Anime Expo – Day 1

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Day 1 was a little surprising since the Pokemon gathering was officially confirmed for July 1 instead of the second. There was a decent amount of villains at the Sailor Moon gathering–at least one representing each season. There were also almost two of each scout as well as different versions of bridal, princess, and queen Serenity. Nepherenia had a photo shoot prior to the gathering with the talented Vince. After the Sailor Moon gathering Madam and her agents made their way back to con!

Surprisingly, there was much more Madam-recognition this year which is always a fun thing. Madam finally met an orange suit Giovanni who was accompanied with an adorable 009. They worked great together, in full character posing as well. The Pokemon gathering was massive, being dominated by creative Poke-jin than trainers. Team Rocket made a decent presence in villain characters with a collaborative group of rivaling Magma to boot. When we made our separate ways it was back to the machine for the FMA gathering costumes. Sapphire has provided his review of the AMVs since site admins were not able to attend.

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It was overall a great year for AMV’s, Drama as this year had two exceptional AMV’s “Dare to love again” and “Mahou Shoujo Requiem”. Action was a rather hit or miss, for some reason this year the action category was filled with massive quick cuts, no real epic slow speed action scenes. My favorites in this category were “Sword & Scabbard” and “From the Hereafter with Love”. Now normally the AMV contest is a PG-13 event, well as of next year, that rule will no longer apply; this has come about because of the Comedy category.

As usual the comedy category is one of the highlights of the AMV contest aside from Action, and this year was no let down. For the gamers, there were two AMV’s that had themes of Dungeons and Dragons, but I’d have to say the favorite and reason for the R rating of next year is to the AMV “Anime Nations of the world”. Now of course the Comedy category wouldn’t be complete without taking a jab at a pairing, and this year they brought back the L and Light pairing in the funny yet at some parts disturbing “Death Romance”.

AMV Pro is an odd category, the idea is a professional style of AMV that you’d see on TV. This particular category is hard to judge with the fact that it’s a very vague and has a wide variety of AMV’s in it. My favorites from this category were “Petropolis”, “NERV’s glee club: you can (not) dance”, and “Flash”. This year we saw the birth of a possible new category of next year’s AX AMV contest: Fun/OVA. Now this category is another rough one to figure out. “Lawl & Order – Legal Tender”, “Phoenix Wright, Anime Attorney”, and “Trauma Center 2: Under The Anime” were game based; as if you were playing a video game, while “Heaven’s Driller” was more of a movie trailer. “Make It Rock” and “Mashup Gatari” were more of your average AMV.

My only qualm with the AMV’s this year was location, in ’09 they were held in the West Hall (Large, lots of space, multiple screens) in ’10 they were held in the Nokia theater ( Absolutely amazing, comfortable seating, multiple screens). This year the AMV’s where held in the Concourse hall; having it held in this particular location reminded me of when Anime Expo was held in Anaheim. There was just one thing that I wasn’t that large of a fan of, there was only one Screen. The sound system was still great, but I just wish we were in the Nokia Theater; which a lot of people thought they were going to be held this year. Aside from the location change, the AMV’s were a great Main Event to attend.