On Friday of October 8, 2010. I was on a mission to get Chihara Minori’s autograph.. so as a favor for Anime Diet’s own Ray. Chihara is apparently a very very popular seiyuu, a featured guest in this year’s NYAF. In my experience of other than hearing her voice in Saki as the very attractive Tōka Ryūmonbuchi, of which I had nothing official for her to sign, from that desperately second season needed anime. I decided very early on, that there are way too many other things to do while at the convention, and too many other seiyuus to fangirl for. I had to not display an interest, but fan boys totally go gaga over her, so here we go.
Prior to the convention, there was an announcement of three opportunities for autographs.. two are waiting on a line, and the other was to be the first 100 buyers at the Bandai Booth. Now even with the VIP Chihara Experience package, that was quickly sold out at $150 for 200 fans. There was no guarantee autograph ticket, so one must “fight” then for the right to get her John Hancock.
With my experience of getting various con autographs.. I didn’t want to chance it, and the early bird gets the worm. I definitely needed to get there early. So, I started at the crack of dawn, woke up at around 5:00-ish after slapping the alarm clock twice. Got on the subway..and started my trek. I thought that Moy as being one of the earliest if not hardcore fanboys. He was at Jacob Javits around 4:30.. He did it twice again.. for Saturday.. so I know that he got four autographed tickets by the end of NYAF this year.
I was definitely happy with my one ticket. I also did have another ticket, from the Bandai booth, when I went off to purchase an official licensed good for Chihara to sign. Gave that to Starcreator. It was really strange, that there was absolutely no cds of Minorin in the Exhibition Room , that even Kinokuniya didn’t even have any. So I ended up with an exclusive NYAF T-Shirt, comparing with a choice between a DVD set of hers. Figure the T-shirt will be darn more special.
Since the autograph signing was in the middle of the late afternoon when I had panels, I requested my sister, and Eric M. Chu to go and get the autograph/photograph specifically. The shirt was definitely autographed, but unfortunately, there was no photo, because there was way too many fans, and it would take way too long for Chihara to sign. There is also an image of the back of the shirt on Anime Diet’s Flickr, so take a peek there if you’re interested.