I’ve been busy with other projects and while i’ve been attending events I haven’t had time to finialze any kind of writeups or even got to post photos.  Sorry for the delay.

Conventions we have to still written and posted.

I-con 31

Castle Point Anime Convention 2012

Springfest 2012 NYC Polytechnic

Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s Sakura Matsuri

Its been a whirlwind and next up will be

Steampunk World’s Fair May 18-20

AnimeNEXT  June 8-10

And hopefully a break to catchup.

Thanks for being patient.

Andrew

The Sheraton Meadowland Hotel & Convention Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey was the site of MangaNext 2012. It was held the weekend following Maryland’s Katsucon 18 and pulled in a relatively low attendance. Our photographer/head of conpics.ws completely missed the press deadline and only I (Chris) could make it as I was going to run a panel.   The hotel layout did not boost MangaNext’s “attendee flow” either. While a beautiful hotel with excellent customer service, its convention rooms were on the second floor and down a dark hallway. Several con attendees were witnessed asking Con Staff where the Dealer’s Room and Artist Alley were located.  The hotel’s location, on a service road next to a major highway, was not within walking distance of any food sources. Cheap and fast food was a ten to fifteen minute drive away.

At 10am on the morning of February 25^th, I ran my first convention panel. After walking all over the convention center, I finally found my panel room and began to set up. The panel was titled “Martial Arts Anime and Manga” and I was pretty nervous and excited to present it. As the title would suggest, my presentation was about martial arts related anime and manga. The material covered more comical anime such as “Mightiest Disciple Kenichi” to more serious manga like the mixed martial arts influenced “All Rounder Meguru”.  At the end of the hour long presentation, I was asked a lot of questions. I had the answers to most of them, but there were some that I could not answer. These questions made me want to do more research on martial arts related anime and manga.

I very much enjoyed running a panel and I would like to continue running the martial arts panel and branch out into other “obscure” areas of Japanese culture found in manga that English speaking readers were unaware of. I believe I did a good job speaking in front of and presenting to a crowd because I hope to teach English in Japan after I graduate college.

I do hope that MangaNext continues to exist in the coming years, despite having a low attendance this year. It is one of the few conventions that focus solely on the comic portion of the fandom. Manga is a part of Japanese culture that I find very interesting and I am definitely more of a “manga” fan than an “anime” fan at conventions. I believe manga conventions would also help boost the struggling American manga industry.

You can see the full gallery of Katsucon 18 with the link below.

http://www.conpics.ws/photos/main.php/v/katsucon18/

As far as the shows went.  We sat in for 8 hours straight as the Masquarade and WCS were back to back.  Both events were very good this year.  And we congratulate Coconut Bubble Sex Cosplay being the group that won the US Preliminaries.

As for as the New York Anime Festival is concerned.  Its got its own little section for the good or bad.  The good is they still are making space for NYAF.  The bad is they don’t get any of the “Comic Con” traffic.  So nobody was exposed to the artist alley except for Anime fans.  The NYCC Artist alley was excellent this year in where they placed it.    Other things we loved is they made a whole kids section in the Javits North expansion.  They had autograph signings in the back.  So in all NYCC was great.  We hope to cover NYCC better next year also.  The whole rule changes threw us off so we weren’t able to get anything really interesting other than photos.

And speaking of photos below is the link to NYCC 2011 photos.

http://www.conpics.ws/photos/main.php/v/nycc2011/

AnimeNEXT is a convention we look forward to every year.  It is one of our home town conventions and one we make it a point to try and never miss.  This year was its 10th year anniversary and they invited a lot of prominent Japanese guests this year and brought in a lot of the domestic talent also.

We were able to hit a few panels this year.   One of them was run by voice actor and fellow anime geek Greg Ayres who is known for his “state of the anime industry” panel. We were expecting the usual “anime and manga industries are dying” and “don’t pirate” kind of panel, but we were pleasantly surprised to hear some hope in his voice. He was excited to announce that he was starting to work on new projects and  gave the audience some information on what he was working on.  He also talked about how Funimation recently bought itself back and is no longer under the discretion of its former parent company, Navarre.  Although it wasn’t the most informative of panels, it was laid-back and entertaining when he added his hilarious convention horror stories.

Another panel  we dropped by was “The Complete History of Manga.” We thought this panel was going to be extremely interesting and were pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, the panelist was fifteen minutes late and was shaking as he gave the presentation. He worked at a manga museum in Osaka, Japan ( author’s note: we would kill to have his job), and he had some very old and rare manga with him that got passed around.  It would’ve been an interesting panel had he been a little more confident.

AnimeNext continued this year in bringing in Japanese culture by bringing in the fashion designer h.NAOTO, they packed the main events hall surprisingly.  We didn’t understand the size of the crowd but when they had Vic Mignogna make an appearance at the end in their clothing, we knew that his fans came to support him.

Fashion Show

On Friday night they had a concert by Mix Speakers, Inc.  a visual kei band.  We didn’t know much about them but the concert was good show.  Each of the band members was a character and the lighting made a great show.

Mix Speakers, Inc

A couple other Japanese guests were Kanon and Takamasa Sakurai.  Kanon’s a musician and Mr. Sakurai is a self-proclaimed culture ambassador who’s been to the area once before at the last NYCC/NYAF in 2010.   They held a joint panel where they did a general Q&A with the audience fielding questions like what did Kanon think how Vocaloid software would effect the music industry.  Even though it was audience questions  I wish the questions were per-screened a little just so the the guest’s wouldn’t confused with the translation.  Afterwards the pair hosted an Elegant Lolita tea party where anyone dressed in Lolita Fashion could attend.  This took place in a small suite in the hotel and we were only able to take a couple of photos in order not to intrude too long.

Kanon and Takamasa Sakurai

Lolita Tea party setup

As always Saturday night always take a chunk out of our schedule to wait in line for the masquerade.  The line was extremely long.  I got far back and took a photo(below) to show the length of the line.  It was 4 piles deep.  The problem with the venue is that there is no indoor waiting space if the main events space is being used.  This years masquerade line problem was a compound problem.  Vic Mignogna’s panel using the main events space was  over by an hour and right afterwards sadly, the Production I.G. Panel was right after it.  While it was a great idea to bring in an anime producer heavyweight to the con like Production I.G. it wasn’t the best idea to stick them right after popular panel and during the time everyone needed to start lining up for the masquerade.  The crowd for that panel was minuscule.   We couldn’t even stick around for the panel in order to wait for the masquerade.

Masquarade line

So after the two hours of waiting everyone piled into the masquerade for short show.   We took photos of all the groups which is in our photo side. There were only 10 groups that showed up to perform.  They also had another performance Saturday night by Yu Kimura after the masquerade groups performed.   This however we were not aware of it until hours before the event when we were able to talk to AnimeNEXT’s press liaison.   Nobody else seemed to know of any information that she was singing.  Pre-con we knew she was showing up but other information was scarce.  She had a fun performance keeping everything upbeat.

Yu Kimura

And finally our favorite fan event.  Its not even an official AnimeNEXT event.  Pokemon VS Digimon Soccer made another appearance this year.  Much more organized, a little less costume and much more action.

Pokemon VS Digimon soccer

For AnimeNEXT’s 10th anniversary, even though they had a ton of guests foreign and domestic, they really lacked advertisement of when guests would appear before the convention began.  It would of been really nice to know ahead of time when featured guests were going to be performing or what panels they would be doing days ahead.  So it could of felt better knowing what you are going to miss rather finding out later what you did miss.  The other issue that’s hard to overcome is the location still.  Only in good weather is it good enough for a convention of this size, but then again being from the area we don’t know where AnimeNEXT could even be held at other than the current location.  Hopefully next year they’ll continue to work out the issues and make their 11th year what the 10th had the real potential to be.   We also should be at their next schedule event MangaNEXT in February.  See you there!

The Steampunk World’s Fair was jam packed with musical events, dancing performances and fantastic costumes.

Music played pretty much all day.  The main event room constantly had a band or singer performing in it.  There was also a smaller room that usually had a secondary band playing in it as well.  The crowds really got into the musical acts; sometimes we’d glance into the main event room and see a crowd of steampunkers jumping and dancing with strobe lights flashing all around them.

SPWF's High Noon Gentlemen’s Duel

But there was more than just music on hand.  Literature was also a big presence.  We were really impressed that fair had multiple authors on site, some of whom are pretty well-known.  The authors could be a little pushy when it came to selling their books, but the panels where they talked writing and books and steampunk were fascinating.  These felt more like chats with friends than actual panels.  Other workshops included activities such as the art of Bartitsu fighting.  What else was interesting about this convention was that there were so many impromptu events.  We weren’t sure if they were part of the schedule or just someone getting a group together outside.

Of course, steampunk technology and fashion was the main event all weekend.  Some of the costumes people showed up in were truly impressive.  The vendors’ tables were more like art exhibits than shops, it seemed.

A Band playing in the entrance of the hotel.

One of the coolest events was the costume contest on Saturday afternoon.  Unlike an anime convention, the costumers didn’t just stand up there and strut their stuff.  Every single one also had a fantastic story to go along with their costume.  It was honestly the most entertaining costume costume we’ve ever seen at a convention.

If there was a downside, it was that the Crowne Plaza hotel was way too small for the event.  We’re counting on them to find a larger venue next year.

Bartitsu workshop

——-

In that same weekend on Sunday we also dropped by Japan Day in Central Park.

May 20, 2011

Japan Day moved to a different part of Central Park as the old location in the park was under restoration this year.

The event scaled back this year because the venue was smaller and split up.  The Japan Day run tied in with the event was also held on earlier day of the month so the event lacked that whole crowd.

The entertainment was pretty bland.  It was really down to a choice between sitting in bleachers or walking around the booths in a separate section.  You couldn’t do both quickly because of the security and layout of the event.  We’re looking forward to going back to the old venue last year and having more to do (fingers crossed).

During this year’s Sakura Matsuri the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.  The event itself was scaled back a little on the pop culture side.  There were fewer cosplayers and the crowd was smaller in regards to anything costume wise.

BBG Parasol Society Promenade

Other than Japanese cultural events which remained at full force, there was a cosplay runway show on Sunday and a Lolita parasol meet on Saturday we showed up to.

Cosplay Fashion Show

Not much else to say about the event other than the photos we took.  In the Gallery.

While conpics.ws didn’t attend I-con 30 as press, we did still manage to go get some photos of cosplayers (See these in the photo gallery).

I-Con has evolved into a multi-fandom convention.  In its 30th year, I-Con kept with its tradition of not being cheap.  But for a small con they definitely put all that money to good use in getting prominent guests.   They did have decent programming this year, though.   They had a mix of almost everything we would say.  Sci-fi, steampunk, fantasy fans and even furries had panels.  They even had practical panels with actual science involved as you can see the banner at the top has a Quad rotor remote control helicopter.  And below is someone converting their car into a mini-Ecto-1.

Who you going to call?

Costume wise there were a lot of good costumes and we attended the cosplay show at night.  But it really suffered this year, but maybe that was due to other conventions being so close and the bad weather.  A lot of groups just didn’t show up, though.  There were only a few people this year in the costume contest and only two performances.  The host of the show was a longtime attendee who dressed up in a penguin suit.  He made a plea for  everyone in the audience to consider participating in next year’s show.   And in all the only downside to just about every I-con is the weather.  It started to drizzle in the afternoon and at night it poured, keeping people stuck inside. We hope everyone listened and next year will be better!

The Stevens anime club keeps improving on their previous year’s work.  For this year’s iteration of the Castle Point Anime Convention, they were able to secure more space. And that’s never a bad thing.

As we took the PATH train this year, we were able to see the advertisements on the walls for the convention.  More people came and there was a lot more space allotted to the convention for activities.  The artist alley and dealers room were moved out of the old gym and into an even larger space in a different gym.  They used the old gym to run a cosplay chess match during the day and set it up for a dance at night.  The only downside in terms of room placement was that they moved the main events room to another building that was out of the way.  Even if it did hold more people, it didn’t seem to attract that many.

Even with that, we will continue to attend these sorts of small conventions.  What’s great about small cons like CPAC is that people are able to run panels for the first time and grow from there.  The downside of small conventions is that if people don’t step up to participate the convention will suffer.

The masquerade was the prime example of this.  We missed the masquerade completely because we were maybe a half hour late.  Not only that, they just ran the costume parade right afterward instead of keeping it on schedule, so we missed at least half of that as well.  From what we were told by people in the audience, there were only a few participants in the masquerade.   Hopefully next year more people will participate in running panels and events at the convention to help it grow in content rather than just size.

This year we were only able to attend Zenkaikon for part of Saturday so this report will be very brief.

Zenkaikon skipped 2010 and moved from the late fall to the early spring season.  The major change this time around was that they expanded to a three day convention.  They moved from the hotel space they used last year and got more space at the Valley Forge Convention Center.

We have to say: this was a big improvement.  The available facilities were much better this year.  They had concessions that could handle the crowds.

One of the main draws to Zenkaikon this time around was popular voice actor Vic Mignogna.  He must have drawn half of the convention’s attendees during his panel.  And his marathon autograph session right after took a few hours to complete.  The photo in the headline above is part of the line just to meet Vic.  Find more photos in the gallery.

Side note: being from outside of the Philadephia area and without a car was not a fun experience.  We tried public transportation and private van service.  Getting from Philadephia’s 30th Street Station took about an hour by bus.  We attempted to use the van service that has a contract with hotel/convention center.   It wasn’t cheap but we found that the public bus service to the area’s just not frequent enough.