him and mother's basment (and joy boy theories but i don't like him) have both read Mistborn and Mat has also read kkc so where are my videos i want to see some tekking cosmere content
If anyone likes One Piece and/or Dungeons and Dragons OR if anyone just wants a good laugh, I highly suggest watching this One Piece Dungeons and Dragons series!
I personally don’t think you’ll be disappointed lol
Hey guys! As many of you already know, I've been to this year's Anime Expo in Los Angeles this July. I wanted to share my experience with you guys, hoping someone will find it useful if they want to attend themselves, or just fun to read.
I'll also talk about the overall organization and the pros and cons of the festival.
Note: this is a long-ass post, so if it's too much for you but you're still interested in the topic, please skip to the very last paragraph because it sums up what was the most important to me & my feelings about the experience.
Anime Expo (AEx) is one of the biggest anime cons in the world, and it takes place annually in Los Angeles. After two years of suspension (COVID, of course) it came back this year with tons of guests and panels.
Despite this being my first time attending such an event in US, I'm no stranger to big cons. In fact we have an even larger festival in Italy (Lucca Comics & Games) that I've attended multiple times and served as my frame of reference for AEx (I've been to minors ones around Europe as well).
AEx lasts 5 days, and I highly recommend buying a ticket for the whole con. If I remember correctly, the price for one day is 70 dollars, whereas the price for 5 is 140 (+taxes), and 70 bucks for one day are just... not worth it in my opinion.
If you don't live in US, or you buy your ticket late, you cannot have the badge shipped. So the day before it started, we went to get our badge and activated it (the badges are personal and used to check in and out of the con every day). There were a lot of people but the lines were actually quite fast. We also had to do a different line to show our proof of vaccination/negative covid test to get a plastic bracelet that was needed to enter for the whole duration of the con.
But... they didn't actually check our proof of vaccination. At least when we went there, the employees (or volunteers, I'm not sure) were actually just putting the bracelet on anyone without checking any document. Theoretically masks were mandatory inside the con, but this rule was also hardly enforced. So it was covid-safe only on paper.
The first day I was SO FREAKING EXCITED I forced my friend to wake up super early so we could be there just in time.
AEx is basically structured with a few key halls: one for the merchandise, the exhibition hall (cosplays + games & gaming area), and the artist alley. They have TONS of stands and booths and they become extremely crowded. Every one of these is as big as several football fields. Here's my hot take on them:
Merchandise. Noooot particularly worth it. Compared to other cons, the merch is overpriced and not very diverse. You don't really find little rare, obscure things, it's more the same main things over and over. Funko pops everywhere, Pika chu plushies, Luffy's strawhat... the same stuff has different prices according to the stand, so if you see something you like, I advice you take a look around before buying it, especially if it's something somewhat mainstream. My suggestions is to aim to official booths (ex. Toei) to get official merch, possibly exclusive or early releases.
For example, I've got a con-exclusive Law's funko:
I paid 17 dollars, just to find it at 12 in another stand 20 mins later.
I also got the One Piece x Nyan volume 1 collection from the official Toei OP booth, which is extremely difficult to come by outside Japan:
But that's about it. Normally I get a lot of stuff at cons, because they have good deals or you find figures that never show up online, but for AEx, this was not the case. If you believe it, I found more specific things in Little Tokyo (a mini Kamazo figure!) than AEx.
Artist alley is much more original, but it's mostly posters, pins, and jewelry. I would suggest to buy more stuff here because it's unique and you'd be supporting small artists.
As for the Exhibition hall, I'm not much of a gamer, so we didn't spend a long time there, but my friend got some pretty sweet deals for merch for LoL or Genshin Impact. There was also a stage were I think fan-made plays were happening? Unfortunately they were not noted in the official program, we realized too late that most of the info is actually given through the app, so we missed a few things. I know that at some point there was a re-acting of Yu-Gi-Oh first episode, slutty musical style, where Seto Kaiba repeatedly called himself a bad bitch. I MEAN WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT I LOVED IT OH MY GOD!!
Anyway, if merch, games and cosplay is all you're after, then a one-day ticket is enough to explore the majority of what AEx has to offer, but then I actually recommend go to some other anime festival, because you can find better stuff.
What really makes AEx are the panels and the events. So every night you have to check the schedule for the following day and plan your visit.
There are panels happening all the time, in various rooms, and remember that each one has a line that will require you to get in at least 30 mins before. This timing depends on the popularity of the panel. For very popular panels or main events, you may have to get in line 2 to 3 hours before, or you won't be able to enter.
That's a very important thing, be prepared to spend A LOT of time queuing up.
We've gone to countless of fan-organized panels that were a lot of fun: from workshop on how to create a kaiju cosplay, to a trial-like debate for controversial characters (ex. Sasuke Uchiha, Chrollo, Doflamingo). We had a blast. Some ended up being boring (explanation for the tarots in Persona 5, sounded cool but was meh).
We randomly entered "Guess the Pokemon" (even if I only know Gen 1, lol) aaaand were surprised to find Jason Paige there (he's the original singer for the American Pokemon opening)! He not only sang the song, but he also took a selfie with us!! ❤️
Then I very smugly entered the "guess the opening" contest, and the best ranking I was able to achieve in the course of one hour was 100th (out of around 250 people). So I humbly but not so graciously accepted my defeat. 🥲
As for the main events, the biggest stage was reserved for official sponsored shows/interviews with guests from oversea. They had quite a few voice actors from both USA and Japan. I was able to assist to a Q&A with the original producers of Ranking of Kings, AND the voice actor of Tanjiro from Demon Slayer!!
THEN I managed to get into the official One Piece Red event (by lining up 3 hours before). RogersBase hosted the interview with the Japanese producer. 🤩 Then the American voice actors for Shanks and Brook joined in. It was simply amazing.
One of the panels I enjoyed the most was a smaller one though, the One Piece DnD live session, mainly because I often follow the series on youtube. It's DM'd by Rustage, and the players are Tekking101, Briggs, 2Spooky and Lost Pause. They were funny af, and all so terribly nice. They spent a long-ass time signing autographs and taking pics with the fans before and after the panel.
Which brings me to my next topic: it's possible to meet content creators walking around the con! There are a lot, and most of them go about their day there like any other fan. But between the facemasks and the amount of people, it's hard to recognize them or even walk into them. (keep in mind that the biggest anitubers like the trio from Trash Taste are basically treated like VIPs, you won't likely find them walking around among common mortals).
For some miracle, I met Tekking, who is my favorite youtuber. I knew he was around but as soon as I saw what was the setting, I realized it would be almost impossible to actually see him. And then BOOM, we caught him chilling by himself outside where we were also chilling to catch a break. 😂 I was so excited & nervous it was actually my friend who walked up to him.
Tekking was SUPER nice! He talked to us for a few minutes, we took a pic, and he even said "thank you for being a fan", and I was like 😭😭😭 why you so precious 😭😭😭 thank you for the amazing content!!
I also met Rustage the last day! He was walking by us, and I went like "OH, RUSTAGE!" without even thinking. He was also WAY TOO nice, he stopped to talk to us for a while, and this was shortly after he hosted a panel AND spent at least one hour taking pics with fans, so he must've been super tired. But because of the sudden interaction, my brain was so bugged I told him he shouldn't put pineapple on a pizza. I wanted to be swallowed by darkness, but he's way too cute to be human and laughed it off. 😫
I am SO SO grateful I had the chance to interact with such amazing content creators, people I watch on yt all the time and often cheer my days up when I'm down. ❤️
After 8 pm, the 18+ panels start, so you have to get a separate bracelet to attend by showing your ID. There are some parties, like Steve Aoki's concert with anime music remix, which unfortunately we couldn't attend because the tickets were sold out. Then there was the stand-up comedy night, super f*cking funny. Then there's stuff like yaoi, hentai, shipping panels.
AA. the last day actually finishes around 4 pm and a lot of stuff is over or sold out, so never get a one-day ticket for it, it's definitely not worth it.
Another important recommendation from my side is bring your own food. There is an embarrassing low number of food stands, so the lines are absolutely awful. I'm talking 3-hr-long lines to get a sandwich or a bobba tea. There was ONE shop selling coffee for like 100k people, you do the math.
I have no idea why they didn't take more contractors for food and drinks, there was plenty of space they could've occupied. That is an unsolved mystery for me.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention the cosplayers! There were MANY, from shitty to astonishing. Here's me chilling with Ulti and Page One:
Alright, I think I touched upon all the things I wanted to share! I forgot something for sure, so I might do some satellite posts later on. Feel free to ask anything!
Overall, it was an AMAZING experience. It's like being izekai'd into a magical world of dreams filled with like-minded people. Everyone is excited, enthusiastic and ready to make friends. You will receive random compliments (a girl actually complimented the smell of my body spray??). A giant pikachu will hit on you (true story). You'll have the chance to meet creators you love. EVERYONE is free to express themselves, you wouldn't believe the amount of cross-dressers and LGTBQ+ people around, it filled me with joy to see how much of a safe space that was! So prepare your cosplay or those gadgets you love but never get to wear in your everyday life and take a break from reality! ESPECIALLY if you're in your early twenties and live around LA, this is a chance to make a huge amount of friends and living your best life.
Watching a two hour video on a tier list for which One Piece characters would run the best bakeries is not how I thought I’d spend my day yet here I am
