Risa-chan risked life and limb to go to AX this year. 2 weeks before she had come down with a serious flu, which had spread like wildfire through our office. As I mentioned in my Experience - we were really unsure as to whether she would actually have been able to go.

The plane trip over was really hard on her - puking all the way from Tokyo to LA is not a lot of fun as you can imagine.

And then to throw a heap of jet lag on her as well...

Fortunately after about 3 days and us forcefully trying to get her to take it easy she started to get better - pretty much just in time for the event opening!

And just what does she do around here at ANIMAXIS? Well some days it seems like practically everything...she handles most of the customer support, sorts out what products we are putting on line, manages the slaves, does bits and pieces of business stuff, helps the merchandising guys out, writes the occassional report or article etc etc etc...

She's been working here since before we even were ANIMAXIS and is the most bilingual kid around here.

And if you've had the chance to talk to Risa-chan face to face then you've probably wondered about that English accent of hers...well it's a result of living for several years in England - which also explains her love of Guiness and obsession with fish and chips...

Risa-chan is a bit of a legend when it comes to remembering anime characters and story plots - especially those involving bishonen - and is an avid fan of anime and manga herself.

Here is what she can recollect about AX2001...

The Masquerade was pretty good - especially the videos which I'd never seen before! I wish I could see the one that was done to the Offspring's "Pretty fly..." again!!

The worst part of AX was not getting enough sleep! But when I actually got some it was fantastic!

My worst night was the very last one - after cleaning up the booth, doing a count of what was left, packing it up for shipping and going out for some beers - I had to go back to the hotel to make the invoice for the shipping - it took me until 4am!!!

And then I'd made some mistakes...oops...

Getting on the plane after that wasn't much fun - but I had a good sleep on the way back!!!

(About the ANIMAXIS booth)

What I really liked about our booth - even though it was a LOT of work - it looked like a real shop and not just a table with stuff piled on it. Although setting up and changing the displays was a real hassle - everything had to be so perfect (this was due to Mojojojo's perfectionism...).

Also we realized that with the layout there ended up being a few Kind of "dead spots" where we couldn't display things to well and you could get trapped - but it was our first time to set a booth up so it was a good learning experience and we know more now about setting up a space.

Still it looked so cool!