedicated cosplayers and how their innovative, beautiful costumes continue to impress me at the conventions I go to.

- I’m thankful for Pokemon, my most favorite video game series that has been a big part of my life for over a decade. The franchise continues to amaze me and the amount of happiness I’ve derived from it over all these years can’t be described in words.

- I’m thankful for Haruhi, my most favorite anime and light novel series. From Noizi Itou’s lovely character designs, KyoAni’s gorgeous artwork and clever promotional tactics, and Nagaru Tanigawa’s unique style for weaving an intriguing plot and characters, nothing about this series ceases to engross me.

- I’m thankful for anime character goods, my favorite things to buy, from figures and posters to artbooks and pencil boards. The variety of anime stuff Japan can come up with can satisfy any fan.

- I’m thankful for online companies like CD Japan, YesAsia, and Hobby Search, that will ship the above mentioned anime products to those of us in the U.S. who have no other means of getting them.

- I’m thankful for Japanese-English translators, from those who make subtitles for official companies to those who translate anime news on a personal blog. English-speaking would be lost without you.

- I’m thankful for the many amazing original creators of manga/novel-turned-anime series. Since so much of the best anime is based off of their works, we would be lacking a painful amount of creativity in anime fandom without them.

- I’m thankful for the diversity of creative, detailed anime stories and plots that the aforementioned original creators come up with. I can’t imagine any other entertainment medium having the same kind of interesting stories as anime and manga.

- I’m thankful for the tons of lovable, well-developed anime characters that touch my heart time and time again. I never knew I could get so attached to fictional characters until I discovered anime.

- I’m thankful for Akihabara, the town that’s an anime fan’s dream come true. I only wish it was closer to me…

- I’m thankful for anime conventions, especially Anime Expo, and how they bring together so many anime workshops, industry people, and products to buy, for fans to whom these things would be otherwise inaccessible. They also provide an indescribable sense of kinship among fans that all of us should experience.

- I’m thankful for my mom and all other parents who don’t shun their child for having anime as their hobby. It makes a world of difference when people close to you respect the thing that you’re a fan of even if they don’t share it themselves.

- I’m thankful for my favorite anime web sites – ANN, MyAnimeList, pixiv, AnimePaper, Anime Nano, and Pokebeach just to name a few. Without them, my knowledge of the anime world and my connections to its fans would be little to nothing.

- I’m thankful for all of my anime-loving friends. Being able to share my passion with others who are respectful and caring means so much to me. You guys are great.

- And lastly, I’m thankful for people like you who read my blog and share in my fandom ^_^ Thanks so much for commenting on my posts and giving me more to think about with each one I write. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving~