CharaExpo USA 2018 trip report

So much like my trip to AX back in July, this convention trip was also a bit of a last-minute plan. It had been on the table since Popipa and Raise A Suilen were announced as guests, but I’d still been considering doing Aqours 4th live lottery instead until Roselia was announced, which sealed the CharaExpo decision. My main goal was to see every band perform, autographs would be a cherry on top.

I knew going into this con that there would be lines everywhere, especially for the opening merch rush to get the various event and autograph tickets. So when I got in on Friday I took it easy, just having dinner alone and buying food and water for the morning.


Saturday I naturally got up around 3:20 (thanks timezones) and checked one of the bandori discords to see the line situation. I think the line had just been dispersed then by police so I went back to sleep for about an hour before getting ready and getting into line at 5:30 at spot number 229 (someone was going through and counting lol). Dunno where I ended up after line cutters. That line moved around 9am for trading your tickets in for a wristband and program, and filtered into a line to get inside. Doors opened a bit after 10 and the mad merch rush began.
By the time I grabbed what looked good that hit the $90 mark and got checked out, all the Roselia sign tickets were gone, along with Mimorin and Momoyo. Then when I traded in my vouchers for the lives that day they only took one for both Popipa and RAS stages so I had two useless vouchers. It was a bit after 11 at this point and I wandered the floor for a bit to see what else was around and to take pictures of the Roselia outfit project, Revue Starlight outfits, and the flower stands.

Popipa's talk stage and mini live was at 12:30and I got a decent seat next to an aisle. They had the same translator that worked Aqours at AX and she's really hype. For the talk, they (Aimi, Rimi, and Sae) talked a bit about themselves and their characters, and played some GBP (Aimi got a full combo on Tokimeki Experience!). For the live portion they played Tokimeki Experience, Time Lapse, Teardrops, and Star Beat. They were wearing the Star Beat outfits which had light up shoes! When the translator noticed them at the start, Saechi walked up to one of the monitors and stamped on it to show off her shoes, and during the live she stood on them a couple times lol. Also everyone rushed the stage when they started the setup, Aimi reminded people to be careful. I think they maybe tried to get people back to their seats but no one understood/listened oops.

After that was over I went back to the hotel to drop stuff off and eat/relax a bit (my hair was down due to my only hair tie snapping so I was extra hot) and then went back to the convention. Bought some cute things from the Mameshiba booth and watched the shorts playing before heading back to the main stage for the RAS live. Got to see Meguchi come out for her autograph session which was great since at the time I was still unsure if I’d be able to grab a Roselia live ticket (I'm a born pessimist lol).

My seat for RAS was in the middle section, a bit back but good enough to see well. This time they roped off the aisles to keep people in their seats and staff told people not to rush out this time. Now, I've only been a fan of RAS since seeing the DVs for BanG Dream 5th live where they opened both days, so I was expecting a good show but wasn't sure how /hype/ I’d be. Well after the first song...I was pretty hype, and it got better with each song. They didn't have a translator but also didn't need one as their DJ, Risa Tsumugi, is pretty fluent in English. She was very happy that the audience said her English was amazing! The most unexpected song was Mou Ichidou Luminous sung by Raychell and the crowd loved it. Also Reo (keyboard) broke her mic with all her headbanging and for the final MC tried to use Raychell's but couldn't reach it so ran over to Riko's instead XD The convention was closed after this ended so I wandered out to IHOP again and also bought more food/water and some damn hair ties actually made for thick hair. I made an agreement with a buddy in the NJ Love Live discord to meet up at 4am for linecon day 2, so I showered and crashed when I got back to the hotel.


Sunday, got up, showered again to wake up, and headed out into the dark. The line on this day grew a LOT faster, but was also a bit better managed. Lots more cutters it seemed, as I went from spot 140s to 170s to 200 to 250s by the very end. The time went faster despite being out an extra hour since I had people to chat to and suffer with (lol). They also opened the ticket-to-wristband exchange a half hour earlier and convention doors opened right at 10. A second mad rush to the merch booth, where there was actual ropes and tape all around the booth, plus the exit directly filtered into the voucher exchange. I did bad math and my aim for $90 of merch turned into $160, and when I got to the voucher exchange, all of Popipa was gone. Aimi apparently sold out in the first 20 minutes. However! There were still Roselia live tickets...and RAS autographs! So I picked up tickets for Riko and Reo. Roselia live tickets were gone about 5-10 minutes after I got mine, and RAS signs were out within the hour.

I got some food from the food court they set up, chatted with discord peeps, and since I didn't have a conflict I went to the Revue Starlight talk stage! I honestly think they didn't know how popular Starlight is in the West, as majority of the merch was gone day 1 and leftovers completely wiped on day 2 very early on. Plus the talk stage was standing room only when I got there. The usual translator lady also handled this talk, and it was great to see Mimorin IRL and get my first glimpse of AiAi for the day. And of corse Momoyo is super cute, and her doing the official English translation of Karen's catchphrase was great. The girl behind me noticed that whenever AiAi talked about Claudine she also mentioned TENDOU MAYA...every time...lol. I told her about Starlight Kukugumi covering the Sakura Wars theme at Anisama and told her to watch MayaKuro Midnight Revue!

When that ended it was time for my first autograph session, for Riko. In line I decided I’d speak to her in Japanese to thank her for the live the previous day, which would be the first time I've spoken Japanese to a native speaker since like...high school class lol. When I got up to her and spoke, she smiled big and complimented me! And asked if I was studying! I was so happy that I was able to even do it in the first place haha, it really made me happy to see her excited as well. I went out to the lobby to chill and sort my bags before heading back in to get in line for Reo's autograph session. I said the same thing to her, also adding in that I liked her energy, which she was happy about.

There'd been a crowd growing at the main stage area since the Starlight talk ended, getting in position for the big live of the day, Roselia. For this live, along with blocking the aisles, they stuck numbers on the seats and when you handed your ticket in you reached into a blind box and picked a number. Literal chuusen(lottery)! I said "big money no whammies" and got seat 113, which was dead center five rows from the front. They also roped off the sides a bit more so people without tickets couldn't get as close.

Roselia is my favorite group from BanG Dream. They've had an emotional rollercoaster of a year with both their original bassist and keyboardist retiring months apart. Their new bassist (Yuki aka Yukki) has been with the group since May, but their new keyboardist (Kanon aka Nonchan) was only just revealed last week at their most recent live. Note that Roselia as a group of four is what was announced for the convention and expected by everyone, as that was their member count at the time. I'm probably going to be overly detailed from here now lol.

Roselia came onto the stage and opened with Passionate Starmine. I had a great view of AiAi, a decent view of Kudoharu who was to my right, but couldn't really see Yukki to the left or Meguchi in the back right as well. Back right was a little unexpected for the drum set location and I noticed the empty space to the left...anyway. There were lots of screams for Meguchi's solo lines in this song, apparently she's got a big female fanbase over here. She also speaks the best English of the group and got a lot of cheers for that and her general energy. Roselia goes fully into character when performing, including referring to each other by character name, which I love because there's a personality mismatch between AiAi to Yukina and Kudoharu to Sayo. AiAi has to try hard not to laugh a lot lol. Their second song was the main from their newest single, R, then followed up with Neo-Aspect - both are songs not in the English version of GBP so some people weren't expecting them to be played I think. The coverage on the solo lines in R were well done since they had to cover for the missing part, AiAi took the first two while Kudoharu took the final one. Classic songs ONENESS and Re:birth Day were next. The crowd chants for both were very powerful. This whole time so far, Yukki was doing a great job working the crowd on her side while AiAi and Kudoharu had a couple close moments. I think Yukki and Kudoharu switched sides at least once in this half of the setlist so I got to see Yukki better for a bit.
After this, there was a short MC which more or less went like...here Roselia is four people, but we also have one more member to make five. I'm thinking that they'll be mentioning their newest member and saying to cheer her on from now on or something before they go into more talking.

But then a keyboard is wheeled out.

NOW for some reason I'm expecting Reo to come out to play with them, because idk why not, maybe they're having fun, and Raychell joined them for a song at their live last week.

But then...it's Nonchan who is announced and walks onto the stage to the keyboard.

The audience ERUPTED. Everyone's penlights went to white. I didn't know I could scream that loud as I shouted NONCHAN DAISUKI. People around me were grabbing their friends hands and shaking and probably some were crying too. Nonchan is still so new to performing like this and was visibly nervous as she spoke, but she played so so well. Their next song was Soul's Refrain followed by LOUDER and then their first song BLACK SHOUT which has solo lines so we got hear Nonchan sing a bit. And yes, Yukki has kept up the tradition of a hand movement at the "OK" line in the intro!
It was the end now, and the group did their usual out of character ending MC. With the audience they did the "Roselia Fighting!" call before joining hands for a bow and going off mic and shouting thanks. After they left the stage everyone went into a "Bushiroad!" chant lol.

On the way out the energy was still visible everywhere as people hugged and cheered and exchanged cries of "they did it!". I ran into another discord buddy outside and we sat for a  hour and talked about this event and AX and all kinds of things before going together for some chicken and waffles.


Overall this was an amazing convention full of miracles. I didn't know what to expect from a con based around franchises all owned by one company but it was great. Worst part was definitely line/crowd management but staff obviously learned between the days how to handle things better. Also they need to bring more merch lol. I'll definitely return next year if they have the BanG Dream bands playing again. Or wherever those three groups end up playing over here again, I'll go. As I tweeted before, I never expected to be this into more live performing groups let alone see them in person the same year I saw Aqours live. I know in general things are pretty shit in the world, but the things like this that I love so much keep me going.


Some random counts:
Number of lines stood in at the con: 13
Actual full meals eaten: 3
Photos taken: 55
Banana cosplayers seen: 5?
AiAi/Kudoharu moments: 4 or 5
AiAi/Yukki moments: 2
AiAi/Kudoharu/Yukki moments: 2
Regrets: 0