Now, Anime Expo is held at the LA Convention Center, which everyone knows as the Staples Center. But the naming rights were bought up by crypto.com, so it is the crypto.com arena. Everyone still calls it the Staples Center. You have seen those pernicious ads with Matt Damon, who reminds us that “Fortune Favors the Brave”. No, it doesn’t. There are a ton of brave explorers who died, so that doesn’t sound like getting favored. I bring this up, as I personally encountered a lot of ‘brave’ people who came under my sphere of influence.

We decided to head out early, only to discover that the line to get in wrapped around the block. And it didn’t matter which line you chose, it was horrible. The above photo is us in line at 8:45 am, just before it opened. However, once they dropped the rope, it took us 20 minutes to get inside. However, I did have a woman come up to ME to ask a question. She could have asked anyone else, but I guess I looked ‘safe’. Do I look that smart (and, no, that’s not me in the photo).

Then, I took a chance to see if I could get into the premiere of “Dr. Stone” Season 2, without having to wait in line. It kinda worked, but I did miss the first five minutes of the show, so I wasn’t certain why they did what they did, but it was a really rockin’ start to Season 2, as they are making both a sailing ship to explore the world AND a hot air balloon.

I decided I wanted to get answers as to why I couldn’t get a press pass to this shindig, so I tried to get to the Press Lounge. Nope. You can only get into the lounge if you have a press pass, but you can’t get a press pass unless you get into the Press Lounge. Fortune did not favor this brave one.

I got shut out of the Crunchyroll Panel, so I went over to get a lunch at Ralph’s (“Where no prices are lower prices than Ralph’s!”) and got stopped by a person who wanted to know if I was finished with my badge and was willing to sell it. What? Did it look like I was giving up? I’m hungry!

Lunch in tow, I gave up on the Main Building (the lines were as bad as this morning), so I went to the JW Marriott Platinum Ballroom to spend the day there. The odd thing is that I went to the Crunchyroll Lounge there. It was just the JW Hotel bar converted, but it felt like half of the room was forbidden to me (some kind of private party) and there was nothing ‘Crunchyroll’ about the place. Up to the ballroom.

I arrived in time to catch what was, in theory, a session on voice acting, but it was for a new anime “Isekai Island”, which does not have anything to do with a real isekai, but more the realm of possibilities that an isekai offers.

The thing is that if you go to their website, you can upload a voice tape of yours and see if you can be selected to BE that character. The drawback? About a third of the folks in the room were voice actors of one caliber or another, so a prole like me had no chance at all. Not that it matters. We can’t all be Gilbert Gottfried, doing the same annoying voice all the time, right?

When that session closed up, since the JW does not clear the room, I moved my seat to get a better shot at the premiere of Season 4 of “Is it Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon”. Now, if this was a series run, we saw Episode #0 (or “Prelude”), as we are getting ready to explore the lower depths of this dungeon and try and come back with a lot of answers, so it was a lot of getting ready. Now, THEY stated this, so I can to you, but there is a murder in the adventuring community and suspicion falls on one of Bell Cranel’s companions and he has to prove the constabulatory have the wrong person.

With that concluded, I moved again, to get a better, better seat to catch Part 3 of the Crunchyroll Premieres. We had the second seasons of “Classroom of the Elite” (which came out five years ago) and “In/Spectre” (which is hard to pronounce properly, as everyone says it as “Inspector”. I prefer to split it as “In” [pause] “Spectre”). That one is only a year or so old, so it is ‘fresher’.

The thing was they showed two episodes of “Shoot! Goal For the Future”, which is another soccer anime. The problem that I have with sports animes is that they follow the same arc: the person we are focused on either doesn’t play anymore or had to give it up, but is drawn back into the sport and leads a ragtag band of misfits and cast-offs to a better future.

One thing I did notice about these Crunchyroll offerings is that the show you WANTED to see two episodes of, you didn’t, and the show you DIDN’T want to see two episodes of, you did.

I finally played out the string and made a hard discovery about the Expo: there is a lot you don’t want to see. I mean, I do want to get my money’s worth, but I’m not interested in the music of Evangelion or Gundam Building for Everyone. And my feet were giving out, so it was time to get a real dinner, prepare for the exodus and go to sleep.

Last day, concluding remarks and other free-floating ideas. Stay tuned.