Anime Expo 2010 Report: Part 3 - Thursday (Day One)

After starting off Day One over at Spires with breakfast burritos and mango smoothies, it's time to head down with Canada and Avi to Anime Expo.

We really don't have to do anything before the Kawamoto panel, so for the time being we wander the convention center halls taking more photos like the tourist I was.

And then I get to meet the great Danny Choo, and I get a photo with him.

Now it's time for the Kawamoto panel, the first GoH panel of the convention. It starts out with a 12-minute Bones promo video, then some Q&A, and finally the premiere of the Heroman dub.

Of course, I did my question in about the 2nd season of Ouran High School Host Club, and long story short we're going to need a lot of money to get that funded.

With that, we head over for the first time to the Exhibit Hall to explore some of the dealers before going to the Kawamoto autograph session. It went smooth, and both me and Ryan got our Cowboy Bebop box sets signed.

We wait around a bit more before going to Yuu Asakawa's panel, which went smooth as well. Again, we head over to the Exhibit Hall to get more autographs. But with this session, there's priority ticketing - and it would be the only GoH with priority ticketing that I attended. But time is running short: I have to be at Cosplay Poker by 4:30pm for seating. Luckily one of Ryan's friends wants to hang out and was willing to take my ticket, so I was able to pick a vuvuzela beforehand with the time to spare.

I go deep into the Final Table before running into a river flush to bust out in 5th place. I went in with K-K and he called with K-J, so technically I was correct in making that all-in.

With the con winding down and nothing else to do since this isn't FanimeCon, we decide to head over to the ESPN Zone to eat.

This is when the bullshitness of Anime Expo starts coming in: according to a posterboard promoting the Summer Festival, there were supposed to be discounts for the LA Live restaurants including ESPN Zone. According to our server, that "discount" is a box lunch, not a discount on the check. But we eat there anyways since I enjoy their food from previous visits. PROTIP: share the Ultimate Tailgate with four or more hungry cosplayers.

Before we leave for the evening, the Japanese DJs are playing a set outside and I catch a glimpse of what was to come at tomorrow's performance.

And with that, we go home to call it a day. We have a lot to go through in the next couple of days with the SoCal Host Club and more panels.





-Day One End-