Spinach

Saturday morning, or, Prelude to Anisong World Matsuri

Having only hydrated during dinner yesterday and otherwise only having alcohol and a subway sandwich in my system from yesterday, on top of copious amounts of talking and walking around in the LA heat, my throat was destroyed and my voice hoarser than death herself. Good way to start the morning.

I don’t quite remember when we got up or went to the venue, but we did that at roughly 11am. I had bought Petri and I3uster’s Super Live tickets along with mine and figured I needed them with me to pick up the tickets since the site said they would be IDing. Turns out we only needed MY ID and the other two weren’t necessary to be there at all, so I had Petri and I3uster sit in the ticket pickup line with me for about an hour that they didn’t need to be there for. While in line we learned the true meaning of an orderly line, and watched the actual live action anime of Lineman, a man who was committed to keeping that line straight.

Nachos and Mooncake appeared in the line at some point, but they weren’t near us so we didn’t get to line it up with them. Bloble was in that line too I think.

There was also a p cool Professor Oak cosplayer with a tray holding three pokeballs, inside each of which was one of the Kanto starters. I asked for a picture and requested him to only display Squirtle, and to reward me playing favorites he gave me a small trinket of a Squirtle which I hung on my AX lanyard, but it fell off near the end of the day and I’m legit sad I lost it.

The professor and another linecon attendee waiting for his tickets

So we got through the line and I went to pick up the tickets. This is where things got a bit interesting, as the actual process of picking up our tickets was setting up the confrontation spoken of in the scrolls long ago. After showing my ID and flashing my phone to show my purchase the girl working the counter disappeared into the back. Then came back.

About 15 minutes later.

The ticket for my seat, 305, was proving impossible to locate. They had ‘misplaced’ it and she and a supervisor came up to give me a replacement ticket, told me to use it to get into the Microsoft Theater and then just go to my original seat. Okay, no big deal. I can do that.

So after that Petri and I had us a date in the dealer’s room. We had spent Friday fooling around in the Entertainment Hall and I hadn’t even gone into dealer’s yet, which to me is basically the biggest attraction of AX itself (Super Live usurped this later though, don’t worry your pretty little heads) so I really wanted to get in there, and Petri was down to join me too.

I3uster wanted to meet up with Reiu, Kyokushi and Tang though, and we were like ‘yeah sure whatevs we’ll do that then split.’ So we went up and found them, said hi, and then Petri and I actually just left without saying bye.

I think Bloble joined us in ditching that group too.

Can’t remember lol.

So we went to dealer’s and began the ordeal. You don’t have to be an oldie to know I love Saki. You may take a minute of talking to me to know I love Horizon. Well those were the things in mind. Of course I wanted some nice Love Live merch and naturally there was tons to select from, but my first priority was to find some Saki related stuff.

I mean, it’s a largely popular manga with like five spinoff manga and three separate TV anime, not to mention the 3^rd one aired in 2014. It won’t be all over the place but there’s gotta be something around, you know?

Hahaha.

We roamed dealer’s looking for the good shit and found fucking NOTHING. I was getting kind of annoyed but was still enjoying it. Then we hooked up with mAc and Nico and our group of three became five. Let me tell you, keeping together as two people in dealer’s which is insanely crowded, loud, massive as hell and to be honest not that well-lit is a bit difficult. Keeping three together is hard. Keeping four together is a real test. Keeping five is outright frustrating.

On top of that there was the festering annoyance at not finding what I really cared about. Eventually I got so angry at the dealer’s room that I tried to split off from the other four so I could go alone, moving without looking over my shoulder to make sure the others are keeping up and not lingering in booths the other guys are checking stuff out in. Bloble saw me splitting off and picked up the pace to get beside me and ask what was up, and I told him I was intentionally separating from the others to hunt Saki.

Apparently mAc and Petri both saw me head off like this but Petri used his telepathic link to me to know what I was doing and didn’t move to catch up.

So Bloble and I went up and down the entire dealer’s room. We gave every booth a moderate lookover and with each one I found myself getting saltier and saltier. Bloble was getting hungry and I was getting legit frustrated at the room so we moved out to get him a bite to eat and for me to chill.

While Bloble was grabbing food from the wastefully overpriced food court I went out and checked my texts, while tunnelvisioning the hunt for tanoshii I missed a few from I3uster, mAc and Rainman. I think I3uster wanted to meet up again and the guys were downstairs in artist’s alley playing mahjong at the moment. This is an anecdote that could be from Sunday however. Don’t trust my memory t b h.

Misc dealer's room pics

Interestingly, that last cosplayer is the Emerald Herald from Dark Souls 2, who informed me that I was the one single person to recognize him at AX.

Anyway, a large blur of dealer’s room hunting and getting absorbed into different groups of BLers moving around is all that I can recall of the next several hours. I rejoined Petri/Bloble and met up with I3uster at around 5:30pm. I’d stick with them until 7, which would be time for the Super Live. Meeting up at the venue once separated was a needlessly tedious process so it would be easier to stick together for the next hour, and at around 6:30ish we went together to the theater.

I thought about going into the Starbucks there for an octuple shot of espresso and some water but it was actually so packed that the line extended way far outside.

Getting the shakes from caffeine withdrawal and with a very dehydrated throat we went into the theater.

A bit of AX planning backstory, you could buy four tickets at once. Before tickets went up for sale I asked Bloble in PM if he wanted me to buy his ticket too, but bad timing struck and Bloble was out of his house when I asked. By the time he came back ticket reservations were up and I’d already bought for The Three. Bloble would be sitting alone.

Or he should be sitting alone. He sincerely intended to sit in one of our seats and have us sit in his lap, or pay off somebody near us to give him their seat. Neither became necessary though as the guy beside Petri didn’t show up until like two hours into the concert, and there were open seats like two rows back from us so he was close enough to not lose the magic, but not quite there to have the intimate Incredibly Heterosexual Experience we Three had.

But that’s getting ahead of myself.

The theater and its available wifi connections

6:45, 15 minutes until the Super Live kicks off, and this girl shows up to my seat with the ticket for my seat. Apparently this fuck up at ticketing was here to strike at me, and I quickly whipped out my phone to show her the receipt of me reserving this seat literally seconds after ticket reservation went live, as well as showing her the ticket that I’d been given and explaining what went on at ticketing. I think I3uster and Petri had their own tickets out and ready to show her to back me up, but I got up and asked her if she’d be okay with going to talk to theater staff about this.

She agreed, and we went out to speak to the supervisor of the theater, who explained that this wasn’t organized by the Microsoft Theater itself and thus she couldn’t do anything about it. At the moment I was getting lowkey buttmad that this woman somehow had my ticket, which she apparently picked up at 9am from the ticketing booth, two hours before I went there, but couldn’t pull out her phone to show us the receipt that she’d bought it. In a way I believed that she also reserved this seat and it was probably some weird error, but she was actually alone in this seat. The girl sitting beside me wasn’t with any group (I know because Bloble asked her if she was with a group with the intention of buying her seat off her for $100) and on my other side was I3uster, so at the moment I was just thinking about how to diplomatically suggest she just take my replacement ticket and give my proper ticket without sounding like a dick.

Anyway, the supervisor suggested we go outside and head to the will call line to talk to AX staff about this, but now there was only about 10 minutes until the Live would begin.

The girl with my ticket rolled her eyes and said “nope.” Actually forced my ticket into my hand and took the replacement ticket I was holding in one admittedly impressive motion, then heel turned back into the theater. The supervisor and I had a laugh and I thanked her for coming up to this level to help us, and I went back in, my proper ticket in hand.

I’m not going to give you an actual write-up of the entire Live. That would literally make this blog into like 4,000 words minimum if I wanted to convey the things I felt for those four hours. In fact, I probably won’t give you more than a few paragraphs.

I got back to my seat. A few rows back were Moon and Nachos, who could apparently see me but I couldn’t see them. The lights dimmed, and Jam Project came onto the stage. Each member did an intro song, starting with We Are, and right then, right there, I knew the next four hours would be one wild fucking ride. After intros came DJ Kazu, who warmed the crowd up with some anime ass shit. Then came Aoi Eir, who kind of didn’t impress me like I expected. Then came Luna Haruna.

She was going Aoi Eir’s route of being good but not great, until she stopped to tell us the next song was a duet, and she called Aoi Eir back onto the stage. The duet in question was God Knows, and I actually fucking lost it. I actually couldn’t contain the maelstrom inside and pulled I3uster in for a hug. God that shit was sick.

Then, he came. TM Revolution, the actual based god, and he burnt the fucking place to the ground. Then onto the stage came Minami, and I can’t even remember what she sang, but I actually knew every song. I just couldn’t tell you what they were. Then Yoko Ishida who was surprisingly really good I think. Then Sphere, who I initially thought “wait who,” but by the end ALL OF MY DREAMS ARE COMING TRUE, I LOVE IDOLS, I LOVE ANIME EXPO.

Somewhere in that last paragraph DJ Kazu came back in and also burnt the fucking theater to the ground again. Actual madness.

Finally, Jam Project came in again, and ended the day by just dropping bombs on the theater to destroy what ashes remained after TM Revolution and DJ Kazu sent the place up in flames.

Eardrums in tatters, voice thoroughly fucking LOST, balls collectively empty, we left the theater. Nachos and Moon would be heading back to the Love Live Loft, and the four of us from the Memepartment met up with a very obscure poster called Arkturus and walked to a 24 hour Subway. We restocked and had a group masturbation session, then ditched Ark at like midnight in the middle of downtown LA to return to the apt since Bloble was like, dying, and so came to a close the uncontested true highlight of the entirety of AX.