[ return : true > ax 2002 ]
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belly of the beast |
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"Loy, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the Dealers' Room at Anime Expo 2002. Bring us back your thoughts on the wait and the room itself, and escape as quickly as possible to minimize damage to your wallet. This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds." Mission accepted. Here's his report. |
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EXT. Long Beach, CA - Convention Center Exactly one year has passed. Otaku have travelled far and great distances to pay homage to the "Mecca" of anime conventions. That's right folks, it's time for Anime Expo 2002. The reason people attend this annual event varies from person to person. Some go to "say goodbye to the sun" as Stephanie Fernandez, the emcee for Opening and Closing Ceremonies, said to those who will be in the cooped up in the video rooms all day. Others go to meet people with the same common interest, see old friends, learn about certain new acquisitions, or splurge one's hard-earned yearly income in a measly four days! One thing shocked me the most this year. There were lines to get into the dealer's room. This is not the line before it first opens, either. These were lines during the middle of the day!! Never in all my years of attending have I ever seen such madness. On my casual walks looking for the end of this line, I went up to random people asking them what they thought about the line. On my random walks, I came across Ami, who wrote two articles for i360 awhile back. This was Ami's second year at AX.
INT. Long Beach Convention Center - Exhibition Hall Once you got through the long lines and actually entered the hall, you were almost immediately greeted with Pioneer's booth. They were promoting Hellsing, one of their new releases for July. With a gravestone and a coffin to the left, I can only describe it with one word: macabre. They were handing out promotional DVD's as well as X TV Collectible trading cards. There were twenty cards in all. As an X fan, I had to try to get all of them, and I did. ^___^;; Adjacent to the Pioneer booth was Bandai. Not to be outdone by their crosstown rivals, they also released a promotional DVD. They also had a special viewing area to showcase some of their releases. On a special note, Bandai brought with them Mr. Shoji Kawamori. Mr. Kawamori is known for being the creator of works such as Macross, Escaflowne, and Arjuna. He hung around the Bandai booth signing Escaflowne flyers or any related merchandise. He also made an appearance after the Bandai panel where I was able to shake his hand and take a picture. ^____^;; ADV Films/Suncoast had a booth that certainly was a crowd pleaser. First, they had a mass array of posters up for grabs. It seems many people really wanted the Excel Saga "Yummy". At certain times, ADV staff would get up on the roof of their booth, beat a drum as if it was a slave ship, and get the masses all roused up to grab orange Excel Saga t-shirts. I might add that I got one. Gutsoon! Entertainment made their first appearance at Anime Expo. They were displaying products from Raijin Comics. The one thing I remember from their booth though was the badgering to enter to win a free trip to Japan. Manga Entertainment, Animeigo, and Central Park Media didn't really have interesting booths. For the most part, they were the exact same booths from previous years. All in all, however, the dealer's room was mediocre at best. It was slightly smaller than last year's, but that's because it was held in a different hall. Though, it could have fooled me. For the most part I had thought it was the same room, just used a different entrance. However, Jason confirmed for me that it was a totally different room. On a personal note, I was able to control myself from REALLY splurging like I did at AX 2000. ^____^;; "Shouldn't ever trust otaku with money." See you at future cons! Ja ne! —loy |
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