Day One
July 4th, 2002. 8:00 am. I woke up and prepared myself for four days at the largest anime convention in the United States: Anime Expo. After getting my camera ready for tons of picture taking and my wallet for tons of anime purchasing, I was on my way to the Long Beach Convention Center with a friend, Hot Soup. Twenty minutes later we were there: Anime Expo 2002.

As soon as we arrived, my phone started ringing. It was none other than vanisher, Motoko Doll Fondler Extraordinaire. By the time I got inside of the gigantic theater, all of the seats were taken and I was forced to stand in the back; not to mention I had already missed a large portion of the opening ceremonies. I did, however, get to see a short Ishida Yoko concert, where she demonstrated ParaPara dancing and sang eurobeat remixes of a few popular anime songs including Cruel Angel's Thesis from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Shortly after that, all of the Guests of Honor were brought out on stage and asked to say a few words (although none of them spoke English, so a translator was needed). One of the guests included Kawamura Maria, a seiyuu most known for voicing Naga in the Slayers movies. Another popular guest was Kurata Hideyuki, the chief writer for many anime including Excel Saga and Read or Die.

As soon as the opening ceremonies were over, Hot Soup and I left and found vanisher outside. He insisted he didn't bring his Motoko doll, but I wasn't too sure. The three of us headed down to the arcade in the Hyatt hotel, where we had to wait nearly an hour for the arcade to open, even though they kept saying "two more minutes". We were finally allowed in and played some of the games including Dance Dance Revolution 7th Mix, Beatmania III and DrumMania.

After lunch, it was time to hit the exhibit hall. The line was ridiculously long, but we just waited it out. After about an hour, we were inside. The exhibit hall was incredible: wall-to-wall anime. I didn't want to buy too much on the first day because I figured that things would go on sale later, but I did pick up the Bastard!! Complete Collection DVD for $20. I just couldn't pass that one up.

The exhibit hall closed at 6:00 pm, and we decided to get some dinner. Neither of us were in the mood to walk all the way into town again, so we found a man selling hot dogs and bought a few. I knew this place would be expensive but three dollars for a hot dog is ridiculous. Come to think of it, I spent more money at the hot dog stand than anywhere else that day.

Around 7:00 pm Hot Soup and I went down to the terrace theater to watch Anime Singled Out round one. It was a game show based on the television show Singled Out... only this one matched you up with a mate based on your anime likes and dislikes. Unfortunately, we got lost on the way there and had a very hard time finding the room it was in. By the time we found it the show was just ending, and we decided to just watch round two the next day. We had about an hour left and went back to the arcade. At about 10:00 PM we headed home. Anime Expo was just getting started.

Day Two
There was nothing really going on when Hot Soup and I arrived, so we spent about an hour in the arcade. There was supposed to be a DDR tournament, but it was canceled. We left and went to get lunch.

Just as soon as I finished, vanisher walked by and we caught up with him. I didn't really feel like spending any more money, and the line for the exhibit hall was all the way from the convention center to the Renaissance hotel, so I took out the schedule to see what else was going on at the time. It turned out that Armitage III: Dual Matrix was just about to start playing so we decided to go watch.

By this time the line for the exhibit hall was much shorter so the three of us went inside. I took a few pictures and met up with Moondabor. Again, I didn't really want to buy much but I did pick up volume 1 of the Chobits manga. The newly released volume 2 was sold out at every booth, so I decided to look for that another day. Vanisher picked up a neat-looking Love Hina wall scroll. We headed back to the con center to catch Anime Singled Out round two.

We still had about half an hour, and although we would have preferred to just go to the Ishida Yoko concert, the line was way too long, and so I walked down to the arcade and played DrumMania. Boy, I played it so much I had blisters on my hands. It's too bad that the games were as much of a rip-off as the food around here. $1.50 for one game is too expensive. Oh well. It sure was fun, though.

Finally, we went back to the convention center for what was, in my opinion, the most fun and most memorable event of the entire Anime Expo: Anime Singled Out. It was an absolute blast. It was kind of mean how the crowd would encourage the contestant to chose the ugliest person (keep in mind that he/she couldn't see who he was choosing), but boy was it funny when he turned around to see who he was matched up with! Good old Vanisher was yelling things out the whole time; I thought he was going to get kicked out. You had to love it when the question was "If I was an anime character, who would you want me to be?" and someone yelled out, "La Blue Girl!!" Originally they were only going to let people over the age of 18 be contestants, but because they couldn't get enough people it was open to everyone. Heck, I almost was a finalist twice! It was really fun, and I'm glad that we took the time to watch.

Day Three
We had planned to go watch Samurai Girl Real Bout High School but we missed it because we were late. The new plan was to see the Escaflowne movie at noon, but we had an hour to kill and spent it in the good old arcade. It was the same routine: a little DDR, a little Beatmania. I also ran into Moondabor and some others from school down there.

At noon, Hot Soup and I went back down to the terrace theater for the movie, but we were informed that it was delayed until later that day. I wanted to go back in the exhibit hall but the line was ridiculously long, so we decided to come back after lunch. After lunch it was back to the convention center where we were greeted by an even longer line than when we had left. I guess it was because it was Saturday, but the line was longer than at any other time during the entire convention. Oh well.

Finally, we went back to the exhibit hall. The two of us got split up, and I did a ton of buying. I bought way more stuff than I had planned to, but once you get started it's hard to stop, I guess. I walked away with Chobits manga volume 2, Excel Saga DVD (both of these were selling very quick), Grave of the Fireflies DVD (the last one. I just couldn't resist) and, last but not least, four giant boxes of Pocky! How often do I have the chance to buy Pocky, and in so many different flavors, too? Just as I was about to leave, I noticed a huge group around the ADV Films booth. The ADV people were throwing out T-shirts into the crowd. I was lucky enough to catch one, too! Being tall really comes in handy at times. Just then I caught up with Soup. He bought a Lain DVD, Chobits manga, a Duel DVD and a T-shirt.

We had some time to kill, so I went into the Hyatt and took a few pictures of cosplayers. After that it was to the theater and, just my luck, the movie was canceled. Playing instead was Sakura Wars. Well, there wasn't anything else to do so Sakura Wars it was. Hey, it wasn't all bad; on the upside, I did manage to get some much needed sleep during the movie.

Once again Hot Soup slept in, but we did manage to get there by around 10:15 am. When we arrived we discovered another way into the exhibit hall that doesn't require waiting in any lines. Remember this everyone. Write it down if you have to. Walk into the convention center, up the stairs to the second floor, and into the elevator. Choose the 1st floor (the exhibit hall) and ta-da! Just don't tell anyone I told you to do this. If someone asks, you "accidentally" took the wrong elevator.

So there we were in the exhibit hall where we found Moondabor and were ready to do some shopping again. It was way too crowded once again and it was very hard to even walk around. I ended up buying GTO manga (volumes 1, 2 and 3), the Final Fantasy X OST (a four-disc compilation) and the Final Fantasy XI OST. I also picked up an uber-kawaii Motoko keychain (which I hid from Vanisher)! Before I knew it, the exhibit hall was closed and I headed over to the arcade to meet up with some other people.

That was the end of my four-day Anime Expo 2002 adventure, and it was everything I expected it to be. I had only two complaints, however. First of all, it was very disorganized. I had to miss the Escaflowne movie and mess up my whole schedule for the third day because no one knew how to work the 35mm projector that was on duty at the time. Also, the exhibit hall was far too crowded. I guess that really couldn't be helped, but maybe if it were open longer hours this wouldn't have been such a problem; everyone was trying to get in at once. Other than that I had a great time, and come Anime Expo 2003, I will be there bright and early.