My son Nathan and his spouse Ashley came in to visit, and we spent two days at Anime Expo. It’s always fun – there are cool sessions and autograph opportunities along with an artist alley and exhibit hall full of people selling everything. This year was bigger than last year – on Saturday it was hard to walk around some parts of the convention. I took a lot of pictures and one video. Let’s start with the video. This is Tachikoma at 1/8th scale – a smart toy you can interact with directly and via a smart phone. It’s not cheap – the price at the booth was a whopping $1700 USD.

I’ve been collecting Hatsune Miku statues since I have the Vocaloid software and have used it. Here are some pictures of people cosplaying as her, along with a very cool electronic outfit:

Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku

Hatsune Miku outfit at a booth

There was a makeup studio that teaches theater arts; they were creating really cool creatures:

Makeup Studio at work

Makeup Studio at work

The CrunchyRoll booth was cool – they had a large stuffed Totoro (one of Aviva’s favs) along with a huge inflated Titan head and someone doing chalk art:

Totoro

Titan head

Chalk art

Chalk art

And then there’s just a lot of stuff that I took pictures of, mostly people in costume:

Played piano at lunch on Sunday

A cool costume

A cool costume

A cool costume

A bunny tail

A cool costume

A cool costume

A cool costume

Not sure I want what they’re selling

Awwwww

A cool costume

A cool costume

Pikachu

A cool costume

A casual group of cosplayers

Interviewed

Cool costumes

Even a cosplayer needs to phone home

Sailor Moon

This was cool and creepy

I gotta get out of this dinosaur

Princess Leah and R2-D2

I’m so lonely