After a chaotic and hectic travel AX day 0, we woke up on day 1 early with a very clear goal and mission: to lineup and get dem autographs tickets for the Trash Taste boys for my sister and for me, Shindo L. This is a snapshot summary chronicle of how AX2022 day 1 unfolded.

After finding the autographs booths that we had identified the day before, we followed a long line that reached near the main entrance way which kind of meshed/blended in with the line for general admission into the main exhibit hall. We found our place behind this women.

A common sight outside and throughout the convention is colorful lines marked on the ground to denote snaking lines for a variety of things. These pink ones I don’t even know what was for.

While we were the last in the single line for autographs, it didn’t last very long as others quickly found their place and the line grew. This guy behind us wasn’t even waiting for an autograph himself, but was in line on behalf of a friend, cause of course he was. A female friend of course.

The women in front of us was originally alone but soon came her husband I believe and we chatted briefly about common convention fare, lines, how it was in previous years and who you were in line for in particular. She was here for Max Mittleman, some white boy voice dub actor that I have never heard before that apparently has done alot of English games and namely Saitama for the English dub of One Punch Man. I suppose everyone in this line is here for Trash Tastes in some form or another.

I can’t exactly remember the time but I think this was like around 7ish? I remember we left the hotel around 6:30am. Still big lines ready for the big old day 1 rush. Autograph ticket handouts begin at 8am and the line was firmly established already.

Relative distance to how far we were in line from the front AX mascot balloon guys. Guy walking is all like “why am I bringing over a giant post it notes for autographs mang”

It’s from behind but this might saber Astolfo from FGO? It’ either that or genshin impact character that I don’t know about probably.

Most people were good boys and girls and whatever and had their masks on as technically AX had a mask mandate but of course this was completely un-enforceable. Dante in the distance also had a mask although momentarily lowered for some fresh air.

This photo is pretty terrible but this guy with the blue hair was cosplaying as the pig mask dude from yaiba, demon slayers, pretty good shit considering he has the right swords and committed to dying his hair blue.

I can’t remember if these were always here back in 2018 but all throughout the city they have these hooligan electric bikes and scooters for rent. Lots of time I see them lying around on the ground, not returned to a proper station. I wonder if there is a dedicated government city squad that goes around and picks these up and puts them back where they are supposed to.

Mad props to these dudes, they literally came as trash taste, with all the print out waifu stickers plastered about their mortal plastic flesh. Gud shit.

Waiting in line is weird, you would think that you would kinda always stay behind the same people but as we got closer to the tents with the autograph tickets the lines kinda got muddled and diverged and you end up with different people ahead and behind you. Weird. Hence this Rock Howard cosplay women appeared near us. Cool, new KOF came out this year so makes sense. Gud shit.

When we got to the front of the tent we were told that if you were here for ‘industry’ guests you can go to one of the tents and get a ticket. However, if you were here for one of the ‘guests of honor’ then you have to go to another line to wait for a chance then. Fuck, what the hell. So yea, another sub line was created in which we lined up at.

At this point in time the chances for Shindo L for me were feeling pretty low, and of course by the time my turn came they were all out of both kinds of tickets, the 75 ‘priority’ tickets which guarantee you a autograph and the 50 ‘standby’ tickets which are discretionary on the guest if they felt like continuing. Shit.

Of course my instincts were right and they were all out of both kinds of tickets for Shindo L so I ended up getting another ticket on behalf of my sister for the Trash Taste Boys + wife. Good shit for her, she ended up hitting multiple birds with one stone due to my bad luck and Shindo L’s popularity. But the story is not over, my autograph mission for Shindo L was not over yet, he was going to do one last session on Saturday and I committed myself to getting his autographs as my mission. I would return here again tomorrow…with revenge.

After we got the autograph tickets we lined up for the general exhibit hall. The weather was pretty good, not that hot and there was a decent breeze. Of course you see these chad mad lads wearing this coveted Aheago shirts occasionally. A+ degenerate culture.

Once we got inside, they were already letting people into the main hall. Nice giant Luffy statue sculpture.*

Note that this picture was originally from my G15 camera and I had brought into this post here because the huge gaps in photo storytelling was too great to not put something. Anything with an * will denote that this was a photo originally from my dedicated camera.

Ah ya, nice cosplay man maids and banners of hololive and azurlane, shit that I like. I am in the right place. With like minds and interests.*

Once we got in the rush to go to the exhibitor hall is standard, with people with bags rushing and whatnot, they had a huge display for one piece at the front. Cool.*

The crowds definitely were not any less than they were in 2018. Although a few people as you can see just go mask-less regardless. Unenforceable.

Being that the person that I am, I immediately went straight to the Arc System Works booth to check out their merch.

Nice black DBZ Super gogeta I think. I have no idea about dragon ball anymore but apparently Super is the best it’s ever been.

The line for ASW merch kind of wrapped around their booth in a full circle which I was kind of surprised. I didn’t think ASW stuff was that popular then I remembered that over the past 2 years they have been realizing really high profile works outside of Guilty Gear Strive like the Grandblue fighting game and the newly released Dungeon Fighter Online fighting game. Cool, I guess that kinda explains it.

Right beside ASW was akibento, which was one of those random lootbox crates that are never worth it, they hired some cosplayers to try and attract attention which while is a good strategy, I don’t really think you would increase further sales, except for 3d cosplay simps. Although I admit this summer FGO Summer Nobu was pretty good, although with the mask mandate it kinda detracts quite a bit, can’t be helped.*

The same can be said of this Azur Lane Tako Summer skin. Nice hired cosplay but honestly, they just caused more traffic problems being right beside ASW.*

They were doing some bullshit raffle contest in that if you took a social media picture and post with the tags for #ASW and #AX2022, #GGST they could give you raffle ticket for prizes which would be called out at the end of the day at 5pm. I did that shit. I have no regrets. Totsugeki 4 Lyfe. Gang signs bitch.

They had both GGstrive and the new Dungeon fighter online for freeplay to demo test. Apparently if you ‘won’ one of the booth people would let you spin a prize wheel and win a prize. I didn’t do this shit, too busy lining up for that merch.

From a distance you can see the sales and merch up for display. Nice purple mask.

Up close shot of that coveted merch that everyone has been lining up for. Yo, this shit is pretty good. May and Ram hats? Fuck yea boi count me in. In fact, count me double in. My sister was in line for the autograph session with the boiz so she told me her order of what to buy. Damn, let’s just say that right off the bat, combined we spent about $500 dollars at ASW alone. lol.*

Not too far away was the booth for Hololive. Oh the horror, the line was insanity wrapping around the booth and into the outer walls of the building.

All these people in the above photo are in line for hololive merch. Hearing about it from others later on but apparently the wait time for this line at the end was about 4 hours on day 1…holy shit. Hololive and vtubers is the new meta for sure.

After obtaining about 4 full bags full of ASW merch I realized that I can’t even continue walking around with this much stuff to carry, so I headed down to the Kentia Hall to offload half of the brought merch to my sister, who was waiting in line for autographs from the boiz.

Taking a quick look at the artist alley it appeared still busy, which is a bit unsual for a day 1 opening but then again, most people don’t even go into here on the first day so I have no idea.. I didn’t even go into this place in 2018 until day 2.

Never mind, it does seem kinda empty now that I look at it compared to later days. lol

Oh shit, looks like our local Initial D artist man came back and is still active. Gud shit. Nice to see that he’s still around and producing new works and even coming back to AX after these past few years.

After a very brief run of just 2 rows of artist alley I was feeling pretty tried already after having been standing for over like 4-6 hours including the time for lining up for autographs in the morning. I think the time right now was approximately 12ish maybe.

I see that Darling in the Franxx is still around which is weird since it became popular again due to tic tock memes and the fact that it’s on netflix. Netflix truly is like the second life for animes and mainstream gateway.

We got some my hero academia people chillin still. I am glad that their numbers have tapered off over the past few years, considered that there have been no real conventions for the past two years.

This women/dude beside me was reading some light novel or some shit. Seriously? Like you couldn’t wait till you got back home or your hotel to read? Seems like kind of a waste of time during a convention to read unless they are waiting for somebody.

Feeling refreshed after a few minutes rest, I venture back up and head back to the main exhibit hall.

This guy above had a full gundam suit and mask but just my luck he took off his helmet to chat, darn. Maybe another time.

Awww yea boi, that’s what I’m talking about, full body cardboard gundam shit. Fuck yea.

Somehow amongus is now part of mainstream popular culture, for better or worse I suppose. Very cool costume tho!

Azur lane big banner with New Jersey, voted the most popular boat girl in global sever for good reason. Nice tokyo revengers cosplayers on the left although I have no idea.

Hololive banner with what I believe is Slam Dunk cosplay? Girl is getting it oldschool for sure. Just like initial d I suppose.

Once I got back inside the main hall, I headed over to the genshin impact/azur lane china mobile games corner. Damn, this year really be rolling hard with that genshin impact presence with such a huge display and so many cosplayers around.

Not to be outdone, China boats Azur lane also had a pretty sizable display aswell, although it was shared with Yostar’s other very popular mobile game, Arkknights. New Jersey oath wedding skin display, they know their shit I guess. Everyone has this skin.

The line for yostar merch was pretty chaotic. I asked the booth guy where was the line and he said they weren’t accepting anymore people. I later learned that was a lie and that there was a line, just not a conventional one. To be further elaborated upon in day 2.

Oh shit, pretty nice hired cosplay boats of Enterprise and Sirius. But man, the mask mandate sucks pretty hard for cosplayers both pros and fans.

The guy with the baseball cap and blue bag seem pretty sus.

This is not a line for hololive but actually Bushiroad, the makers of Weiss Swartz, collectable anime waifu trading card game. Everyone is in line for the hololive collaboration pull packs, which are cool. As you will soon see throughout this AX, if you have hololive stuff your in for a good time to be making money, both official merch and artist works that is.

Another angle of that monstrous line for official hololive booth. New meta indeed.

Everyone on the left of this picture near the wall in in line for hololive. 4 hr wait.

I decided to check out the closed off 18+ section, which also as you guessed it, also has a line to get in for verification of age as well.

After a 30 minute or something wait I finally got in, I am greeted with 18+ artist alley works here as well. Even Sakimchan has her adult booth here as seen above.

After mildly looking around I decided to get into line for the Fakku both, which is a line as well of course.

The line is actually pretty long, as they only let a certain amount of people into their booth, hence the orange tape on the ground.

A better view of Sakimchans 18+ works, looks like she’s still getting business and still successful online despite the lack of conventions over the past 2 years.

Man, this line for Fakku is something else. At least they give you a little card where you can write your order in advance. On the card they have a QR code you can scan on your phone and it brings you to a website that lists their ‘menu’ or rather things you buy all tagged ready to be marked down. Cool.

Once you get inside the booth, it’s basically just another line…to checkout and submit your order of what to buy except with samples of the goods on displays on the walls. The guy in front me in the red shirt is named Tommy. I was talking to him casually throughout the approximately 1.5 hour wait in line for Fakku. I learned that he had just graduated from college and that he was here for a Fakku skateboard since he had gotten one years before in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. He was apparently a local here alone by himself since none of his friends could make it or had drifted away from him during the past 2 years of non-in person learning at college. He was a nice guy that played league of legends. He actually asked me if I had a social media or twitter account so we could connect online but I told him I don’t really use social media, and I’m an old man so you wouldn’t want to be friends with me anyways. He told me I was cool and that’s OK, he understood. It was nice having a one day line friend regardless tho. lol.

How many lonely young men like Tommy will attend this convention? Nobody will know the true numbers for sure.

Anyways, back to the Fakku merch. After talking to Tommy, I kinda wanted to buy a skateboard so I had already decided that I was going to get one even before entering the actual booth. The girl on the right I think is a Marin cosplay, now that I think about it; there was another girl in Marin cosplay who was line ahead of me for the Shindo L autograph, maybe she was the same girl? I will never know for sure.

This guy in the white shirt is kinda questionable fashion, at least he is holding the order card and doing it right by looking at the online menu on his phone.

Almost there…I can’t imagine wearing a long sleeve shirt at this convention. While there is AC, it’s still hot in populated areas like here.

Annndddd I did it. I brought a butt load of Fakku merch, shirts, books and most evidently a Nekopara skateboard. Pretty cool. I had always wanted to buy one ever since I found out about them seeing them here at AX in 2018 but this time there would be no regrets. I gotem. Now then, the question of how I can bring this home or if it will fit into my luggage is another challenge that has yet to be thought about further left to another day.

Now carrying alot of ASW merch, Fakku merch and a skateboard, I just wanted to take a rest so I promptly left the 18+ area to rest in the underground place like before earlier in the day.

The unofficial rest area certainly seemed alot more busier than usual. It was afternoon in the day and I believe my sister was attending the trash taste and limited kaguya love is war panel so I think I chilled here for almost half a hour or more maybe, just wanna rest.

In a strange twist of circumstance, the person who was sitting besides me in the photo above promptly left after 15 or so minutes. In a few minutes more it would be populated by another person and by sheer chance, it was someone I had only just given my farewell to not to long ago..it was Tommy, the guy I met at the Fakku booth line. lol shit. It took a few minutes for me to realize but once I did, I said hi again and he was like, oh shit as well. Damn. Strangely enough, after that initial reunion, we didn’t say much after that and each focused ourselves in our own devices and online. After about 10 or so minutes later I decided to head out and gave my final farewell acknowledgement to Tommy.

I never saw Tommy ever again after that.

Because of the mad rush to get inside I didn’t even realize there was booths and shit to do in the waiting hall area, like games and other shit. wow.

Around this time it was about 4:30ish I think, I decided to head back into the main hall to do a quick scout again. Even though I was in line for most of the day, outside of Fakku and ASW I didn’t really even explore like 80% of the rest of the main exhibit hall. Shit. This kenshin knows whats up too, feeling defeated.

After some time exploring other booths I ended up back where I started at the beginning of the day, the ASW booth. It was nearing 5pm so that raffle draw was coming up, might aswell chill here.

This guy was rocking the Ram hat he had just brought earlier in the day, noice. Lots of people were wearing May and Ram hats throughout the day which was cool.

I know it’s for demo but this dude brought out his full fightstick to play with some random. Shit man, fighting game serious business even though it’s just for fun. I suppose there was a tournament this day and he just so happened to have it on him. Funnily enough, he lost, lol shit.

While the crowds are slowly dispearsing near the end of the day, this hero arrives on the scene, “Gym Class Hero” indeed.

Yo man, these guys are still at it, and what’s with this guy’s mini hair ponytail? At this time, my sister was done with her panels and we met up again at the ASW booth, it seems to be the new AX hub this year.

All the people here were waiting for the raffle at 5pm. When the time came, not only did I not hear what the prize was or the number, it was literally just one number spoken for a winner and that was it. lol, everyone was like, wait what, that was it? lol. shit waste of time. ASW did this for all 4 days of the convention.

Surprisingly I checked out the hololive booth, by this time the line had largely dissipated into a handful of people and I was able to see their lineup of merch. To be honest, the lineup of merch wasn’t that good and very overpriced at that. $22 dollars for acrylic stand and $50 for a tshirt, $6 for a sticker? quite expensive honestly and whats worse is that the main goods are only available for 3 hololive members, each representing the three branches, Gura for English, Ritsu for Indonesia and Sora for Japan. Kinda lame guys. This is what people were lining up for for 4 hours? Not worth. What’s surprising to me is the sold out of hashtag key chains, shit man, they are $10 each and only have a members name on it in Japanese, not even illustration, just the name, and it’s gacha system too so wow. Mad lads must have went ham on this one. Although some of the older merch that has most of the members of hololive on them are as expected, sold out, damn.

Look how empty the booth is now, shit. I went up to one of the booth people and said if they were still open. He said. “technically no, but I can let you in anyways.” Oh shit, so with that I was automatically in line up for hololive merch, with only a 15 or so minute wait. lol. Despite my criticisms of the merch, I, like a simp, brought the 3 overpriced acrylic stands and a Gura wall scroll. They were all sold out of tshirts in my size and the calendar that I wanted but I brought the shiiter one anyways just because I can. Well then, I got really lucky in hololive merch buying shit lol. Saved myself 4 hours of time, although not the best merch, it’s good merch now because I didn’t wait like a fool for it.

It was almost 6 by the time I got my last minute hololive merch so we decided to make our way out. Saw this shield hero bird girl display, pretty cool. Because of the insane rush in the morning, I just realized that we didn’t even get the free bags and lanyards that you can pick up for yourself in the entrance, damn.

Huge one piece display, better view of what I understand is Luffy? I am not a one piece person.

I can see the ground. Noice, crowds heading out of the main exhibit hall.

Ah yea, the infamous Mexican hot dog stands are still alive and well. One day I will try them, one day…

Well then, what do we have here? It looks like a wait list for a restaurant. Lest to say, we walked back to our hotel, dropped off our heavy load of merch, rested for like 15 minutes and decided to take a uber to you guessed it, Little Tokyo again! lol shit.

The place seems extra bumpin’ for day 1, it was a risky move but I wanted my revenge on trying that Hiroshima okonomiyaki place, Chinchikurin, I had missed trying it before in the past; I did not want to miss it again.

Even though we tried to get there early, by the time we got there after the hotel it was already almost like 8pm, shit, we rushed to chinchikurin and luckily they were still serving people for sit down but had a wait list. So once again, I entered my name into the system and we waited.

During this unsure time of whether I would have okonomiyaki for dinner tonight or not, we wandered more of the area around the main little Tokyo complex, like this Zenchu place that I actually never bothered to check out before or look at in 2018.

Upstairs was the restaurant and served basically usual Japanese fare, no different from any other restaurant you would find in Toronto but probably just better and more expensive. It’s like, if you are desperate and can’t wait for ramen, okonomiyaki or Kura sushi, you go here.

And extremely out of place was this Pho restaurant…yea not sure these guys will be getting any business today.

Stop Asian Hate crimes I suppose. Very odd place especially when your are technically supposed to be in “Little Tokyo”.

Outside of the main complex core we decided to check out the surrounding restaurants on the streets, which also seemed to be very busy as well. Mr Ramen.

Inside some convience store, which I think was supposed to be a Family Mart but not even like the ones in Japan.

Snacks and shit, drinks and etc, nothing really out of the ordinary I suppose.

Noice ebi-fry.

Quite busy indeed, many places had their patio game on point. Too bad taste of danforth can’t figure shit out.

Another angle of the street.

One of the things I was worried about was the fact that day 4 of AX took place on the 4th of july, I wasn’t sure if there would be anything open. Luckily this sign on this ramen shop assured me that shit would be open, at least for some places. Good shit.

After 2 days of minimal sleep and running on engery drinks g-fuel, being active busy physically and probably jet lag, my sister noticed that my eyes looked very tired and had red veins in them. I decided to check for myself with a selfie while she did a closer profile inspection of my eyeballs.

Shit, it was true.

I was dying.

Despite my imminent death for today, I was powered on with the promise of okonomiyaki so I had that going for me, that and this anime station provided another thing to look at and visit while we wait still for food.

I thought I had taken more photos inside but I guess being a walking zombie does that to you, you tend for forget about things and only take photos of figures of Rem and miku for some reason. I have no idea what I am doing in these photos.

Walking more off the standard trail we see this curry shop in the distance. We are obligated to check it out.

Picture of walking or something. I have no idea if I was sitting or walking when I took this picture. Dying.

I think this was a pizza or italian place nearby? Kind of out of place but sure.

We inspected the curry place closer and it appears they mainly do just katsu sandwiches and shit with some curry rice. Ok.

They seemed closed for the day however and just packing up things so to bad.

Nice mascot, a little bit racist but still cool by me. King Curry has a nice ring to it I suppose.

After wandering for like half an hour or more we decided to check back to see our status.

It appears there was still more time to wait. The system asks you for email or text message but for some reason text doesn’t work so good so I did email. My phone was getting low on battery so I hoped it would survive to see the notification.

Nice bench, alone, waiting for the eats.

There is a similar picture of myself in the same pose but that will have to wait once I get the other photos from my sister’s phone and do the Side B post after everything else is documented and over.

Wow, they use the same brand of sauce that I use at home for when we make okonomiyaki. Guess that makes our shit legit.

Finally there is some room open and we are called in, they were no longer taking new waitlist seats so we were good. There was a huge party of 9 in the wings waiting so that fucked up the waitlist pretty bad for everyone else.

We were seated at the counter, right behind the place where they make takoyaki, the ones that we ate yesterday. The menu is cool.

In all honesty, the price for one of these things is pretty overpriced I can imagine, being each ranging from 15 to 22 dollars each is not exactly cheap but then again, what is cheap under inflation? We are in LA after all too.

I had always eaten okonomiyaki mainly with a cabbage base but not with yakisoba thing going on. They had two types of styles you can have for your order, soft or “classic” or “crispy” which they either deep fry the noodles or ensure that they are crunchy by leaving them on the flattop for a longer time.

For some reason this picture looks very pleasing. It would have been nice to be in front of the peeps who cook the okonomiyaki for a little show but atlast, we were hungry and couldn’t be bothered.

Right in front of the takoyaki peeps making dem balls. Yum.

They provide single serve individual packages of extra sauce and mayo. I suppose this is largely for sanitary reasons. We are still in covid pandemic after all. Maybe in a different time, they might have had extra sauce in jars or buckets where you can ladle more for yourself, but this is not the case in America LA 2022 Little Tokyo.

Very nice scene and ambiance. To the left of me was a white guy in a suit that was by himself, he was really enjoying his okonomiyaki and beer/sake, talking shit and chit chat to the takoyaki people in front of us. “Oh my, you gotta take this away from me, it’s so delicious I can’t even, I won’t be able to wake up or work tomorrow.” yea, he was an interesting character, probably had no idea that there was a convention going on with the huge increase of population in little tokyo, and might have been just a friday regular. Too bad bitch, AX is in town, weebs running the show for these next few days here.

I am glad he finished and left before our food came.

And here it is, the long awaited hiroshima okonomiyaki! I had chosen the one that had minced beef meat and crispy noodles option while my sister had traditional classic pork with soft or normal yakisoba noodles.

Upclose pic of that nice and crunchy noodles and shit. Shit’s pretty damn good. It’s unlike any okonomiyaki i’ve had before, certainly unique but not a replacement for regular osaka style okonomiyaki. Either way, it was really tasty but I still used the addtional sauce and mayo because once you cut it open there is no sauce inside, and honestly, it does kinda need more of it. Which is why I understand the extra sauce packets were given.

Pic of classic pork soft noodles. I tried a bit of this one too and i’d say it’s just as good as the crunchy one. Traditional style is classic for a reason I suppose and I do think the pork tastes a bit better than the minced beef I got, which while good, gets a bit lost with all the other flavours going on. The pork is salty so it stands out more, like bacon really. Good shit.

At the end of the meal we walk out and the sign says they are closed. Yay. I did it, i had Chinchikurin okonomiyaki. Mission accomplished.

Not far away they had these people selling pins and shit outside with various anime and pop culture stuff. I am not sure if they are only there for AX or if they are a permanent fixure but either way by the time we were done they were packing up as well. Heh.

After we just called a Uber and headed back to our hotel for another light night of sleep.

While my sister had succeeded in getting her autograph tickets and some autographs, she was not fully successful in getting all of the boiz + wife’s autograph despite having a priority guaranteed ticket. Gigguk and Sydsnap had to leave early so they could not complete all of the required promised autographs so due to a series of events, my sister and many others obtained a rain check to get them on Day 2, after the fact. This fact was held together by a informal agreement with one of the organizers in that their Day 1 autograph tickets were still good on Day 2. While this agreement was probably sound, there was no guaranteed that the same organizer would be there on Day 2, so we had another reason to line up for autographs again aside for me trying to get Shindo L tickets again, but rather, to get assurances of the promise made on this day from a single lone man…

The time of retribution has come, decide the destiny.

AX2022 Day 1 End.

To be continued…