April 26-27th, 2025
LVL UP EXPO 2025 took place April 25-27th, and lucky for me, I was able to go with my girlfriend, some of her family, and a friend (on Saturday). It was my first convention, and woo nelly did I have a good time, even if I walked around 32k steps and my feet are hurting like hell. Honestly it's all becoming a blur; not in the bad way of course, I had a fucking ball. I saw a lot of amazing cosplayers and that made me super happy (even got pictures! one with a Yuna (FFX), Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes), and Juri (SF6), bought stuff, ate food, fun times all around. We watched Smash both Day 2 and Day 3, Tekken day 2 (saw one of my classmate's competing!) The day 3 Smash match we watched (MkLeo vs Onin) was super cool and me and my girlfriend were like super interested in it. We also saw Hungrybox playing Wordle?? and one of the words (the one we got to see, at least) was Mango LOL.
Here's some of the stuff I got (half of it was my girlfriend's birthday gift to me :))
Charm of Juno from Overwatch 2 by x3Dustco!
In reality, Kiriko was there and she's my fav Overwatch 2 character (favorite to play, at least), but I wanted to let my girlfriend pick :D Was nice seeing some merch for my dying game....
Psyduck and Isabelle plushies!
I fought hard agaisnt the Psyduck (pretty expensive booth!!) but ultimately lost, but I still love him :D The Isabelle plushie was because I kept joking about it with my girlfriend (who is also named Isabelle), and on the last hour got me the plushie :p
Original character print by crystalheartedkat! I eyed this booth HEAVY during both days, and on the last one I caved and got this small print for just 5 bucks!!
Overall, I just had a really good time and this weekend was like the best ever!! God bless nerds.
— murohe, nicholas