Day 3 – probably the most eventful and entertaining day yet. Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn Episode 7 screens today, so it’s finally time for our armor to live up to its purpose. Given that it is a three-hour panel, we won’t be doing much else other than the usual Exhibit Hall and cosplay oogling.
Our last time suiting up. After the Unicorn screening we’re pretty much done with the armor. It hasn’t exactly held up greatly over the past few days; the foam itself is just too weak to keep up with the wear. Some parts are snapping and some areas are held together by a thread of paper. Even overnight emergency repairs can only do so much for it.
See: foam breaking. This was actually a crucial point in the armor; with this shoulder area breaking that attached to the backplate, the entire backpack and backplate is at risk of falling off.
Regardless, we got him suited up again (somewhat…notice on the lower torso area, the gray parts are separating) and ready to roll out.
Checking out some more awesome cosplay. Right after suiting up, we’re headed to the Entertainment Hall first.
Had to make a few emergency repairs at the ‘con. Apparently the repair booth is sponsored by League of Legends; no wonder why we could get all those materials for free. They even supplied Velcro bands.
After repairs, decided to screw around a bit more with the photo backdrops. My comrade’s last time in armor after all.
Zero on his days off.
Finally got a chance to try out the cherry blossoms. So incognito, much stealth.
We found this little guy in the trees. Like…why.
Our buddy on the far left at the Trigun cosplay meetup. So swag.
Hitting up the Exhibit Hall once more before we get to the Unicorn screening. Unfortunately the screening goes from 3 – 6, and the Exhibit Hall closes at 6, so we won’t get any more time here until tomorrow, the final day.
More Dangan Ronpa! That Monokuma plush, much want. There are actually numerous Monokuma plushes floating around the Exhibit Hall, but the $30+ price tag for a plush is a bit tough to swallow.
Met an Athrun at the Exhibit Hall. He’s actually the only one I’ve seen so far wearing a ZAFT uniform, you figure these would be more commonplace. Even I contemplated wearing one before.
And we’re on our way to the screening. The actual room for the event is inside, but to avoid clogging the hallways I’m assuming, we had to wait in the searing heat outside, right next to the tempting fumes of food trucks parked outside.
Going down the line. 60% of fun here at AX is waiting in lines in the blazing sun.
Unlike previous years, this time we only got one giant screen for the showing instead of three separate ones. They also had a contest for some Unicorn merch just like last year, though this time they were giving away three HGUC kits (I couldn’t make out exactly which ones) instead of a Robot Tamashii Full Armor Unicorn. The worst part? It wasn’t even a contest; they just pitted the audience against Full Frontal in a rock paper scissors elimination tournament to determine who got the kits; almost complete blind luck.
Cool thing was that we got the English voice actors of Angelo, Full Frontal, and Mineva there though.
After the show, we got to shake hands and meet Angelo…again. For those that recall, we met this cool dude last year too – seems he remembers us as the Gundam as well!
More than that, we also got him to sign the armor. On the collar piece I made. If the rest of the armor burns, we’re saving that one fateful piece of foam and framing it.
After that, NT-D was done. The armor had served it’s purpose; at this point it was so badly beat up and coming apart at the seams that it almost begged to come off.
Right before the screening, my partner’s shoe had also actually dislodged itself from the wooden plank of the foot, meaning he was short several inches on one leg, making for very imbalanced walking. We packed everything up in the big black trash bags; its served us well.
Since the Exhibit Hall had closed, it was back for some fun in the Entertainment Hall.
Scoped out the gaming section. Nothing great in particular, too bad they didn’t have the arcade version of Gundam Extreme Vs.
There was also this little attraction there of these ladies who were apparently very proficient with chalk art, drawing a big ‘ol mural over the course of AX. What they have up until Day 3. Yup, that’s all drawn with chalk. My mind was blown too.
Met another Code Geass group!
So after the Unicorn screening, there really wasn’t much left given the Exhibit Hall was then out of commission. We could’ve checked out a few other panels, screenings, or exhibits, but we decided to go back and prepare ourselves for the last day.
And that would be it; the last full day of AX has come to an end. Tomorrow we’re planning on loading up on merch, which means primarily Exhibit Hall fun; hopefully we’ll be able to catch up on some good sales here and there. Our main screening that we’ve been looking so forward to didn’t disappoint, and it’s refreshing not to have to worry about the armor anymore. One day left.
Read on the rest of the Expo:
