Otakon; When the Crazies Come Together; DAY 2

Woot finally a continuation xD I expect this post to be worse than the previous one however, I am not in the best condition as I’m writing this.

But onwards, lads!

When we left off during the first post was at the end of the first day xD I’ll start this post from the very early morning start of the second day.

Now, as I’ve told you on the previous post, we returned to the hotel somewhere around midnight. Now that we’ve got our badges, we don’t have to wake up as early anymore, hence why the three of us slept in until around 8am ish in the morning. For an insomniac person, I passed out that day. Can’t believe I slept like a log xD Didn’t even have nightmares wahaha. That shows how tired I was I guess…

We rushed through the morning routine as usual, half-asleep, before taking the cab to the BCC. Why cab? No, it’s not because we were lazy, it’s because Kara’s Long Red Spear was left in our room the other day, and it’s too troublesome to walk to the BCC with that thing in hand xD Thanks to little tweaks courtesy of Steph, we managed to break the Spear into two parts and avoid the messiness that was trying to get a 7 feet long spear inside a taxi cab xDD

Once the taxi dropped us off at the BCC, we immediately rushed towards Panel 1. Remember Nanri Yuuka? Her Q and A was supposed to start at 11.30 am, but we didn’t want to get caught in a line and get cut off, hence why the rushing. We got to the room earlier than expected, the panel before Yuuka-san’s was still in progress when we arrived. And there was no line as well, hence why we decided to enter the panel and listen to the Q and A by the seiyuu there.

Guess who’s the seiyuu?

She’s Nonaka Ai! For all you people who watched Madoka will recognize her as the voice of Kyoko. But me, who doesn’t watch Madoka and is not interested in watching in anytime soon, know her better as Nekoko from the Kannazuki no Miko anime xD I entered that panel not expecting anything other than resting up and preparing for Yuuka-san’s panel, but my god, once I heard Ai-san talk, I immediately squee’d.

Wanna know why? because good god, she’s so MOE!!! And it’s not even her acting, it’s her normal voice and mannerisms that were screaming Moe Moe Moe everywhere and nearly giving me a heart attack! Lol Steph said she felt like pocketing Ai-san and bring her home because of how cute she was xDD But really though, that panel was very interesting. I find myself paying attention even though I originally had no intention of doing so. Maybe it’s her moe-ness, or maybe her charisma as a public figure that drew me in….or maybe it’s the kimono xDDD

Seriously though, what’s with all the Moe thirty year olds?? xD Not only her, but Nana and Yukarin are also moe! asdkja asdkja asdkja. It’s killing me…xD

Ai-san was very kind to her fans as well, she allowed pictures and autographs after the panel. She didn’t even mind being stopped by fans who wanted to talk to her, in broken Japanese, and replied back in broken English xD What’s with all the moe Engrish?! Stop doing that! my heart can’t take it! lol

Ahh…but yeah. That’s the Ai Nonaka Panel. When she finally left the room, the Otakon staff went to arrange the panel in preparation for the next guest, the highly anticipated Nanri Yuuka-san!! Me, Luu and Steph quickly moved to get better seats, which were on the front row of the panel, with the intention of recording it. But darnit, stupid things just had to happen. Right when Yuuka-san appear before us, an Otakon staff appeared with a ‘NO PHOTOGRAPHY’ sign Dx Luu got told off for recording as well, and we were none too pleased about that. I blame her management…that sucked donkey balls…

But that did not deter us. We still cheer and clapped like hell when she was introduced to the room. A brief introduction was made, and then a showing of Sakamichi no Apollon anime trailer and then the Q and A panel was opened. Luu and I immediately ran to line up before the microphone to ask her question while Steph manned the fort. Now, for all of you who doesn’t know, I am a big BIG fan of Yuuka-san’s character in Mai Otome, Juliet Nao Zhang. So of course, all the nerves and goosebumps were pretty much expected as I wait for my turn to speak.

Aaskjas asdkjasda everyone kept telling me to breathe so that I won’t faint lol. And Kara gave me an encouraging wave that helped.

Oh man, if that was how I meet Yuuka-san, I’ll prolly faint if I meet Nana! Faint and drool and have her security guards kick my face coz I’m blocking the road >>;;

Ahem. Anyway…

Luu’s turn came first because he lined up before me and he asked Yuuka-san a question about which character did she like voicing more? Yuuki Nao or Juliet Nao?

Yuuka-san answered that she liked voicing Juliet Nao more because of the mischievousness, but she was very surprised when she received the job to voice Yuuki Nao. As all Mai-HiME fans know, Yuuki Nao is the rascal type. The bad girl with a foul mouth. Yuuka-san said she was used to playing cutesy characters before that so when she got the job to voice Yuuki Nao, she first thought it was a miscast! It took her a while to get used to it, but she came to love the character after voicing her for a while. And that was why the Yuuki Nao role meant a lot to her xD

There were a couple of people between Luu and me, so there were varietie of questions that came up in between. About her new Single and about her role in Sakamichi no Apollon. I usually like music-themed anime, but this one is Jazz-themed…so….yea xDD I’ll give it a go sometime in the future.

When my turn came…I felt like throwing up ^^;; I’m sorry, I’m not good at keeping my cool in front of awesome people.

Know that story with Japanese salary men? Who bows when they’re on the phone? Well, I’m…kind of that type. So when I got to the mic, I nearly bowed to the mic….before catching myself in the middle >>;; people would never let me live this down if I hit my head against the mic…but thankfully, nothing of that sort! I opened my question with a shaky ‘ohayo gozaimasu’ before launching off into a question of what is her favorite line in Mai Otome as Juliet Nao Zhang.

She rattled off in Japanese (which I missed because I was too damn nervous!) before the translator finally translate it for the whole room.

“You make me want to throw up.”

The whole room exploded with laughter and made Yuuka-san blush and that was an adorable scene xD Moe thirty year olds indeed…Yuuka-san looked like she was gonna say something else but the translator cut her off by thanking me and me, embarrassed, muttered something in reply before running off the other way….and tripped and fell on the floor into an OTL position like a retard.

OTL

Why do I turn into a dojikko when embarrassed???? ((((；゜Д゜)))

It’s KasuKasu’s curse perhaps…xDDDD

But yea. After that embarrassing incident…I quickly returned to my seat and played with Luu’s Zhang figure while waiting for the embarrassment to die down >>;; Luu, Kara and Steph went to line up by this time to ask more questions and we managed to record a short session of this!

That was the video of Steph asking Yuuka-san to relive the Materialize line from Mai-Otome. And she did say it’s been a while…hence why it turned out rather different xD But hey, I’m not complaining. I’m just happy that she’d do that for us Mai HiME/Otome fan that controlled the panel haha. After Steph’s turn, 5 more people asked questions before Yuuka-san’s translator cut the line because of the time limit. We were then showed Yuuka-san’s first Live Concert and another showing of Sakamichi no Apollon trailer before the panel ended.

Honestly, I wish there were more Mai HiME/Otome related questions instead of Sakamichi no Apollon. But then again, there were more new fans compared to the older fans…so yea…^^ a little compromise had to be made. After Yuuka-san left the room, every one of the panel attendees rushed out towards the autograph session. Her autograph session opens immediately after that and we’re kinda glad we rushed because damn, there was another LINE that met us when we arrived Dx a long snake-like line…because there were several autograph sessions happening at once.

We wait in line once again, but it’s not that bad though my legs were killing me by that point because of the strains they’ve been through lol (yes I am weak! >>). Thank goodness they let us proceed to wait outside the assigned room not long after that and after a moment of waiting (I think we spent more time waiting in line and getting lost than doing stuff that’s worth mentioning….) we were FINALLY LET IN THE ROOM.

To more waiting.

But it’s worth it xD because we’re almost THEREEEEEEE.

Luu’s turn to get Yuuka-san to sign his things took about ten minuteish or more because of the sheer Nao-related merch he brought with him. Yuuka-san was kind enough to sign all of them without appearing bothered or exasperated, and was impressed with how prepared he was. It’s funny seeing her, her manager and translator going ‘OOooh OOhh’ at the sight of the merch hehe. After that it was my turn, and…at the sight of her face, my Japanese quickly went out the window >>;; I was mumbling a lot of things before pulling up my shirt….(no I didn’t strip xD)…and pulled out my white undershirt for her to sign. She looked very surprised but was pleased as well because she grabbed a large Sharpie marker and giggled.

Now by this time I found my brain and jabbered away in Japanese when she asked if there’s a particular sharpie color I want her to use (ORANGE! XD) I said whatever color is fine but black would be the best since it’s white shirt and all. HAHAHAHA, you should have seen their faces when I answered in Japanese xDD All three, Yuuka-san, her translator and her manager went wide eyed O_O when I answered in Japanese and made ‘OOoohh OOohh‘ing sounds lol.

The manager then said to me that she’s impressed to know that I know Japanese (hey, she’ll be even more impressed if she meets KasuKasu or Danie xD) and asked how I learn said language. Course I mumbled back about how I’ve studied the language since High School and said manager nodded before replying back that she’s impressed because not that many Japanese people can speak English, and she at first didn’t expect any of the western fans to be able to speak Japanese.

I sweat dropped at this. Um, Manager-san, a lot of us can speak Japanese, it’s just that our IQs dropped when we meet our idols, hence why only strange jibber jabber escaped our mouths when the time arrives lol. By this time Yuuka-san was done with signing my shirt (with little heart at the end) and I gave her my badge for her to sign as well. Me and Manager-san talked a bit more with the translator reiterating our convo for Yuuka-san as she signed my badge, but I can’t quite remember what we were talking about ^^;;

But after a while, it was done and Yuuka-san handed back my badge like one would hand their business card in Japan. At once I told her shakily ‘Oshigoto ni gambatte kudasai!’ to which she was surprised to hear, before bowing back to me with a ‘hai! gambarimasu!’ I give another bow to Manager-san before skipping away happily like a complete idiot. And no, I’m not joking, I literally skipped away because DAMN! I was happy!   (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

asdkldjfls;kdj;ljda;sdjas;ldjka;sdjkla;sdj!!!!!

She even wrote ‘deppy-さんへ’  ヽ(；▽；)ノヽ(；▽；)ノヽ(；▽；)ノヽ(；▽；)ノ

We waited for Steph to get her shirt signed (with silver pen!) and badge along with it as well before the three of us exited the room and engulfed each other in an excited group hug because we have achieved the aim for Otakon this year! Meet Yuuka-san and get her autograph!!!!!! It woulda been better if a certain someone comes along and had Yuuka-san sign on her….but eh T^T what’s done is done.

Now after this, everything else was a blur. We went to the Artist Alley to meet up with Kara and finally let our exhaustion claimed us. Me and Steph collapsed in the Auction room and leaned back against a pillar…that apparently was connected to the sewage system, causing it to have occasional leaking…from above…ヽ(　￣д￣;)ノ

We didn’t give a fuck at all by that time LOL. We were that tired!! Luu at that moment was off searching of more commission in the artist alley and left the two of us to wait for Kara, who was stuck….somewhere along the way…xDD After a while of waiting, she arrived (disheveled with a funny story to tell) and we waited for Luu this time before leaving for the MM dinner. There were supposed to be more than the 4 of us, but one didn’t come and the other three were MIA. But oh well xD 4’s better than nothing.

We returned back to Kona Grill and waited for a bit before we were lead to our table. More waiting and of course, more craziness ensue xDDD The craziness resulted in compromising positions between the Shizuru and Natsuki plush and the weird magic soda courtesy of Kara. She had that all on tape as well! asdkjasd askdjaskdjas with me being stupid recorded once more….T____T….thankgodshedidntuploadthosethowahahaha.

I had sushi for dinner that day. Spicy Tuna Roll and a House Roll (which didn’t taste that good) but yea, they were pretty nice overall xDD And pretty filling. Maybe I should bring someone there next time, nice sushi they has.

After dinner, it was around 6ish or something. The four of us returned to the Hotel to drop off our stuff and get Kara’s Mai HiME DVDs. We ended up watching Mai HiME a bit and have a heart-to-heart talk about…stuff xD It lasted a while tho, we ended up returning to BCC at 8 or 9 pm to catch the Masquerade that starts at 7.30 till 11 pm.

Now this…was where another mishap happened xD When we got off the cab, Luu forgot his badge! He left it back in the hotel room and went back to get it while me and Steph were left to look for this Masquerade area since it’s on different buildings. Kara split from us by this point and went home with her group, so there were only two…left…to journey Baltimore at night in search of this 1st Mariner’s Stadium xD.

The journey otw to that stadium was…interesting to say the least. I was the one holding the map, because Steph told me bluntly that she’s no good with directions, hence why the task of navigating throughout the city was given to me. It was not that hard to see where we should go, and after a while of walking I think we arrived there at the stadium…

Until we meet this guy with a kilt.

An honest to goodness Otakon goer who was wearing a kilt….while on his way to the Otakon-rave.

Why kilt??

Kilts aside, we asked him to make sure we were at the right building but then he said ‘Oh! You went too far! The 1st mariner’s stadium is right…’ and went to point somewhere on the opposite side of the road. We quickly thank him and I had to look back at the map because seriously?? As bad as my navigation skill is, I don’t think I’d get myself lost from walking a couple of blocks away!! But hey, we went with his direction in the end because it’s almost time for the Masquerade to end and we didn’t want to miss it.

And you know what? WE GOT LOST >>;; We followed his direction and ended up at the shady part of the town…we were laughing nervously as we walk though lol didn’t want to seem suspicious and tourist-like if you get lost in Baltimore that’s for sure xD We were wondering to either continue on walking or double back when we met 3 guys who were walking back towards the convention. Those guys were nice as well   ヾ(＠⌒ー⌒＠)ノ and they even show us the right way with their GPS! Huhu so kind…thank you nice people!!

Turns out we have to double back and walk a block to where we were earlier…and we ended up at the same place where I thought was the stadium before the Kilted guy confused us. DAMN YOU KILT-WEARING GUY!! *shakes fist*

But what’s done was done. We quickly went inside the building and wait for Luu to come and Steph took this chance to call her significant other while I…sat down…and texted mine…My legs were sore, all I want to do was collapse on the ground and roll towards wherever I need to go xDD Thankfully Luu arrived not long after and we entered the inner stadium as people filed out.

People…were getting out…

And yes, bad luck strikes once more. Turns out when we got there it was 10 PM and the Masquerade has ENDED!! In the schedule it was supposed to end at 11 BUT BUT THEY ENDED IT AN HOUR EARLY…you can imagine how pissed we were…but what can we do? All we could do was sigh, and mutter not nice things at them, before trekking back towards the BCC to attend the midnight panels. We stopped by a 24/7 konbini to stock up on Sodas for me, Vodka and fruit punch for Steph and croissants for Luu. We went back to BCC after that and got our over-18 wristbands before going to any of the panels.

There was one panel in mind, which was the Navigating LGBT/Queer Identities and Issues within Japanese Media and Cultural Appreciation Panel (long name yea) but that starts at 1 AM and we were there early without anything to do. We decided to wait till 12 AM before lining up and just lounge around until then xD An interesting thing happened during this wait, which was a certain someone getting drunk, and that made the long wait worth the while hahaha! an hour passed before Luu decided that we should line up early or we would get cut off again, and that’s what we did.

We ended up going in line for said Panel 1 and entered the room just in time before it was capped off. But no, it wasn’t the LGBT panel. It was the OMG!..WTF Did I Just Watch? Panel. We went in just in time for it to start and was kinda ‘meh might as well‘ you know? But damn, we ended up LOVING that panel! xDD That was actually a video kind of panel you know? one that has less talking and more video showing and we were shown a LOT of strange videos that made us laugh so hard we almost peed ourselves and went WTF numerous times at the crazy things Japanese people do…ahh…good times.

In short, that was a panel worth waiting and attending for sure xDD They even showed one of Sendai Kamotsu’s PV, Sendai Kamotsu being Nightmare’s alter ego band, and I was laughing so hard more for the sentimental reason than the PV being funny haha. That interesting panel only last an hour, unfortunately, but if I’m going to Otakon next year, that will be one panel I HAVE to attend for sure xD because darnit, it’s that interesting!!

Now finally, 1 AM arrived and our long awaited panel can finally begin.

….

I have no words to explain that panel.

All I can say is that we came in happy and expecting good things but we left that room confused and pissed as hell.

It’s that horrible.

The way back were spent talking about that awful panel that last almost 2 hours!! it was 2.30 when we left BCC!! What a waste of time indeed. Steph and Luu went to drink their feelings away and I was left laughing at their tipsy antics. That panel was so horrible that they have to drink to get over it. Good god…

But yea. I didn’t know when they stopped drinking coz I passed out at like around 4.30 in the morning and woke up 4 hours later.

Sunday was a lazy day, heard from our groans. It seems like all the fatigues from days before decided to settle in that day and waking up became twice as hard. It was way too late to go to the BCC and we were kinda hungry, so we skipped the last day and went to grab breakfast before packing our loot for the trip home. As usual, we went to Dunkin Donuts to get our foodie and for Steph to get her daily sugar needs xDD We hung out in the hotel room until 12ish before we have to part.

Steph for Arkansas, Luu to NJ and me back to my place…45 minutes away.

And that, everyone, is the end of my Otakon journey xD

Yea, we spent more time getting to places and waiting in line (and getting lost) but it was an awesome experience nonetheless. I’m hoping to go again next year, with more people, before I have to leave back to my country xD So here’s to hoping that either Nana or Yukarin would come as guests next year…lol

Now before I leave, I’ll show you the loots of my Otakon trip.

So I got a Fate Movie 1st Nendoroid Plushie, a Nanoha Movie 1st Figma, three Mini Nanoha Nendoroids, a complete Mai Otome Boxset, two Haruka x Michiru doujinshis by Studio Canopus, one Chrono x Fate doujinshi by Studio Pal, one Kaito x Meiko Vocaloid doujinshi and two Doropanda Tours Shizuru x Natsuki doujinshi. I think that’s all…

Oh and other than that I has a Nightwing Pin given by Luu, a Sailor Venus figure and a Sailor Jupiter keychain given by Steph. The two of them were too kind T_____T

Thanks guys! Hope I get to see these people (and a whole lot more) next year.

Toodles and until next time!