Anime Expo 2011: Megatokyo, Danny Choo, new Gundam, and more!

It’s been over a week since AX and fortunately (or not), I have some time off to relax. This year’s convention was a lot better than last year, in large part due to the Convention Center staff being much nicer to attendees and  also it seems that things ran more smoothly in general. We didn’t watch as much anime as last year, but we did see a lot of debuts and panels related to them like High School of the Dead, Gundam 00 Movie, and Gundam Unicorn. Thanks to a nice AX staff guy, we were able to register at closing on Day Zero which allowed us to attend Opening Ceremonies. My boyfriend is a fan of Megatokyo, a web comic by Fred Gallagher, so we attended his panel on the 3rd day and signing on the last day. We even managed to chat with him in the artist alley.

Danny Choo had a lot of events going on, which we also attended though didn’t stay too long at the Fakku meet and greet. We did pick up a few Mirai T-shirts from J-list and the Mirai Figma from Kid Nemo. My boyfriend was very excited about it and was also able to get a Senjyougahara Hitagi Figma from Bakemonogatari (which I just watched most of last night with him). The Exhibition Hall is always the best way to spend your paycheck, and it didn’t disappoint. I got shirts from Bored Inc, Gama-Go, Aqua Red, previous AX (only $5), Angry Little Girls (bags too), MightyFine, and the previously mentioned Mirai shirts from J-List. I picked up a cute pair of earrings from the Artist Alley for only $2 also.

The AMV (Anime Music Video) contest was pretty popular this year, so we weren’t able to attend any re-screenings or award ceremonies. It was really interesting to see the panels for High School of the Dead and the Gundam Unicorn screenings. The Gundam 00 screening went late, so they moved the panel to another room and we decided to do something else (probably eat). In total, I took a lot of pictures this year and all my photos are up on my AX 2011 Flickr Collection. I don’t take many cosplay photos, but there are plenty of people who do. Cosplayers are everywhere, so even if I wasn’t focusing on them you’ll still see a bunch. The big thing this year was the Hatsune Miku concert (which they brought custom Toyota Corollas out for).

Another new thing was the Food Trucks, which may have been there last year but they had a dedicated area for people to go to. We ended up spending a lot on Indian Food, but it was pretty tasty. The pizza has been the consistently good and reasonably priced item at the LA Convention Center, so we got that a few times over the 4 day event. We were slightly better prepared with cold drinks in the car to get when we didn’t want to spend $3 to $4 on a soda. This was a pretty fun experience and definitely worth attending. I enjoy being able to take in a lot of different panels and screenings, while also finding cool things in the dealer hall. One of the last things we picked up is a DS game by Aksys called Nine Nine Nine, which came with a watch from the game. Andrew already finished it and the watch is pretty cool (even if it’s hard to put on at first).