JAM's first ever Expo!

Souuu desu ka?!

☆

One treachourous bus journey later, after staying up till the early hours of the morning watching 'Brother's Grimm' and eating copious amounts of pizza, and getting up at 5am having slept about 3 hours or so, driving down to London, and queueing for about an hour, Tam, D-G and I, along with Tam's dad arrived at the Expo.

That's right folks! On 25th October 2009, I , JAM, went to my first ever Expo!! If I had to sum it up in one sentence it'd be this;

"Omigawd I have been missing out!!"

The whole experience is amazing!! I've always thought that when you're an manga/anime fan it's like you're in a whole other world that 'normies' just don't understand, and expo is something that just sums up everything about anime, manga, video games & sci fi; it's fun, colourful, friendly and there are lots of free hugs!!! At first it's pretty odd getting hugged by complete strangers, but after about an hour or so of running up and hugging people with free hugs signs, and asking complete strangers if you can take a photo of them, you really get used to it!

Everyone at expo is amazingly friendly! It's like, you go there and everyone treats you as a friend! Instead of getting stared at by chavvy kids in a bus station for wearing a domo hoody, I get hugged and complimented!! Even waiting in the queue is fun!! just watching everyone in the queue walk by in all their diff. cosplays is great!

This was only a small portion of the epicly long queue.

At one point we had Ronald MacDonald behind us, and Pacman walking past us xD it was ace!

Not to mention all the people walking past with free hugs signs! If you think one guy in the street with a free hugs sign is odd, then wait til you get to expo! there's so many it's just normal! you don't even think about it as odd at all, you're just running at them with your arms open x'D. And this happens even if you don't have a sign! We were waiting in the queue and a guy cosplaying as Haruhi came up and said "omg! DOMO!!!!" and gave me a massive hug!

A very friendly giant Kon who we glomped~! (btw that curly brown haired person in a humoungous brown hoody is me ;D)

Actually, at one point we were waiting in the queue and D-G said "I've only seen guys holding free hugs signs... I bet it's mostly guys that do it." and Tam & I were all "nawwwh! there're loads of female free hug sign carriers!" And so, a bet was proposed! D-G said that the first person to see a girl carrying a free hug sign would get £2. Moments later a girl walked by with a, believe it or not, free hugs sign! Tam and I started jumping up and down liek "THERE! RIGHT THERE!!!". In the end, both of us got £2 each. =w= There were also loads of people with signs saying something along the lines of;

"You just lost THE GAME"

You'd just be happily browsing and eating pocky, and they'd walk on by, and all of a sudden this huge mass of people would all say "auuurrgghh" in unision!

Another most wonderful thing about Expo is the cosplay. Cosplayers have got to be amoung the nicest people in the world!! They're all happy and friendly and will let everyone and anyone take their picture! All of us (that is, Tam D-G and I) agreed that it's better to come to an Expo in cosplay, and thus, I swore to myself that I will deffinately cosplay next time!!

The stores at expo are amazing too! There was a really vast range of stuff on sale, figurines, posters, self-published comics, big name manga, and loads of anime & manga merchandise!! From fans and cosplay accessories, to keychains, replica swords, and those ever-so-slightly-pervy mouse mats!

And let's not forget, of course, the yaoi stall. With an American guy behind the stall shouting out;

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET YOUR HOT FLAMING YAOI OVER HEERE!!! YAAAAAAOI!!!!"

At the top of his lungs every now and then. It was rather deafening. But pretty awesome!!

I was very very tempred to buy some Hetalia yaoi... but unfortunately, no RussiaxChina! (;^;) I thought it would've been a pretty popular pairing, but ... maybe I was too late?! Yeahhh yaoi was a biiig topic of conversation on Saturday!! Infact, all 4 of us (T's dad included) had one big discussion about yaoi and yuri on the way home!! x'D Specifically, about what to say to people at school if they ask what yaoi is. We've decided that yaoi is a chocolate flavoured drink... xD and GrimmIchi (Tam's fave pairing) is a type of evil cheese. UFUFUFUFU. I'm extremely tempted to yell out in to lunch hall "YAAAAAAAAAAOIIII" xD haha. Maybe I will, maybe I won't?

In the end, we all came home very hyper, bouncing off the walls clutching our 'tokyo toys' bags, amoung others, containing our day's finds!! In the end, I bought;

- around £17 worth of sweatdrop manga <3

- Twelth Night (as drawn by Nana Li)

- a Death Note

- Negima Figumate : Asakura

- Nendoroid Puchi : Churuya san (from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu)

- apple yoghurt pocky

- strawberry pocky

- a haruhi headband

- a 'vote Petrelli' badge

- an L necklace

- a Mikuru keychain

- a totoro fan

- an art postcard & boomark from Soya Milku

I very almost bought a costume too, but due to unfortunate circumstances that included me loosing my wallet; that didn't happen... >.<

The artists' alley at Expo was awesome too!! they had these big long tables with lots of paper and markers to draw with! <3>

My rush-job entry xD

And actually, as i was happily drawing away, some zombies chased after some kids!! O_O

I looked up to see this guy!! I was liek "HOLYF******WHATTHEHELL!?!?!?". Interestingly, we saw him walking home afterward xD haha I bet he got some odd looks in the street!

Whihc swiftly leads me on to a small gallery of some of the best cosplays of the day, to give y'all a break from the mass of text! x'D

Halibel from Bleach

Grimmjow x2

Near from Death Note *squeee*

So I herd u liek mudkipz?!

Tam got attacked by an alien!!

Hetalia cosplayers!!! <3>

Blair from Soul Eater

Magical Trevor = WIN!

Agent Smith & Neo - The Matrix

These guys were actually amazing. They stayed in Character all day!! They had this awesome presence that made everyone stop and watch them when they walked by!!