blog好き

Jul 06 2014

Categories: anime news, fanservice
Tagged: attack on titan, kenshin, kill la kill, mawaru penguindrum, sailor moon, utena

11 Comments »

Back to AX!

I was at AX two years ago, and I had a lot of fun. The panels were great, the lines were well-organized, and nothing felt overwhelming. This year? It felt like AX turned into Anime Disney World. Lines, lines, and more lines! Weird people in furry costumes that creep on little kids! Crying babies (there’s a lot more babies and toddlers and dogs at AX than I have ever seen)! $4 bottles of water (at least the food trucks were selling it for around a $1)! Unhelpful event staff! AX really needs a Fast Pass-like system where you queue for a panel by getting a ticket (maybe randomize the first 300 to discourage people from lining up at 10am), and then you’re let in based on the ticket number, kinda like how Southwest Airlines does seating.

I thought nothing could be as bad as 2011 Fanime where I waited for over two hours for my pre-registration badge pickup. Nope. For AX, I arrived Thursday morning and had a nice three and a half hour wait in the baking LA heat. (At least most of the Fanime line occurs indoors.) The staff passed out some water, but it was like maybe a hundred bottles with thousands of people in line, so it started the theme of the con: only the first in line get served. Good news is that I got almost three hundred 3DS StreetPasses, so there’s that. I wonder why this system needs to exist. Oharuhi-sama help you if you decide to go with day of registration, which was even worse. Why not extend pre-pickup to all of Wednesday? Maybe even add pre-pickup all weeklong at a different location? I guess one good thing about the line is that in previous years, part of the line is indoors, so once you get in, you got to get your hopes crushed with another line. This year, 100% of the line is outdoors. They made the registration area larger, but it doesn’t seem any faster as printers are slow and unreliable.

Anyway, let’s get to why you click on this post: skimpy cosplay. Now, who wore it better?

That’s right! We are at peak KILL la KILL, and thank you Trigger for giving about a dozen girls and maybe a hundred guys an excuse to wear skimpy outfits. Team Trigger’s gift to the world must be all the Yoko and Ryouko cosplayers that they have created. We went from peak Haruhi (only saw one Haruhi) to peak Gurren Lagann (only saw one Simon) to peak Madoka (still quite a few) to peak KILL la KILL. In terms of crossplay, that was dominated by KILL la KILL, Free! (a lot of girls wearing Iwatobi swim club gear), and Sailor Moon. I was disappointed no female decided to cosplay as Gamagoori.

I went to the KILL la KILL cosplay gathering, which was so hot that my iPhone displayed a “High temperature detected, please cool off your iPhone” message. I wanted to use my phone for wide shots and my Nex 7 for smaller angles, but that didn’t happen. I spent too much time swapping lenses. Anyway, Ryouko and Mako dominated. Here’s a better idea of the cosplay disparity.

Second popular? Attack on Titan, of course. Almost all of the human Attack on Titan cosplayers look the same, with only the quality of their 3D maneuver gear being a difference maker. I liked this team’s style. They were also giving everyone duck faces. Deal with it. (They needed one more person to follow them around with an Instragram frame and another person as a hashtag.)

You know what else is popular? Sailor Moon. Sailor Scouts are back in force, and a majority of them were actually girls. On the downtrend, finally, are Homestruck cosplayers. Thank Oharuhi-sama. On the upswing: BEE AND PUPPYCAT.

Fashion Czar and I enjoy watching SyFy’s Heroes of Cosplay, not for the cosplay but for the terrible time management. None of the people on the show will last past week four on Project Runway. Anyway, we think most cons don’t get it with their judging. There should be separate categories like Best Skimpy Outfit, Funniest Outfit, Most Original Take, and Best Armor because of course there’s more chance to impress with a full Unicorn Gundam than with a skimpy Yoko costume. There should be an award for the person who spent the most time in construction with fabrics, with non-fabrics, most creative, and most willing to bare skin. Those are the category concepts. Anyway, here are some awards just based on what I saw, and I’m sure I missed out on a lot, including cute pajama Ryouko, Ryouko with animatronic Senketsu eyes, the Pokemon puppeteers, and a billion Nature Valley bars cosplayers. (Couldn’t someone cosplay as a Cliff bar or something to piss off the Nature Valley people? Or will AX staff tackle you for wearing it?)

Best Armor. I liked the creepy dance they did for the photographers. I couldn’t decide if they forgot the Eva battle stance or they were auditioning for SHINJI!: The New Cirque de Soleil experience premiering at The Palms in Las Vegas. There was also a funny Dota 2 group, but as much as I like the game, Dota 2’s not anime and should not be at AX.

Most Food? I loved how Mako’s mom brought a deep-fried banana with her. She was also great and funny during the KILL la KILL gathering shoot. Chez Titan was one of surprising many cosplayers offering me food. I didn’t take any. It’s probably made from ground up Homestruck cosplayers. Ewwwww.

Wait, What Award. The only Ryouko wearing battle Junketsu that I ran into. I never thought I would see such a non-skimpy version of the outfit, and, yeah, the skimpiest and least-skimpy Junketsus were both guys.

(Edit: This is actually the Ryouko with moving eyes, but I didn’t seem them move. Dammit.)

I Hope They Start Dating. I was at the gaming area, sitting down clearing my StreetPasses, when Ragna the Bloodedge sat down next to me. I asked him a few questions about his outfit, namely I was curious about some of the coloring he used. Then Taotaka came out of nowhere and attacked him. I thought she knew him, but nope. They took some pictures in typical fighting pose, but then I asked for a picture. I told them to hug, and Taotaka gives Ragna a huge bear hug, and he looks disgusted and/or surprised. Just like the game/anime (BlazBlue got a crappy anime series, which is more than what I can say about League or Dota). In any case, I left and watched someone play DDR in Megaman armor. When I walked by about fifteen minutes later, Ragna and Taotaka were still talking.

Finally, Most in Character. I liked how at the KILL la KILL gathering, Satsuki-sama was screaming out orders through a mic held by the hacker dude. She screamed shit like, “YOU PIGS IN HUMAN CLOTHING, LINE UP ON THE STEPS!” for a while but then quickly reverted to normal mode because it was already a chaotic mess of people. Oh well. Just remember to behave for Satsuki-sama.

(Once again, there was a dearth of KILL la KILL merch to buy. A few CDs, T-shirts, and doujinshi, but Trigger had a booth selling NINJA SLAYER merch… seriously? You have a booth with two staff members selling NINJA SLAYER? And zero KILL la KILL? Seriously? Also, finding out that the authors of NINJA SLAYERS— Americans– refused to come to their own panel… a bit disappointing. I’m sure you guys have so much on your plates that you couldn’t attend the hype panel for your anime. Were you trying to convince Melo to go to Chicago or something? If Trigger made one of my stories into an anime, I will be at the panel and signing autographs until I get cramps.)

What I like about AX is finding little gems like this one. There’s an area where you can just doodle on walls, and someone drew an alpaca because those alpaca toys were everywhere. I’m surprised alpacas didn’t take off earlier as they were huge in SF Japantown a few years ago. At AX 2014, they were as popular as those nekomini ears were two years ago (btw, saw a lot more nekomini ears in the bargain bin than people actually wearing them this year). And someone drew a cute alpaca… and then someone else added to it.

Some talented people doodled on the wall. I think this Miku is better drawn than 80% of the Mikus I saw in Artist Alley.

Oculus Rift was at AX. Cool. They were showing off Oculus Rift Sword Art Online? That would be a killer app. Except you couldn’t do anything in the demo except look up Asuna’s skirt or creep on her sleeping. You got to stare at Asuna for thirty seconds, try not to be too creepy about it (since your vision is broadcast on huge TVs), and then the Oculus Rift people took off the visor, sprayed disinfectant on it, and then give it to the next person. Really Oculus Rift? You couldn’t even make a simple demo where you swung a sword? Or even a version where you could creep on Kirito sleeping?

AX soaked up every available area at the convention center. @aralonia mentioned to me that it reminds him of Comic Con before it took off for San Diego, and that this many attendees was pretty much LA Convention Center’s limits. They stopped selling tickets on Saturday because the event was full. I’ll predict within five years, AX will sell out within a week of opening up ticket sales if they stay at LA Convention Center. For comparison, let’s say there were 85k people at AX, which is at LACC, which is 720,000 square feet large. Anime Japan had 111k visitors at Tokyo Big Sight, which is about 870,000 square feet. Both SDCC and Anaheim are larger than LACC.

The exhibit hall slash dealer area is fully crammed. There is not even space to sit and rest, and the staff were scooting people who tried to sit along the walls, because they use the walls to line up people for purchases. This is a far cry from 2011 where you went to the booth, got a ticket, and then came back to the booth to buy based on your ticket. Artist alley was expanded to take over the autograph area that used to be in the exhibit hall. The old rest area was replaced with a huge League of Legends stage which begged the question, “Do we really need a League of Legends stage in the middle of AX?” Do we need to get videogames more involved in a con that is already really sprawling? (And there were at least six or seven booths featuring game devs pushing random PC games with no anime or anime-like content.)

The autograph area was huge and really poorly organized with many lines and very little indiction which line is which. They implemented a raffle system, which is a good step, but they still allowed standby which really clogged the idea. Suggestion for AX: huge raffle, make your position in line where your raffle is drawn, and no standby.

The other west hall usually is fairly empty except for some gaming. Not this year. It was also packed to the gills. They added a cosplay set area where you can take pictures of cosplayers in front of cheesy sets. Let’s just say there were many nominees for best skimpy female here. There was also a huge cosplay repair room, which used to be inside a room rather than out in the hall. This Kenshin group was one of my favorite cosplay groups that I saw. One, they were cosplaying an older series, which I’m totally cool with. Two, they seemed like they were having a lot of fun getting their pictures taken. And it didn’t hurt that the cheesy set matched their cosplay.

The tabletop area is also humungous, and I think it’s time they split off and had their own con. The big issue is that this area used to be the waiting area for panels. By moving the waiting area outside, it creates other issues. Besides being hot and unpleasant waiting outside, it takes time to herd everyone from outside to the panel room. This eats up time. It also shuts down the main stairway as the event staff has to herd people around the panel attendees. The A-1 panel was probably the worst. We had to wait outside, downstairs, and it was a five minute trek to the room from the waiting area. Because they didn’t start fetching us until 7:05pm (panel was supposed to start at 7:00pm), everyone wasn’t seated until around 7:15pm. The panel had to end prompt at 7:50pm for the next panel. So the 50 minute panel basically became a 35 minute panel. Only like five questions got asked during the Q&A session. Just ridiculous to wait an hour for a 35 minute panel. Suggestion: make a tabletop gaming con the weekend before AX, move the cosplay sets outside (and have sets with real plants), and use the floor space for panel waiting area again.

(And I sat far back enough I couldn’t get decent images of the panels. Sorry! I don’t own a low light, 300mm+ lens. Or at least Sony doesn’t make one. If you want panel news, follow my Twitter. I usually live tweet the interesting ones. Two interesting things this year. One, Trigger kinda knows they are making an epic anime like Gurren Lagann or KILL la KILL, but it takes years. They called it an Olympic cycle. They also mentioned they started thinking about their next original work, but it would be many years before it would air. Two, Gen Urobuchi writes a lot. He wrote two scripts on the way to LA. He mentioned that Shaft may want to continue Madoka, but he has no idea how to continue. I think maybe the anime industry overworks its writers. You don’t see Mark Gatiss or George R. R. Martin writing 30+ episodes a year.)

(I also feel like Crunchyroll has taken the wind out of a lot of these panels. I still remember panels where they announced stuff. Now, we kinda assume every series is going to end up in the US.)

I finally found it. Twelve sisters all at once… what would you do? It was $60. I remember seeing it before in the bargain bin at Best Buy for like $15. I like how under the Sakuya fanservice as well as Yotsuba bending over, there’s the “It’s funny, it’s bright, and it plays well to female anime fans. -DVD Talk.” My byline for Sister Princess? “We out OreImo‘ed OreImo a decade before OreImo.” Now that will get you sales.

Guess I’ll end the post with some random cute cosplayers. Fanservice yo.