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AC
TEAM COVERS 10TH AX
AX
hosts thousands of Anime Enthusiasts from
Baby Pikachu's
to the hottest Japanese Animators
July 5 - 8,
2001 Long Beach, California -
Here we are!
In Long Beach, California at the 10th annual Japanese Animation
Expo, AX for short! (That's me on the left and Jo on the right in
the photo with our AX press badges).
I'm accompanying
AC Team's "Anime Girl" Jo Houser to cover AX.
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 Yaya
as "Kyo" from
"Dir en Grey"
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Jo is
the web mistress of AsianConnections.com's popular anime
RPG (role-playing game) and message board. If you check
out her hot board, you'll see me there quite a bit as Bara.
Both of
us are hard-core Anime enthusiasts. Just in case you are new
to Anime and other terms like Cosplayer, we call them "Cosplayers"
for cosplaying (costume play). I'll be adding in a few days
some text links so you can read the definitions.
I actually
work in an Anime store in Phoenix, Arizona this summer and
am a college freshman this Fall with an interest in Japanese
and teaching.
My friend
Jo, well she and her sister Jessie have collected more than
200 anime films since they were little, and all of us can
even talk in "anime" language just for fun.
In case
you haven't heard yet, Anime (as in "an-i-may") is Japanese
animation, and is big in America and getting bigger. It permeates
our American culture now, from Pokemon to anime-style hair
and fashion.
You'll
even see some of the anime-style art-form is in new summer
2001 films like "Final Fantasy."
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On the first
of four days at AX, Jo and I went dressed in the seifuku (Japanese
school uniform) of "Card Captor Sakura." (Fabulous outfits made
by her mother Sarabeth!).
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Friday,
we went dressed as us! "Original characters!" hehe We blended
in with hundreds of other attendees who came dressed up in
their favorite anime characters from video games, movies,
and Japanese comics (manga).
There
was a kid from the game "Chrono Cross," who looked completely
awsome. There were people dressed from "Sailor Moon".
There
were even people dressed as "Li Shoran" from "Card
Captor Sakura," or "Sakura" herself, such as
Jo and myself.
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Wayne as "Li" from "CCS"
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"Inu
Yasha," "Revolutionary Girl Utena," and the all mighty cuties
from "Digicharat."
And toddler Shion who came from Japan with his mom was such
a doll dressed as "Pikachu." |
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Even some were
dressed as Japanese rock stars, such as "DIE" from "Dir en Grey."
After we got
our press passes, finally, we made it with less than five minutes
to spare to the opening ceremonies. We ran around to the front,
and were seated in the press section.
First, there
was the "Anime Expo" girl. She was a computer-generated girl up
on the screen. Everyone screamed. She was adorable, at first. She
introduced everyone one by one, but little by little, her jerky
motions got to be rather annoying. So did the high pitched voice,
that quickly got on one's nerves.
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More screams
all around as the people walked up on stage one by one, said
a little about themselves, and then to the next.
There
was an awsome display of voice actors. Kikuko Inoue ("Belldandy"),
along with the voice actress for "Utena," and others did a
Japanese dubbing of a quick clip. The clip was hilarious.
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Jo and I were
lucky to sit right next to them! After the opening ceremonies, we
ran out the door and got in line, in the rain. We finally got inside
and looked around in awe at all the sights.
Some attendees
costumes were absolutely terrific, others looked like they had been
put together just last night, but all in all it was great.
At Kikuko Inoue's
conference many people confessed their love to "Belldandy," and
that Kikuko is their favorite seiyuu (voice actor). Kikuku sang
the opening theme to "Aah! Megami-sama," the "Sailor Moon" theme,
and a verse of "Cotton Boy." Just to let you know, she sounds just
like "Belldandy" in real life. She kept giggling and made the audience
break out laughing. We were all sad to have to go. When asked if
next year Kikuko could come and do karaoke with us, she said she
would love to. Hope she returns next year!
Hey, gotta go!
Headed back to AX for Saturday and Sunday's events. Report back
later! Stay tuned. We're posting up lots of cool photos soon!
- AC Team's Becca Lee ("Bara")
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