My Anime Expo ’11 plans

We’re now two weeks away from Anime Expo, the largest North American anime convention that will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Although AX ’11 will only be my fifth AX, they’ve been my yearly highlights each time I’ve gone. The Anime Expo web site put up their schedule of events a few days ago, so now it’s time for me to get planning!…

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like AX ’11 is having any music or seiyuu guests I’m particularly interested in (especially compared to last year with the Macross Frontier concert and the Toradora! seiyuu!) The most anticipated concert is obviously the Miku Hatsune one, but since I’m not into Vocaloid, it doesn’t matter to me (I’m really glad for all of Miku’s American fans though!) But that’s all well and good as I have plenty of other things to do, meeting up with friends being one of them since I’ve lived in the Los Angeles area my whole life and have made many AX-bound friends over the years. So after some preliminary planning, here’s what my schedule’s looking to be:

Day 1 – Friday, July 1st

– 12:00pm-Exhibit Hall (preview round) : After I get my badge and check into my hotel, I plan to visit the Exhibit Hall right away. It’s always more crowded on Day 1 than the other days, but that’s also the day where you can find the best stuff as things get sold out later on. I’ll probably just have time for a quick perusal on Day 1 and do my more serious shopping on Day 2.

– 4:00pm-The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (dub): With this, I will have seen the Haruhi movie in all of its California showings! XD However, this is the first dub showing and I’m interested in seeing how it is (the Haruhi anime has an overall great dub in my opinion). I’m expecting it to be mobbed so I’ll make sure to get there early!

– 9:30pm-Name that Anime Tune: If I don’t have friends to meet up with or anything going on at this time, this event sounds fun. Since I love anime music and listen to it all the time, I wonder how well I’ll do =)

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Day 2 – Saturday, July 2nd

– 10:00am-Exhibit Hall (main round) and Artist Alley: I plan to spend the entire morning/early afternoon on Day 2 doing my usual “serious” perusal of the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley, which entails hours of visiting every single booth in both places, some more than once. I’ve been saving up the cash I get for my tutoring sessions especially for this! XD

– 4:30pm-Bandai panel: My friend Ultimatemegax wants to go to Bandai’s panel, so I figured why not. They’re the U.S. company that releases Haruhi and other anime I like after all =)

– ~6:30pm-Blogger meetup: Like last year, fellow anime blogger Shinmaru is organizing another meetup for anime bloggers (and fans who’d like to meet said bloggers). He’s actually organizing three meetups (more info on his blog here) and I plan on going to at least two – this one and/or the one on Day 3. If you’re at AX and would like to meet me and other anibloggers, hope to see you there =D

– Evening-Console Gaming room: I want to spend some time at the Console Gaming room looking for people to battle/trade with on Pokemon Black & White. There’s always an unofficial Pokemon tournament or two going on at AX, but I’m not particularly interested because the LV50 restriction they have makes me unable to use my best pokemon. So I’ll just be looking for casual matches with anyone who wants to play =)

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Day 3 – Sunday, July 3rd

– 10:30am-Yuki Kajiura/Blogger meetup: If nothing else comes up this morning, I plan to go to the final blogger meetup that Shinmaru has planned, which will be held during a panel about Yuki Kajiura that fellow blogger zzeroparticle will be having.

– Afternoon-Karaoke at Max’s: This afternoon I’m planning to go with a group of friends to Max’s Karaoke in Little Tokyo. They have a great selection of anime songs! XD

– 9:00pm-The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (sub): Yes, the Haruhi movie will be shown twice at AX, and I’m planning to go to both!

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Day 4 – Monday, July 4th

– I plan on leaving in the early afternoon on Day 4, so I’ll probably spend my final few hours at AX ’11 looking for some last good deals at the Exhibit Hall or meeting up with more friends.

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Additional things I’d like to do at AX are take photos of good cosplayers (anybody know if there’s a list going around of all the cosplay gatherings and when/where they’ll be held?) and go to this meetup of Japanese-speaking fans called “Nihongo de Okay” (which I didn’t put on my schedule because their site doesn’t have a date listed yet).

This will only be the third AX where I’ll be staying all four days. It’s looking to be a blast so far ^_^ If any of you are going, hope you have a great time too and hope to see you at one of the meetups~