dolpa 20.
This Dolpa 20 report is taking a lot longer than I'd anticipated.
After OD'ing on Pierre Hermé, we caught about an hour's sleep The Night Before. Actually, I don't even think lightlybattered slept at all. XD
So we caught the first train in the morning (when people were still on the way home after a night's drinking lulz) and arrived at Tokyo Big Sight when it's still dark. This time, there wasn't any other otaku or comics events going on, so we found the queue quite easily. (Fortunately not a repeat of last year's error!)
Yes, the black patch on the left = a small part of the queue.
It was about 6am in the morning, but the queue was already relatively long. At this point, we wanted to outbirk because Volks made us wait more than an hour in the fucking cold! No, really - could this really be the queue, we asked several times in disbelief. We were frozen and huddling beneath lightlybattered's cape. Too cold to reach for our breakfast even.
...And we're still fucking waiting outside in the cold 30 minutes later!
A look at the queue behind us. And no, it doesn't end there... there're even more people behind.
When we did muster the courage to remove our hands from beneath her cape, I ate up my sandwich quickly while shivering. Shivering in our coats! Actually, the experience of having my freezing lips meet the frigid sandwich was rather bizarre. We tried a variety of poses to help keep ourselves warm (but to no avail). Finally, at about 7am, they led us indoors, and we heaved a huge sigh of relief. Just - OMG VOLKS. I WILL CERTAINLY REMEMBER YOU FOR THIS!
Indoors, the staff split us up into two queues - General Admission and Sumika + Limited Items together. While waiting in the General Admissions line, we took pictures of Chietsu and Hikaru (these will have to wait XD) and ate our macarons! Wearing loli + eating macarons (while waiting for an SD event?) = very loli indeed. Lulz.
Pierre Hermé's rose macaron is THE BEST MACARON EVER KTHXBYE.
There was no announcement whatsoever when the event opened at 10am, but we simply followed the line and ran(!) in. Only to get a bit disoriented. DX Then we quickly figured our way and hurried towards Flapper's booth. XD Our second stop was Silver Butterfly, and we managed to grab the very last item she was selling. Next was 666, kyrie for me, and then Robin's Egg. And then the rest of it was a lot more casually, fortunately. Then, we thought we'd get a seat and asked this lady if we could join her at her table. She was very surprised when we said we're from Singapore, and she even went to get chairs for us. She was really nice and friendly and we exchanged email.
The Dolpa lunch came in this Daruma-shaped bento, of which I'd forgotten to take a picture of. Anyway, it's terrible beyond description. I couldn't even finish it - it's quite possibly the worst meal I've had this trip. :X You can actually keep the box after eating it, but we just threw everything away because it's too gross. Lol.
Anyway. Pictures!
First, the One-off charity auctions.
This awesome Reisner went for 600,000 yen!
This Suigintou went for - will you believe it - 1,200,000 yen!
The entire hall gasped audibly when Mr Shigeta announced her final price!
This Miruku went for 400,000 yen. She's extremely adorable irl!
The One-offs. I didn't manage to get all of them because the crowd was huge.
Jun Tachibana and Tsukasa Konoe.
Shinku.
Luna.
Amakusa Shirou.
Okita Souji.
BW Sweet Dreams Nana.
Rengemaru and Sweet Dreams Suzuna.
The super cute Toppi!
Cecile with purple hair.
I love Williams. Even if he has weird hair. XD
Madoka.
Cyndy.
Liz.
Sweet Dreams Yui. She's so sweet! I wish they'd release Sweet Dreams Lin. (...or maybe not.)
Another Cyndy.
Another Jun Tachibana.
SD16 Pearl is very pretty irl! I was pleasantly surprised.
Masha.
Michele.
Anais. Just had to take this one!
Some of the 10th Anniversary special displays.
Preview of the seven yos they're releasing next February!
Kira is super cute <3
Sweet Dreams Nana!
Alain and Iris.
Johanna.
Cecile and Scarface Reisner.
Scarface Reisner! He's pretty awesome irl.
Williams and Scarface Cecile!!! <3 Love this scene. XD
I remember seeing this display at last year's Golden Week Dolpa too.
I just had to take this picture because there's Lin and a piano. OMG A PIANO!!11!1.
Miruku and Kurumi.
This is the new School D!
And now, the dealer booths!
Yes, this is the fucking awesome Flapper + Robin's Egg collaboration!
Robin's Egg's Anais!
Robin's Egg's Sweet Dreams Nana!
Robin's Egg's F-17! I AM IN LOVE OMG.
I liked this Williams!
This Okita Souji is super cute!
Elves Gate's epic booth!
Williams! <3
I was really taken with this super, super cute yo. Took me a while to realise it's a Kun.
Rosa Dorata. They make the most awesome corsets!
Also Rosa Dorata.
Evil Eye, the wigmaker.
C/T/B was really amazing! It's one of the best booths!
angelica.
Also angelica.
The very awesome Rangetu.
I realise I didn't take pictures of Silver Butterfly, 666, kyrie, HSB, [+d] and many more. In fact, the photo taking business was done in haste after we were done shopping. XD We were just too tired (and sleepy), so we ended up sitting down for the most part instead.
This time, Volks got three halls, but this made the event too spaced out instead. You have to walk a great distance before you reach the dealer booths/stage area/special booths/etc. And there seems to be a lack of heating facilities as it was really cold even within the hall. D:
The 10th Anniversary thing seems to be a bit of a letdown, I felt... as there wasn't really anything special other than the photo booths. Not quite the epic Dolpa I imagined it'd be. But it's still a fun Dolpa... in retrospect - 'cuz srsly, waiting out in the morning cold = not fun at all. (Also, just don't ask me how much I spent.)
We didn't stay for the Thank You Gathering after that because after the intense(?) shopping and everything, all we wanted was a good meal to make up for the terrible Dolpa lunch. So. Off to Odaiba it was.
After OD'ing on Pierre Hermé, we caught about an hour's sleep The Night Before. Actually, I don't even think lightlybattered slept at all. XD
So we caught the first train in the morning (when people were still on the way home after a night's drinking lulz) and arrived at Tokyo Big Sight when it's still dark. This time, there wasn't any other otaku or comics events going on, so we found the queue quite easily. (Fortunately not a repeat of last year's error!)
Yes, the black patch on the left = a small part of the queue.
It was about 6am in the morning, but the queue was already relatively long. At this point, we wanted to outbirk because Volks made us wait more than an hour in the fucking cold! No, really - could this really be the queue, we asked several times in disbelief. We were frozen and huddling beneath lightlybattered's cape. Too cold to reach for our breakfast even.
...And we're still fucking waiting outside in the cold 30 minutes later!
A look at the queue behind us. And no, it doesn't end there... there're even more people behind.
When we did muster the courage to remove our hands from beneath her cape, I ate up my sandwich quickly while shivering. Shivering in our coats! Actually, the experience of having my freezing lips meet the frigid sandwich was rather bizarre. We tried a variety of poses to help keep ourselves warm (but to no avail). Finally, at about 7am, they led us indoors, and we heaved a huge sigh of relief. Just - OMG VOLKS. I WILL CERTAINLY REMEMBER YOU FOR THIS!
Indoors, the staff split us up into two queues - General Admission and Sumika + Limited Items together. While waiting in the General Admissions line, we took pictures of Chietsu and Hikaru (these will have to wait XD) and ate our macarons! Wearing loli + eating macarons (while waiting for an SD event?) = very loli indeed. Lulz.
Pierre Hermé's rose macaron is THE BEST MACARON EVER KTHXBYE.
There was no announcement whatsoever when the event opened at 10am, but we simply followed the line and ran(!) in. Only to get a bit disoriented. DX Then we quickly figured our way and hurried towards Flapper's booth. XD Our second stop was Silver Butterfly, and we managed to grab the very last item she was selling. Next was 666, kyrie for me, and then Robin's Egg. And then the rest of it was a lot more casually, fortunately. Then, we thought we'd get a seat and asked this lady if we could join her at her table. She was very surprised when we said we're from Singapore, and she even went to get chairs for us. She was really nice and friendly and we exchanged email.
The Dolpa lunch came in this Daruma-shaped bento, of which I'd forgotten to take a picture of. Anyway, it's terrible beyond description. I couldn't even finish it - it's quite possibly the worst meal I've had this trip. :X You can actually keep the box after eating it, but we just threw everything away because it's too gross. Lol.
Anyway. Pictures!
First, the One-off charity auctions.
This awesome Reisner went for 600,000 yen!
This Suigintou went for - will you believe it - 1,200,000 yen!
The entire hall gasped audibly when Mr Shigeta announced her final price!
This Miruku went for 400,000 yen. She's extremely adorable irl!
The One-offs. I didn't manage to get all of them because the crowd was huge.
Jun Tachibana and Tsukasa Konoe.
Shinku.
Luna.
Amakusa Shirou.
Okita Souji.
BW Sweet Dreams Nana.
Rengemaru and Sweet Dreams Suzuna.
The super cute Toppi!
Cecile with purple hair.
I love Williams. Even if he has weird hair. XD
Madoka.
Cyndy.
Liz.
Sweet Dreams Yui. She's so sweet! I wish they'd release Sweet Dreams Lin. (...or maybe not.)
Another Cyndy.
Another Jun Tachibana.
SD16 Pearl is very pretty irl! I was pleasantly surprised.
Masha.
Michele.
Anais. Just had to take this one!
Some of the 10th Anniversary special displays.
Preview of the seven yos they're releasing next February!
Kira is super cute <3
Sweet Dreams Nana!
Alain and Iris.
Johanna.
Cecile and Scarface Reisner.
Scarface Reisner! He's pretty awesome irl.
Williams and Scarface Cecile!!! <3 Love this scene. XD
I remember seeing this display at last year's Golden Week Dolpa too.
I just had to take this picture because there's Lin and a piano. OMG A PIANO!!11!1.
Miruku and Kurumi.
This is the new School D!
And now, the dealer booths!
Yes, this is the fucking awesome Flapper + Robin's Egg collaboration!
Robin's Egg's Anais!
Robin's Egg's Sweet Dreams Nana!
Robin's Egg's F-17! I AM IN LOVE OMG.
I liked this Williams!
This Okita Souji is super cute!
Elves Gate's epic booth!
Williams! <3
I was really taken with this super, super cute yo. Took me a while to realise it's a Kun.
Rosa Dorata. They make the most awesome corsets!
Also Rosa Dorata.
Evil Eye, the wigmaker.
C/T/B was really amazing! It's one of the best booths!
angelica.
Also angelica.
The very awesome Rangetu.
I realise I didn't take pictures of Silver Butterfly, 666, kyrie, HSB, [+d] and many more. In fact, the photo taking business was done in haste after we were done shopping. XD We were just too tired (and sleepy), so we ended up sitting down for the most part instead.
This time, Volks got three halls, but this made the event too spaced out instead. You have to walk a great distance before you reach the dealer booths/stage area/special booths/etc. And there seems to be a lack of heating facilities as it was really cold even within the hall. D:
The 10th Anniversary thing seems to be a bit of a letdown, I felt... as there wasn't really anything special other than the photo booths. Not quite the epic Dolpa I imagined it'd be. But it's still a fun Dolpa... in retrospect - 'cuz srsly, waiting out in the morning cold = not fun at all. (Also, just don't ask me how much I spent.)
We didn't stay for the Thank You Gathering after that because after the intense(?) shopping and everything, all we wanted was a good meal to make up for the terrible Dolpa lunch. So. Off to Odaiba it was.