I hate this time of year: after Fanime, before Anime Expo. To go or not to go, I ask myself every year. Every year I get close then I decide not to go.
This year is no exception. After looking through my forecasted finances, I decided not to go to Anime Expo because I don't have the money. I saved a lot for Fanime over a period of six months or somewhere around there, and I'm not sure I can save that much again in only a month. Even if I get the funds needed, I still have to pay off Fanime and then AX, not to mention other events in July.
If I had the money now, I would book a flight and pay for reg, but I just don't have the money. I'm not truly broke, just "I can't afford another big con" broke.
This portion of the report documents things that I did, but can't remember what date or time that I did it. It's more of way of saying "I remember doing something, but I don't know when."
On Saturday, probably sometime in the afternoon while I was at the arcade, I played someone in air hockey, rallied from 3 down with game point for the opponent. Forgot when I did it, but it was sometime on Saturday.
Keep checking back at this portion as I'll add more as I remember more.
For the rest of the Momoi concert videos, please visit the YouTube channel kanauru. Special thanks for posting the Momoi concert videos as well as the videos from the Masquerade.
このメッセージはMomoi Halkoに出かける。 This message goes out to Halko Momoi.
FanimeCon、サンノゼ、カリフォルニアおよび米国を訪問するためにありがとう。 土曜日の段階ゼロで女中の喫茶店の性能で驚くばかりそして精力的だった。 土曜日が、すぐに訪問する私のブログを促進する私の名刺を受け入れるためにありがとう。 私は私が日曜日にそれにあなたのコンサートをしたかもしれなかったが私が出席するべき別の約束を有したことを望む。 あなたが月曜日の私と取った写真およびサインをありがとう。 、私はもう一度見たいと思う来年もどって来る。 Thank you for visiting FanimeCon, San Jose, California, and the United States of America. You were awesome and energetic at the Maid Cafe performance at Stage Zero on Saturday. Thank you for accepting my business card promoting my blog that Saturday, and please visit soon. I wish I could of made it your concert on Sunday, but I had another engagement to attend. Thank you for the autographs and the photo that you took with me on Monday. Please come back next year, I would love to see you again.
With FanimeCon 2009 behind us, I must say that this has been the best FanimeCon I've ever been to, even though this is only my 3rd FanimeCon. I had so much fun, doing everything that I described in this report.
This con was truly amazing, but I can only think that FanimeCon will continue to improve and bring more awesome moments.
Despite the firsts, there are still some firsts that I have yet to encounter. Most of these I hope to achieve next year - my first FanimeCon above the drinking age, my first visit to Day Zero, and hopefully my first FanimeCon with a special someone that hasn't been able to come in the past two years.
Well, this concludes my FanimeCon 2009 report. I hope to see you all at Sac-Anime Summer 2009 at the Radisson and FanimeCon 2010!
私のレポートを読むためにありがとう。 Thank you for reading my report.
With the con winding down, the first thing I did was check-out of the Marriott...at 8am in the morning. By then, we had everything loaded in the car and ready to go when I needed to.
I treat my roommate to the breakfast buffet down at the Arcadia Restaurant, which was really good for the price that I paid.
Then I spend more time at Stage Zero, doing one last game - musical chairs, which I got bumped off. I really didn't have good position, which left me open to me being bumped off.
With Dealers Hall and Artists Alley open for one last day, I go and see if anyone did claim the prize. The lady said someone did, so I tweeted to find the person to win. In fact, DarkMiko claimed it the minute after I left. According to the lady, she was very excited when she came down to claim the prize.
Around 11am, the last Halko Momoi autograph session is about to begin. Since I won the Charity Auction yesterday, I get a fast track to the autograph session. It was very awesome, chilling with Momoi getting autographs and getting my picture taken with her. I would post that picture here, but I'm keeping that to myself.
I stuck around the con for a bit for realizing that I'm all tapped out, and I need to get home while I can see while being tired before it gets dark - I learned this last year during the Fanime Forums panel.
I did make a stop at SVGL since I was 6 stars away from ranking up in MT3DX, but no dice.
After taking a nap at my roommates house, I finally got back home to Sacramento just as the sun was going down.
After nearly 3 days of being away from home, I was finally back home.
Like I said before, I've made it a tradition to make the yearly trip down to FanimeCon. I've also made it a tradition to buy Starbucks, the one that's located on the Hilton side of the convention center. After all, it's nice to have a White Mocha extra shot with a muffin on the most important day of Fanime - Sunday.
I take my White Mocha extra and muffin to Stage Zero, where more fun programming is taking place, featuring the "Rap Chop" video.
I stick around for a bit before going outside to take some outside shots.
It's just after 10am, and the Indy 500 is about to get started. I go inside the Hilton, which is beautiful after the renovation, and sit down for bit.
I take the stairs up to the Dealers Hall and the Gaming Hall, where I look around for a bit and play more games.
I find a bit later that I'm having a snag with the internet connection, so I have to go back up the room and get that fixed. By then, it's almost 12pm, and there's a lot of things to do outside, including the Bleach gathering and the Code Geass gathering.
Somehow, I get involved in the Code Geass vs Cosplayers Cosplay Chess at 12:30pm. I'm hoping that this game will go quick because I have to go back to the Dealers Hall around 2pm to ensure that my bid for the Yamaga-san tickets is safe. And somehow, I became the King on the White Cosplayers side.
Eventually there is a checkmate on the board - and I seriously don't know how it happened - but that gave me the opportunity to kill the King on the other side, which ironically was Lelouch, so I got to kill Lelouch.
I go back to Dealers Hall in time to camp out and make sure that my bid is protected. Then I find out that all of them will continue on to the live auction at 4pm. At first I was mad, but eventually you'll see when I get all happy.
Time for Day 3 of the Twitter giveaway! For today, I chose Artist Alley and the lady who does the chibi badges, you know the ones that I always get. After getting mine, I twitter telling the masses that the first person to find me at her booth would win a free commissioned drawing of yourself. After waiting for a bit, I realized I need to get ready for both my photoshoot and the Charity Auction, so I gave her instructions on how this prize should be claimed. Apparently, the minute after I left someone did claim it. But I'll leave that story for the Monday portion of the report.
After grabbing a rice bowl, I head down to Stage Zero waiting on the Charity Auction. I come to find out that the bid I had put down for the Yamaga-san tickets was protected, so I paid and received my invitation to the event. HOLY CRAP, I'm going to Yamaga-san's Party. HELL YES.
I also put a bid down for a autographed FanimeCon 15th Anniversary Art Book with exclusive sketches, which went for $100. I was the only one who put a bid down for the book, and I won easily.
By the time I was done with the Charity Auction, I was ready for my only photoshoot of the con. Unfortunately there were some minor snags, but everything was sorted out and in the end everything came out well. Thanks for Openhappy.com for doing my photoshoot this year.
With the Yamaga-san Party an hour away, I decide to change into the FanimeCon 2009 t-shirt that I bought yesterday to wear to the party - screw going formal.
When I arrived at the Fairmont to attend the party, I realized that the Black and White Ball was about to get underway.
I wanted to take pictures inside since I'm a blogger, but since I wasn't in the dress code I wasn't allowed in. Damn.
Anyways, I went ahead and attended the Yamaga-san Party. All the Guests of Honor are there (except for Halko Momoi, she was doing her concert), and the food was great.
I leave a bit early to attend the final day of the Stage Zero Game Show, which ended with the Tournament of Champions Final Round. But I got bumped out of the Final Round even before it even started. Rumor had it there was Wii to be won - and someone did win it.
With nothing else to do, Robert aka Robo tells me that he's headed down to the karaoke room for the Gong Show. So I go and eventually I enter with "Koi no Mikuru Densetsu." Either I would wow the crowd with the ability to sing a girl's song, or I would be gonged off in 30 seconds.
Needless to say, it was the funniest 2-3 hours of FanimeCon, hands down. The whole entire time I was laughing my ass off, and when I went to perform I literally was gonged off sooner than I thought (my iPod read 50 seconds played). It was fun evening, a way to vent anger that builds during cons.
Despite the fact that I'm driving home tomorrow, I stick around the nighttime for gaming speedruns, and more of the late-night video rooms.
In order to beat the rush, I head back up to my room to pack as much as I can. The rest would have to wait until the morning.
But still, there were things to be done on Monday...
Saturday at FanimeCon started very early for me - just after 7am is when I woke up, not to mention only getting four hours of sleep; then again I was expecting to get four hours of sleep. The first thing I decide to do is take some photos of registration downstairs, which I expected to be long on Saturday morning.
(The person in the last picture told me that he'd been waiting for four hours. Hey, that's how much sleep I got last night!)
After checking out the tail-end of the late night show on Stage Zero...
...I call up valet so that I can drive to Jack-in-the-Box (again) for breakfast. Yes, I did drive over to both Jack-in-the-Box and McDonalds, but hey there's in-an-out privileges for a reason. Tried their Chorizo breakfast burrito, very very good.
I head back down in time to see more Stage Zero games, including a Sailor Moon karaoke contest and more quick draw. By now, it's almost 10am, time for me to head over to the Fullmetal Alchemist gathering downstairs. Here, I see the usual folks who I've seen in the past two years as well as some new people that I haven't seen before.
10:30am hits, and I head on over to the Gundam Universe gathering. Here, I take more pictures.
There's also the Phoenix Wright gathering going on inside, so I go there to take some pictures too as well.
After that I head back up to Stage Zero and participate. I got promoted to sitting on Stage Zero after saying that the one anime that I would watch if I were stranded on an island was Dirty Pair, then I got kicked off after I spoiled the ending to Ouran High School Host Club.
I then wander to the Artist Alley wondering if the person who made our forum badges was in. It wouldn't be another couple of hours before I could pick them up, so I go back to the room to take a lunch break.
I head back down just after 12pm, in time to catch the Rock Band 2 Freestyle tournament going in on Stage Zero. I sit in for a bit and take some nice pictures.
For the next couple of hours, I go to AA and pick up my forum badge and then to Dealers Hall and the gaming room. I make a stop at the Charity Auction booth to see what's available for auction. I notice that those Yamaga-san tickets are available, with guaranteed autographs! So I put a bid for one of those alongside some other items (that eventually I didn't pick up).
Somewhere between here and going back to Stage Zero to go check out the Maid performance I got sucked into a semi-gathering of Axis Powers Hetalia. We end up back in the gaming room where we all proceeded to dance.
By the time I have a chance to go check out the Maid performance, they just got started with their program. I eventually I find front row space to take some good pictures, and guess who I find near me -
Yes, the "Queen of Akihabara," Halko Momoi, one of the guests of honor who showed up to have some fun at Stage Zero. And with her came her fanclub, the ones who were jumping up and down with the glowsticks even though it's 2pm in the afternoon. After waiting for the perfect opportunity, I go up to her, congratulate her on her performance, and give her my business card so that she can visit my blog. She takes it and I thank her, which proceeds me to get all excited because I just gave Halko Momoi my card to my blog. I really did go "OMG, OMG, OMG" as I walked off.
Back in the room, I take a 20-minute power nap that somehow turned into a half-hour power nap. By then, I've decided to go ahead with the 2nd Twitter prize giveaway, which was 10 boxes of Pocky. Tom from Traveling Valentine comes by again, and shortly after that someone approaches me claiming the prize. As the two ladies said in the end, "I'm going to be on a sugar high for a long time."
(OK, the video is no longer available. According to Tom from TV, his account was suspended over copyright infringement over cosplay, something involving Clifford. Still has the video though.)
Shortly after doing the Twitter giveaway, I walked around and took photos of cosplayers.
Back at Stage Zero, the Street Fighter IV charity event is going on. People had the chance to play against Reuben Langdon, the VA for Ken in the game, as part of the charity efforts that Fanime puts out every year. Needless to say it was pretty kick ass...
...until Keith Burgess, the VA for Akuma, comes in. Then shit gets real.
By now it's already 5pm, and the line is starting to form for the Masquerade. But remember, I'm not going. So instead, I head down with my roommate to Original Joe's go grab a pasta dinner and watch part of the Nuggets/Lakers Game 3. For what the price is, it's a huge portion and given where I'm at - FanimeCon - I need all the energy I need. We head back up to watch a bit more of the game before heading back down for the evening.
It's Day 2 of the Stage Zero Game Show, and I decide to check it out. Eventually I get pulled into it, mostly because I told the person who was picking partners that I won yesterday.
After helping my partner to salvage 2nd place, I decided to call it quits on cosplay for the evening. I roam around the place, watching a Left 4 Dead tournament, playing more Maxi Tune 3, and checking out the karaoke room. Now, I did notice a tweet from the karaoke room staff that there were English songs available, and I put down my request for Billy Idol's "White Wedding."
(That's Hank Wong, the head of the karaoke room, singing Iron Maiden)
Unforunately, I never got to sing "White Wedding" because I went to the hentai and yaoi rooms. I got mad because the yaoi room was all mushy-mushy while the hentai room actually had hentai.
By 3am, I'm ready to pass out. After all, while Saturday was big Sunday would be even bigger...
