Long Beach Comic Con 2009

It’s been too long since my last post. I’ve been very busy with my college work and moving out of my home. Wellz anywayz, last week I went to Long Beach Comic Con with a friend who tagged along with me. Now, I am not a comic book fan, and I hardly ever read comic books. I mostly read mangas. But I thought I was a little curious of this Convention since it was close to where I live. Apparently, it was their first comic con in Long Beach. and guess what, the comic legend Stan Lee was there!! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see him in person due to the crowd and requiring a purchase of a ticket to get an autograph from him.

The first thing that I noticed, stepping inside the Con was the entire space being used. It was relatively small. It is much smaller than San Diego. Well, I didn’t expect the size to be that small. It probably only took about half an hour to go through every booth inside. While having to pay close to $50USD I was expecting a bit more. I don’t think the free Spider-Man comic book, with a purchase of weekend pass, made up for the price.

As my friend and I explored the exhibit hall, we saw an eye catching object sitting in the corner. It looked to me as a boxing or wrestling ring. It was very unexpected, as many people around us had blank expressions on their face. Well as you’d expect, a big black guy with purple speedos came up the ring and started mashing the opponent with his fat arms. Yes, it was wrestling. I gazed with laughter as the crowd’s reaction was just unbearably destroyed with silence. There were no booing or cheering. I was a complete silence, as wrestlers were smashing each other.

Nyaa~ PREDATOR!!

I could go on talking about the wrestlers, but the entire presentation was pretty cheesy for an entertainment inside a con. So I walked around some stores they had, and I was quite impressed with both quality and quantity of figures they had. Since I collect figures, I was about to make a purchase of something. But I didn’t expect many figures to be very pricey. Since I’ve only collected anime character figures, I’ve never purchased any comic character figures. Of course, I couldn’t put my money to waste while being a student, I managed to purchase a Mighty Mugg Snake Eyes figure for $8USD.

Overall, the 2 day LB Comic Con experience was okay. I wasn’t too happy with the weekend pass prices, but since it is their first Comic Con in LB, I can bare with it. Am I going to go for LB Comic Con next year? Well, I’m afraid not, mainly because of the lack of exhibits and price. I guess I was expecting too much from this convention. Since it is “Comic Con”, one would be digging through comics and comic related stuff, rather than watching the crappy wrestling matches and looking for figurines. But I am planning to pay a visit to San Diego Comic Con next year, since I’ve never attended before. Conventions are usually a hit or miss whenever you attend. I’ve been to conventions and trade shows such as the L.A. Auto Show, E3 2006, Anime Expo, and so forth. I think E3 was probably the best tradeshow I’ve attended. It was awesome (^^). I’ve always wanted to attend different kinds of conventions and trade shows, and the LB Comic Con didn’t live up to my standards, but it was a good experience. For the upcoming conventions, I’m hoping to attend the L.A. Autoshow and the Ski Dazzle, both held at Los Angeles Convention Center.

Check out the rest of the Long Beach Comic Con photos at my flickr page.

Vegas 2009 Summer

I had a quick trip to Las Vegas, NV a few days ago. My gosh was it hot and dry there!! My contact lens would dry up within a matter of seconds, just standing outside. It was recommended to stay inside the as much as possible. I took a plane there with my family for a quick summer vacation. It was a breeze taking a flight there instead of cruising with a car. We stayed at MGM Grand for three days and two nights. It was fun overall, but I’m not sure if it was my lack of experience there, but my photos didn’t come out quite well as I expected. I’ve lost around $300 in gambling (T_T) and didn’t win anything. I think it was a good experience of gambling for the first time in Vegas. My savings in my bank slipped out in no time. It was very scary to see how much you lose in a day. I’ve had a great trip at Vegas, and next time I would seriously consider to bring more money to enjoy on things other than gambling, such as the shows, dining, clubbing, etc. I really wanted to see one of the Cirque du Soleil shows, but they’re pretty pricey (>_<). What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas….. I guess I can forget about how much I lost there. (^^;; )

Enjoy my pics at my flickr page

Figure Review: Banpresto C.C. Ichiban Kuji

Hmm I think I should pay more attention to my blog site, because I keep forgetting to post something. Anyhow, she has finally arrived!! As I love C.C. more than any other character in anime, I made a recent purchase of C.C. Ichiban Kuji online. It was a good value for what I paid for. Overall, she is my favorite figure now. Although it would have been better with cheese-kun, she is still gorgeous. Standing slightly taller than the 1/8 scale figure, she’s around 1/6 scale I believe. The paint job and detailing is fantastic. Though the only downside I can think of is her hair. they could have sharpened out her hair, but nontheless it’s satisfactory overall. I think this is one of the best looking C.C. figure out there. Now, aside from the quick review of C.C. figure, there is some thing I didn’t like about shooting figures in my so called “figure photo studio”. I’d like to emphasize on the phrase “size does matter” my figure photo studio is lacking in size. I’ve noticed this after shooting C.C. Ichiban Kuji in the tiny cardboard box. And for this reason, it’s very difficult when it comes to shooting a large figure like this. I can’t do any angle shots either. So from now on, I was thinking of not using a cardboard box, but have a large solid color background. Any kind of advice and suggestion would be very helpful. So check out the photos of my lovely C.C. (^^) cheers~!!

Anime Expo 2009

Okay, this is so hard to give a fresh start, after not posting anything for long time. I’ve almost forgotten about having my own blog!! (>_<).

Anyhow, as I was eagerly waiting for this day to come, it has yet been another awesome time spending at Anime Expo 2009. My first Anime Expo visit was back in 2007 at Long Beach Convention Center. I’ve only heard a glimpse of this event from a friend of mine, while I was not into anime world as much. The first experience of going to an anime con really hit me hard. It has really changed my perspective of whole anime. That’s probably the start line of entering the world of anime.

Surprisingly, watching different series of anime became interesting and fun. I’ve never gotten into watching anime before, but it has changed a lot after attending the con. One of the things that surprised me there was the number of people there. I couldn’t believe just how many people enjoy or even know about anime. Since I am Japanese, I had a feeling where Americans were more into cartoons than anime, but I was totally wrong. I think there are more anime fans out there than there are in Japan.

Well, enough talk about my experience, lets get to the con.

This year, as some of you may know that AX 2009 was held at Los Angeles Convention Center (same as last year). Again, I had tons of fun out there for all four days. I went there with a friend of mine and this was our third time going to AX. It’s very difficult to explain how AX was like, but I have to say that there were so many people attending this year. I think the numbers of attendees are increasing every year.

When the Badge-Pickup day came, I was already hyped up to go to the convention, but as I arrived there, my friend and I were shocked at what we saw. The line was packed and packed and packed and packed and…….. I could keep saying the same word over and over. This was probably the first time seeing a badge pickup line, that long. But surprisingly, the line was moving smoothly and there were almost no stops or delays.

As the first day came by, the whole convention was already packed with people. I was surprised how there were many people showing up early in the morning to the con. (and I was one of them). My friend and I went to the arcade room (again, packed with people), and played a few games there. There were few new titles of games such as Tekken 6, BlazBlue Calamity Trigger, uh….. and I don’t know the rest. I’m not a huge video game fan, but they looked very awesome. There was also a console gaming room with video game titles such as Rock Band, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, BlazBlue, etc.

There were also many panels to attend too. My first panel of the day was the panel of Yun Kouga as she was invited as a Guest of Honor. For those of you who don’t know, Yun Kouga is a manga artist who worked on titles such as Loveless and Yousei Jiken. She’s also the character designer of popular anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00.

Following her panel, there was another Guest of Honor invited to AX. It was Toshiyuki Morikawa. As some of you may know, Morikawa is a voice actor in many anime roles such as Berserk, Bleach, Black Lagoon, Full Metal Panic, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Naruto, Last Exile, etc. And he is also the voice actor of the all popular RPG video game character in Final Fantasy VII, as Sephiroth. Both Kouga and Morikawa were awesome people.

After attending the panel, we went to the Moi dix Moi concert. Personally I didn’t enjoy the concert because I don’t listen to Visual Kei bands and it’s not really my taste of music.

Exhibit Hall entrance at South Hall

Then we browsed through the exhibit hall with all the anime retailers and merchandises. Surprisingly, the exhibit hall seemed smaller than last year, with fewer stores. I am guessing that anime retailers are disappearing slowly, but there were many booths at the artist’s alley.

So Day 1 was very awesome overall, and I felt very tired after carrying my camera over my neck the entire day.

Now as far as day 2 went, I was starting to feel pain on my lower back.

The good thing is though I had a chance to meet Toshiyuki Morikawa for the autograph session. However things didn’t go smoothly as expected. I was told by the AX staff that the line should only take a few minutes to move. WRONG!!! I had to wait around 2hrs and 30 mins to get the damn autograph. But I guess the long wait paid off after greeting him and getting an autograph on my FFVII ACC

Toshiyuki Morikawa with FFVIIACC

I probably had most fun on day 3. To me it was a very busy day shooting as much photos possible for every opportunity. I had to look for the gatherings of cosplayers with Code Geass, Kuroshitsuji, CLAMP, K-On, etc. I think I took close to 800 photos that day, all taken in RAW file and since I didn’t expect taking that many photos, sadly both of my 4GB CF ran out of memory (T_T). I’ll be more prepared next time. If you haven’t checked out the photo’s yet, you can go to my flickr page.

Then there was Day 4 where all otakus and anime fans swarmed around the dealer’s hall for their last minute shopping. I was very weak, tired, and hungry on the last day. There really wasn’t much to do on the last day. I put my last strength into shooting photos of cosplayers and getting the goodies in the dealer’s hall.

Dealer's Hall

Overall, AX2009 was satisfying. But the major problem this year was the staff. I think they need more staff to get everything  more coordinated, organized, and be more helpful. So now that AX is over, I’m in a recovery process of my tight budget. I’m looking already forward to AX 2010 and next time I should participate in cosplaying. (^^)

Figure Review: C.C. DX Figure

It’s been a while since I last posted my first C.C. figure review. Well, here’s another one. It’s the same C.C. from Code Geass, but has a slightly different pose. At first the first thing that caught my attention was the pizza. Yes! she’s holding a slice of pizza! and she’s about to take a bite from it too! I find this pose interesting as the cheese drips just above her hand. One of the most important key feature that makes every figure look good or bad is the face. The face of this C.C. looks much closer to the anime face. Her eyes really gives a shine in quality. Other than that, she is simply awesome. This is a bargain figure which I purchased online for around $25 USD. There really isn’t much to say about this figure, but I would say its one of the better looking C.C. out there. Check out the pix below:

Figure Review: Code Geass Otomedama Nano C.C.

Well, here it goes, my first figure review!

The Code Geass Otomedama Nano has one randomly chosen figure out of four characters in each box. The characters in Otomedama Nano series are C.C./Kallen/Shirley/Milly. The figures are made by Bandai, but unlike the Code Geass EX-Portraits, these Otomedama Nano doesn’t include any candy. But anyhow, I want to show you some pictures of C.C. that I’ve taken.

There isn’t much to say about this figure, but by the looks of it, C.C. has a great pose. Each figure includes a base with a plastic hook to keep the figure from falling. The overall color on this figure is pretty good, but the paint is a little messy on some spots. Her hair color might be a bit off, but it doesn’t bother me at all. I really liked how they colored her outfit with a pearl white. Overall it is a very nice figure for the price. I purchased this at Anime Expo 08 for around $5(USD).  For those Code Geass fans, I wouldn’t say it’s a must have, but its a great looking figure for the price.