Anime Expo 2008 Photos
Posted by 0rion on July 12th, 2008 - 11:04 pm
The Vocaloid Squad
With a great concert, good food, and lots of events and interesting cosplay, the remainder of AX proved to be an exceptionally fun time, if a bit tiring. Unfortunately, my main Compact Flash card malfunctioned midway through day 2 of the con, so I lost most of the pictures from that day, including photos of the enormous bowl of chashu ramen I grabbed for lunch down in Little Tokyo. ;_;
Fortunately, I do still have lots of photos to share with you guys. I had hoped to do day-by-day coverage of the con, but between the frenetic nature of the events down there combined with the commute into LA and back again every day, it’s taken me until now to get properly rested up again. Yeah, I’m definitely getting too old for this kind of stuff. ^^;
Nevertheless, AX was a ton of fun; I got to meet Shokotan and David Hayter, as well as consume dangerously large quantities of Japanese cuisine. Oh yeah, and I bought the newest Taiko no Tatsujin (a.k.a. Taiko Drum Master) game for DS. 
Anyway, so without further ado…random cosplay shots and other pics from the con:
Shinigami Chop!
Dr. Stein
Tsubaki wielding…Tsubaki??
I’m always glad to see cosplay from newer or under-represented series, if only because the cosplay percentages at the average anime con work out to something on the order of:
50% Generic Bleach Captains or Akatsuki members
10% Ichigos in various stages of transformation
8% Narutos and Sakuras
6% Assorted other Naruto cast
6% Luffy
5% Final Fantasy characters
3% Link
2% Fat goth loli girls
10% EVERYTHING ELSE EVER
Thus, I generally ignore all the usual suspects and try to search out people with genuinely unique or creative costumes. And while those folks can be few and far between, thankfully I was not disapppointed, as there were some really awesome costumes this year. Case in point:
TETSUUOOOOO!! KANEEEDAAAA!
Cat accessories and loincloth not included.
This is easily the best Al costume I have ever seen, bar none. Even more impressive was the fact that he could move around and strike all sorts of poses in that thing without pieces of it falling off.
The obligatory line-up of Code Geass ladies. Minus points for no Cheese-kun, though.
Konpachi
Yes, you read that right. Konpachi. What can I say? This man is a genius.
DESU.
Saber can give me sword lessons any day of the week. 
Hey, finally a Gurren Lagann cosplayer!
And quite an impressive costume is was. She told me that the gun is hand made from PVC pipe, wood blocks, and pieces from airsoft guns, and that it took her and a friend almost two months to assemble. Quite a piece indeed. If you look closely, you’ll even see that…uh…hey guys? We’re still talking about the gun here, right? Right?? …guys?
And after that, of course we can’t forget the obligatory “Pierce the heavens with your drill” Kamina pose of manliness and huge sunglasses.
ZETSUBOU SHITA!!
Finally, an Itoshiki-sensei appears! There was another one at the con who actually had a rope tied into an actual noose around his neck; talk about dedication to costume accuracy. Sounds a little scary though, if you ask me, walking around an anime con wearing a noose. All it takes is one glomp gone wrong… o_0
Again, I don’t normally photograph Inuyashu cosplayers and the like, but these guys had very well made costumes and seemed to really be enjoying themselves. Besides, any women who can actually carry around Sango’s boomerang all day like that automatically gets my respect. 
Speaking of oversized weapons…Zabuza would like you to bring the opponents to his sword. It is, in fact, fully charged.
Not to be outdone, this guy had what I believe was the largest prop weapon at the convention. Even if security would’ve allowed him to bring it into the exhibit hall, I don’t think he could’ve gotten that thing through the door anyway.
Japanese people always have the best cosplay when it comes to traditional outfits, of course. Note the little kitsune mask the guy has on the side of his head.
I just love shooting with backlighting for those little shoji umbrellas, I’m not gonna lie. 
Now some other assorted non-anime costumes. Here’s Dark Link and…a Tier 6 feral druid?? Oh my. <.<
One wonders why she’s wielding what looks an awful lot like Braxxis’ Staff of Slumber, though, if she’s full Tier 6…
Now this one I bet took some serious work to put together…as well as to put on! And yes, it is an actual legitimate blonde haired girl inside that suit.
Other non-anime themed cosplay ranged from some that were aborably cute…
…to others that were random and wacky…
…a few that were just silly…
…and a couple that were just downright disturbing. o_0
The location of the convention, the Los Angles Convention Center right in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. As alway, the weather was warm and beautiful.
The L.A. Sparks fans had absolutely no idea what to make of all the congoers, running around with their crazy outfits and dancing the Carmelldansen and whatnot. I saw some pretty funny reactions, I must say. Sadly, I wasn’t able to capture any of them on camera.
Fisheye lenses are fun, by the way. ^^
In keeping with summer traditions, there was a tree set up for Tanabata. As you can see, there are quite a few wishes hung on the tree, including some rather interesting and unusual ones.
“I wish the cake wasn’t a lie!”
“I wish for an actual wish!”
“I wish for more boink!”
There was even one that said “I wish more people could appreciate English dubs.” I was sorely tempted to hang my own card up next to it that said, “I wish English dubs didn’t suck so much!”
The dealers’ hall was suitably huge with lots of random anime and video game themed products available, as always. The only thing I ended up buying was a couple of imported DS games – the aforementioned Taiko no Tatsujin 2 game, and a kanji drill game to help me brush up on my penmanship.
Well, hope you weren’t too terribly bored by all the random cosplay photos. I tend to get a little carried away since there are so many hot chicks interesting photo ops. ^^;
Speaking of which…I was able to take a photo together with Shokotan. I wonder if I should post it up on the site too? Of course, I doubt very much you guys want to see my ugly mug.
In any case, Epic Win now returns you (hopefully!) to your regularly scheduled sarcastic anime blogging program. Until next time!
~0rion
Wow, you did manage to find some of the best cosplayers at the con! The Hello Kitty costume is hilarious~ And I totally agree with the tanabata wish. If I had filled out a card, I probably would have wished that KyoAni would stop postponing Haruhi season 2, though. ;~;
…I saw those tetris cosplayers!
Wish I could have gone this year also, unfortunately I am about 5000 miles away right now
. The cosplay pics look cool. There seemed to be far fewer concerts this year though (from the AX site), or am I mistaken?
@ Dark
Yeah, only two concerts this year (Shokotan and Jyukai), as opposed to the like five last year.
Was PeeDeeFlo there? The guy was hilarious with his YouTube interviews at Anime Expo. I probably would’ve actually been there to poke fun at the hentai booth in front of his camera, but I’m boring like that. ): EDIT: lol, I suck with locations.
Love the shield Link is carrying.
Alphonse… not the best, but it’s pretty damn good compared to others without getting their hands on some REAL armor (probably wouldn’t be allowed lol).
The Kamina cosplayer probably became one of the cool kids at the convention. He gets 10 points from me thanks to that awesome Gurren Brigade flag.
How was the Shokotan concert? Did you get a good spot? =P I’m so envious, you son of a… ):
I’ve only seen a few RL Gurren-Lagann cosplayers and they always own the convention.
I would
..Comment didn’t fully show. Bit strange. -_-
Anyhow, Basically, I said, AX is awesome, I wish the UK had something as big as it, and I would love to go to it one day.
Sorry guys for double comment, delete the first or something. ;p
I’m thinking that cosplaying as Zabuza would be far more desirable in theory than in practice. I mean, dragging a gargantuan sword around all day would be quite cumbersome. It might be bearable if you had someone to carry your sword for you or if you could leave it in a sword locker at the front lobby. Do they have those things at AX?
That Samus costume is quite amazing; I cannot imagine the difficulties in constructing such a thing. I’d personally never cosplay as anything, not because I don’t think costumes are interesting, simply because it requires a combination of three things that I do not possess: money, patience, and the ability to handle sharp objects without maiming yourself.
Great pics good sir.
Awesome pics, but yeah I can only imagine how annoying it would be to lug some of those props around. Even a Pizza Hut box would get annoying after a while.
^^ Ooh thanks sooo much for the Sango/Miroku picture. I’ve been looking everywhere and could not find one pic of us outside the gathering >
How’s Taiko no Tatsujin DS 2? Better than the first one?
Mmm, I got a picture of the Hello Kitty guy and the Yoko cosplayer too. There were actually more TTGL cosplayers than I expected.
very nice pictures! more please
And good to see this blog alive again.
Lol! That Yoko cosplayer is me and boy do I look horrible1
It was way too hot at the convention, and you happened to catch me at my cooldown period when I removed my jacket. Thank you though for the compliment and taking my picture. 
Hope to see you at the next AX!
@ OwlDepot
Haha, sorry about that! I could tell you seemed pretty tired, but your Yoko costume was the best one I had seen at the con and I was with my sister in a hurry to get to the next panel. xP
All in all though I think the pictures came out decent enough. Thanks for being a good sport, at any rate.
That was a fun con. I remember the Tetris guys and the Kaneda cosplayer. I need to get my pics developed…
Next time I’m bringing a clipboard- I ask so many questions at panels, I might as well pretend to be official or something. And when I get into the semi-finals at the karaoke comp, I’m going, midnight endtime or no.
“Nice body there yoko!”
just kiddin, really impressive cosplay, congrats!
since i love gurren lagann you are really really falling in loveable!