Unlike the day before where I had a ton of free time, today was full of things for me to do and attend from the morning of until all the way through the night.
My second round of my iced coffee brought me back to the 7-Eleven when they were open, much to my delight. Like the other days, I went ahead of my roommates and associates especially when today Ryan and I were running the Durarara!! Gathering. It actually took me some time to find the exact spot where we would be holding the gathering, not to mention it was right near the line that was going into the Exhibit Hall so unless you were on the street level looking for the gathering you didn't have much luck finding it from above.
The gathering went smooth and as the shoots went on the gathering got bigger and bigger. I think our final group shot grew at least two-fold from the first group shot. We ended with a staircase shot that can easily be Photoshopped into a DVD cover. I'm working on getting the original from the man who took that for that project.
The panel to be at today was George Wada's Attack on Titan Panel early in the morning. Here's an interesting tidbit: when Wada was a Guest of Honor at Sakura-Con, he was there for Psycho-Pass and Attack on Titan was only a couple of episodes old. At Sakura-Con, he received very few questions about AoT, but now a couple of months later he had a panel dedicated to this fast-growing series that many are considering to be that next Cowboy Bebop. The panel started with the premiere of episode 13.5, a recap episode, which at the time had not aired in Japan yet. Then Wada and MC Danny Choo, who had personally brought Wada as well as cosplay superstar Alodia Gosiengfiao to Anime Expo, had a one-on-one interview as well as a QI preceived him to be much older around Hayao Miyazaki's age when in fact he's just in his early 40s while Miyazaki is in his 70s.
One of AX's well-kept secrets is the standby line for events. At a certain point at the convention before a ticketed event begins, usually one to two hours, they'll start to hand them out in the standby line. When Porno Graffiti were announced, I was estimating that they would be sold out or have few tickets to give away. But when we got into line and got our tickets half an hour later, staffers had a stack of tickets, more than I thought they would have. We did run into a problem. We had a ton of stuff that we weren't able to unload at the hotel due to our busy schedules, and both Nate and I made a mad dash towards West Hall to get whatever bags we had carried with us to Club Nokia.
This was my first time here at Club Nokia, although Ryan was here when he covered NIRGILIS a couple of years ago. It wasn't too overly crowded where we were, and to be honest having the floor seats was better than having the balcony. Porno Graffiti rocked Club Nokia, and the two-member band of Akihito and Haruichi knew how to hype up the audience. Nate was rolling with the theme to Magi, and all of us were losing our voice when "Melissa" from Fullmetal Alchemist came on. Then when the encore hit, it was a triple encore with a reprise of "Melissa." I totally lost it when they decided to play that song TWICE especially in the triple encore.
I would put FLOW two years in a row at Fanime above Porno Graffiti's performance, but it's pretty dang close.
With all of us burnt out to cover the Masquerade, we headed back to the Luxe City Hotel for more drinks and a toast to Ryan & Amanda's engagement before I went off to experience the nightlife like I did a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, the night ended early. That time would also be the last time that I would eat a street dog.
I do have to say that the JW Marriott is a very nice hotel.
-Day Three End-
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