Tokyo International Anime Fair

A couple of weekends ago, I had a chance to have an awesome adventure and cross something off my bucket list. I went to an anime convention in Tokyo!! I was so excited to get this opportunity. What anime fan doesn't dream of the day when they can head over to a convention in Japan?! The convention is one of the largest in Tokyo. It's held on the island of Odaiba which is a man-made island off the coast of Tokyo but it's still a part of Tokyo proper.

I started the day by picking up my friend from Tokyo station. She took the shinkansen in from Sendai to join me for a day of anime fun. We crossed the Rainbow Bridge and were greeted by Tokyo Big Sight which is where the convention was being held. I think Tokyo Big Sight is hilarious. It looks like a docked space ship if you ask me.

So strange

We got our tickets very quickly which was super surprising to both of us since out experience with American conventions has always involved standing in line for hours if you buy your entry the day of the show. It was a wonderfully pleasant surprise. It could have also been because we came about 2 hours after opening though XD

Here we are!!

As soon as we walked in, we had a total geek moment. See, children here love this character and show called Anpanman. Being a teacher here means learning all about and loving Anpanman. We were greeted by a giant statue of Anpanman. We immediately had to be the only adults to take a picture with it.

YES! Love Anpanman!

 There was only one company's booth that I really wanted to see: Bandai. So as soon as we had taken our picture, I drag my friend over to the Bandai booth. It was everything that I had hoped in that it was covered with Gundam things!!

Awesomeness!

I lazed around the booth taking in the models and watching the trailers for AGE and Unicorn. It was so fun to see everything that is going on and coming up in the Gundam universe.

After I had that need met, we just kind of wandered around the floor. Checking out the booths and stopping to check out some art work or snap pictures of ADORABLE characters or booth babes. Some booth highlights: getting to see some original artwork from Miyazaki, the vocaliod booth where models were dressed as the characters and there was a life size statue of  Hatsune Miku, taking a picture with samurai, an adorable moving and giant Dentsu, Lupin movie promos and trailer, and a mobile shrine for an anime.

Vocaloid characters :)

Hatsune Miku

More awesomeness

What up Lupin the Third?!

Shrine?

So cute!!

Miyazaki sketches

Despite what I just listed, the convention was actually much smaller than I expected. We had pretty much seen and done everything in two hours. This was mainly due to the nature of the event. There was pretty much only booths from major animation companies. There was no merchandise area or anytyhing like that. The other problem was our lack of Japanese language skill. there were some panels and shows going on but it seemed pretty useless to attend since we couldn't understand them let alone read the schedule.

Another issue that I had with fair that made me extremely sad was that cosplay wasn't allowed. It didn't quite feel the same without seeing people all dressed up. I guess I can understand why it's not allowed. They didn't want people competing with or upstaging the many models that were hired to wear certain costumes from the shows. It was still a huge let down though.

Since we had finished with the day earlier than I had expected, we headed around to do some sightseeing on Odaiba. I also had an ulterior motive though. The to scale standing model of the Gundam is also located on Odaiba. It's scheduled to open on April 17th officially but you can still see it over the fencing. We went over to the park that it's located by. Even from the train, I spotted it. I had to literally bite my finger to keep from shouting on the train, I was so excited.

OMG there it is!!!

 I calmed myself down and as we left the train, I even allowed us to do the sightseeing first. I literally started skipping though as soon as we went towards DiverCity Tokyo where it is. We stood there and started at it for a couple of minutes as I lamented how it wasn't open to the public yet. Soon Gundam, we shall meet again soon...

It's so beautiful