Japan 2010, Day 10

Sunday, March 21, 2010

First day of CS5! Arnond and I got up early and headed out separately to get into the line for entry at around 9:00. We both got in line by around 9:30. It was raining on and off, so it was interesting to see all the other participants suddenly whip out their umbrellas for the rain, then put them away when it cleared up again. Nearing the start of the CS5, we were entertained by some guys from a sentai series.

Our entertainment as we stood in line

CS5 then started at 11:00, but with the long line, I wouldn’t get into the doujin selling area until an hour later. It was amazing that even by that point in time, several groups had already sold out completely, and any popular groups were no longer taking requests for sketches. It was also quite a bit smaller than I had expected, and I was able to get around most of the booths with time still remaining before the doujin selling portion was over. I also stopped by the Bushiroad company booth to pick up some Nanoha StrikerS Weiss Schwarz cards. I left the doujin selling area and headed to the lunch area, where I picked up a little kara-age from the nearby 7-11.

Goosefish, a local specialty on display in the lunch area

I sat outside 7-11 to eat the kara-age, and suggested that Arnond meet me there earlier than planned to give me my lunch. We had decided yesterday to have Arnond pick up our JTB lunches since we figured we'd be busier than him at the con, and we had set up that he would bring them to us at 14:30 at the entrance to the doujin selling area. Since I finished up before he arrived, I started heading toward Animate, which would have been in his path to me anyway, and informed him I was going there. But then I decided not to go into Animate and that my time would be better spent checking into the Daiwa Roynet Hotel, where Chris and I would be staying at the second night, since JTB failed to get a second night reserved at the River Side hotel for us. I told Arnond to go ahead to Chris instead, but for some reason he decided to just wait in front of Animate for me and give up on seeing Chris. We ended up meeting at Animate about half an hour later, and we ate our lunches at the lunch area, then found Chris at the cosplay area to give him his lunch. I wasn’t really able to get any pictures at the cosplay area that day, only being able to join a wall of photographers taking pictures of a Darth Vader, Kim Jong Il, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider posing together.

Darth Vader, Kim Jong Il, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider

Arnond and I then headed to the Chewable Soft Live and Talk, while Chris headed off to do something else as he was planning to head to some kind of CS5 party later that night. The Chewable Soft concert was definitely crowded, as it was a small venue, and there were a lot of us. The songs that were sung were opening and ending themes from the few games that they had made up to this point, and they were pretty good. The singers cosplayed from the games, and the talking portions were nice, with them talking about their experiences with Mito, since several of their staff members were from the area. One of the guys recommended eating some Goosefish, which is what I saw earlier in the day and ended up eating later that night. Near the end, people were tiring out from standing for so long, but they were able to get us energetic again by getting the crowd more involved with the last few songs. They also had a rock-paper-scissors competition to get the concept art of characters from their game in development. After the concert, Arnond and I found that Chris had moved his and my luggage to the new hotel for me, and we dropped in to put down our stuff and find a place to eat. Chris was apparently still trying to figure out a way to the party, and hadn’t gotten there yet. We went to another place recommended by the CS5 catalogue, and I got Goosefish kara-age there, while Arnond got some kind of sashimi. It turned out we had basically just gotten appetizers, and that the place was pretty expensive, but when we tried to order more, it was too close to closing time to get anything else, so we left. It was quite good though. Arnond and I then went our separate ways, and I went back to my hotel room to plan for the next day. Chris showed up after a while and it turned out he failed to make it to the party he had been trying for, so went to some anisong dance party instead.