Hyper Japan 2015 Part 2

Well here it is, part two of Hyper Japan, as well as me showing more of what I bought.

After we had rested up at the hotel we got ourselves ready in some fresh clothes and headed back out. We decided we would get dinner at Hyper Japan as we hadn’t yet properly visited the Eat Japan section and were excited about all the food we would be able to try.

When we arrived we decided to go back into the Game & Anime Park to see if we missed out on anything, which is where we finally got to have a go on the Sword Art Online game, which once again, was awesome.

As well as that there was someone cosplaying as Jolteon, which was amazing considering the position they would need to stand in all day! They got a huge crowd, including us and were having pictures with people too, which of course I did.

We had some time to kill before we could go and pick up the picture we were having drawn of us both so we walked around the other areas again for a while. We had heard that there was a stall set up where people would have a Domo Kun around to take pictures with, something we had wanted to do previously in the day, but had missed. However we didn’t miss the second time and made sure to get in the queue for a picture. The guy who took our pictures took loads and they’re all amazing!

The person in the Domo Kun costume swayed back and forth between us so it looked like he was leaning on us, which is incredibly cute! I love Domo and have a largish plush of him in my room, I just wish I could have a life-sized Domo as a friend… Sad nerd is sad.

I wanted to give some of the bubble tea at Hyper Japan a go so eventually when the stand went quiet, I went to get some. I’m not going to lie, this wasn’t the best bubble tea in the world BUT the tapioca pearls were amazing! Very soft and squishy and definitely some of the nicest ones I’ve had. But although it wasn’t the best, it did the job and was very yummy.

As we had a further look around we found a stall that was writing your names in Japanese, as well as another stall that was making badges with your name on in Japanese. We of course got one of these each, and these are mine. We also found a travel stall that when you filled in a survey you got a free cute eraser, we of course did one each. These little cuties are now in my room.

There was only one (but a very good one) Japanese beauty stall in there that we had visited before leaving to go back to the hotel the first time around, but I forgot to mention it in part one. But I picked up this hair styling tool that is used to curl your hair whilst you dry it. If it works for Japanese hair, then I don’t see why it won’t work for mine! I still need to try it out properly and will do Friday before I’m off down south for a BBQ. I’ll make sure to update how it goes! The one thing that appealed to me the most about this is that it is plastic, not ceramic and therefore won’t do any damage to my hair. It was only £3 which I thought was a bargain!

Finally it was time to go and pick our picture up and I was so excited to see what the artist had done. So when she handed it to us I was really taken back. It’s one of my favourite things from Hyper Japan, London in fact. When we visited Comic Con in Birmingham we had our first manga picture of us together drawn and I loved that, but we did get a lot of comments saying that the drawing of me on it looks nothing like me, which if anything was upsetting. So the fact that with this picture everyone is saying this one actually looks like me, it makes me really happy! The artist just got all our details, including the plait of my hair, my bow necklace, my boyfriends sunglasses, and cap, etc. I’m just so happy with it.

After this we decided to get some food. I’m not going to be positive here, but I’m being honest. The selection of food at Hyper Japan was rubbish. There weren’t many stands and even so there wasn’t much on offer. We ended up having loads of chicken and vegetable gyoza’s, as well as some fried noodles that my boyfriend had as they made me feel a bit ick (I HATE bean sprouts!).

We ventured around taking in anything we may have missed and eventually we were told we needed to leave. Since Hyper Japan one of the sellers there has uploaded a video of the weekend onto YouTube and who is in the video? My boyfriend! It’s at 6:07 and you can see my boyfriend walking past the dancers. We were looking around the stall when they were dancing and it’s here we were told we needed to go, which sucks as we wanted to sort of blend in with whatever fun they were having.

After this we decided to go and claim our free pina colada’s from Malibu and they were delicious! It was pina colada day on the 10th July so we decided to take advantage of the free drinks.

When we were walking away from the O2, I took advantage of getting plenty of pictures of how gorgeous it looked at night. We got our train and then the DLR back to the hotel and had a lovely bath together and went to bed. We were shattered and it’s safe to say our legs were killing us the next day. Even though we went out for more adventures!

Before I wrap up this post I’m going to just talk about the negatives since Hyper Japan, as over on their Facebook page there has been nothing but people moaning about this years event. Saying it was too big, it was too public, the food range was awful, people kept getting lost, the list goes on.

I agree with some of the things that people say, the first one being that cosplayer’s were on show to the public which is true. If I was in that position I would feel incredibly anxious. Another being about the food and drink selection being rubbish, which it was in all honestly. My friend who has been for years even told me herself that side was rubbish. I was very disappointed. Another complaint was that the staff that Hyper Japan had hired were rude, which they were! At one point towards the end we bought a beer to share but we had to stay in the Eat Japan section to drink it, although people were drinking beer in the section we wanted to go into, which was extremely annoying. You would ask them questions and they would snap at you, which wasn’t nice at all.

Somethings that people are complaining about that I don’t agree with is how much room there was to walk, I didn’t honestly mind the walk and neither did my boyfriend. We put this down to how crowded and horrible Comic Con Birmingham was in November. I also don’t agree with the rantings about queuing either, we never had to queue much and if we did it wasn’t for long to be honest.

Either way, we loved Hyper Japan and I would love to go again for the Christmas Market in November, but it depends on money. We didn’t spend as much in Hyper Japan as we thought we would which is good, but I think that’s down to the fact there wasn’t really MUCH on offer for us to buy.

I recommend it, especially if you’ve never been like I never had. It’s definitely a different experience and I recommend any Japan  lover to do it at some point.

Have you ever been to Hyper Japan? What did you think? If you haven’t been before, would you like to? Make sure to let me know in the comments.

Until next time though, take care all and I hope you enjoyed my Hyper Japan two-part post.