Some of you know I love PAD goods (recall PAD pop-up store round 1 and round 2). As part of my birthday weekend, I made a trip to Tokyo for a PAD fan artist convention. Here’s an entire post of my experience and loots!

This is the second time I attend a convention so please excuse me if I sound like a noob…

About the convention

Ultimate Puzzle & Dragons Rush! Combo 2 (JP: 極限パズドラッシュ！！COMBO2) was a PAD-only convention initiated by popular PAD fan artists in Japan! Think of it as a mini Comiket for PAD only. The event happened 2 days ago, and was open to the general public for only 4 hours.

More photos at the Twitter hashtag: #極限パズドラッシュ2.

The event was first held in Akihabara, on February 11, 2018. This is the second time the artists put together a great event!

The Venue

The convention was held 2 stations away from Akihabara (first one was actually in Akiba, if I recall), and literally in the middle of nowhere. The venue wasn’t big: It spanned one floor in a small room, and had 30 booths total. Some booths had more than one artist stationed. Space was tight for the amount of people there were.

Most (98%?) of the attendees were male. While waiting in line, some people were discussing team builds using PDC, and farming some dungeons (SAO collab).

The sign on the street. Basically you have to know about the event to even know this exist.

The lineup. This was 15 minutes before the start time. About 120 people were waiting at the time. (There were more people looping behind me)

Most of the first floor was reserved for this event! The upper floors weren’t.

After paying admission fee (500 yen), I was given a choice of a free bag (to carry loots) or a file folder. I also had a re-entry ticket which had a random character printed.

You know you’re at a PAD event when there’s RNG for tickets!

Bag on the left, and file folder on the right. Tamadra not included. I have both since my fiance went with me.

Re-entry ticket for the event, in case you want a lunch break. I got Dark Metatron and fiance got Valkyrie!

Loots

Now of course, going to the con mean I must bring some goods home! While most of these will go to my collection, some are for my fiance, authors on blog, or good friends. Most items here costed 200 – 1000 yen (US$ 1.76 to 8.79).

There were 2-3 goods that are 18+ rated, and I didn’t get them. This post is very clean.

For photos of more goods sold at the convention, see the Twitter tag!

Keychains

I will never ever lose my keys again! Some of the keychains are for friends and blog authors who helped me out. What came as surprise was the neon style charms, I did not expect them to look so nice!

Lots of cuties. I could not resist getting that Whaledor and Suou!

Neon style charms. I wanted the +297 but it was gone before I knew about it.

As a huge Haku fan (not as great as Paulo) I had to get some cute Hakus!

Badge pins

I did not buy as much as I expected, but I went for cute ones. 3 of them were by the popular artist msrmrn! She was so popular that she had her own room. 🙂

Postcards

I really like postcards since I like decorating my wall with them. Again, I aimed for cutes.

One of the sets, containing 4 postcards. Athena NON, Saline & Reeche, Ilmina & Romia, and Halloween Sonia.

Leilan postcard was free from the artist, YZ+. Sopdet was too cute to pass. The rest are from Dipper Magic’s set of 4 postcards.

File folders

Japan often give out free A4-sized clear file folders for free, but I couldn’t resist in getting these, just for the art!

Triple Miru!

Freyja and Artemis!!

Annnd more Artemis!

Stickers & freebies

I really like cute stickers but I held back, since I know I’ll never use them as a sticker. Minecraft style Artemis and Ilmina are laminated, and supposedly used for desk decoration.

Classic Sonia shitty board sticker, along with cute Artemis and Astaroth.

These were freebies from buying… a lot of stuff! 🙂 Ilmina coaster and a Brigid, Saline & Dark Metatron sticker!

Art books

The main reason I wanted to go to this convention – Supporting all my favorite artists by buying their art books! Some of these are for the greatest PAD art fan of all times, Paulo (who runs the PAD Fanart group as well). Lots of great study material for me!

Mugs

Saving the best for the last – Probably my personal favorite of all the things I got. Water monsters mug and Tamadra mug! I wanted to buy a second whale mug but I was a bit too late (sorry again Appgle).

Glass mug! Full design on the box.

The other side of the glass mug. So cute!

Tamadra mug!

Side story & fun stuff

This is actually the second hobby convention that I’ve been to. I’m not a regular at these, so I found these amusing (in a good way):

• Sake. Some fans brought sake as gifts to the artists. That was super amazing (and makes me wanna draw again for booze).
• Business card. Interesting story here: My fiance (a proud NA player) stood in the hallway and started sorting his box while waiting for me. A Japanese PAD player came over and wanted to check his box out. He admired the number of Cottons my fiance had, since the JP player had 7+ Neys but only 1 Cotton. Despite the language barrier, the JP player gave my fiance a business card with his name, his ID, and Twitter handle. PAD is serious business.

• Godfest. We thought since the event’s poster was all Godfest Exclusives, this would be a lucky spot to roll Voice Godfest. It sure was.

• No foreigners. I may be wrong, but my fiance and I were the only two gaijins there at the peak hours. Us being there must’ve been weird to the Japanese!

Epilogue

That’s all. It was certainly an experience of a lifetime (that doesn’t refresh every 2 weeks, nor do I get a Magic Stone). I spent $250 or so within 45 minutes with no regrets, and this does not even include transportation expenses to get myself there. Traveling around Japan is pricey…

Most of the best goods, including the Whaledor mug, were gone in the first 40 minutes. I’m really glad I woke up at 6am to get there on time.

When I have a chance, I will talk about my other official PAD goods in a future post, including my Tamadra collection!