O.K. I’m pretty much beat from walking all over on Friday. Coming back on the train home, then BACK to Penn Station will be the testing of my nerves. Maybe it’s a good test before I eventually land a job in the city. Maybe not. As stated before, I went with a little different approach in taking pictures this time. I got myself a a bunch of cards…and sometimes I forgot to hand them out! Ouch! I’ll learn from that mistake on Saturday. Much of the attendance on Friday, as expected was sparse. The Bandai and Funimation panels for the most part were business as usual, BUT they have a “secret screening” on Sat and Sun. What it will be I don’t really know. The Maid Cafe did not impress me very much. I felt that too many of the “maids” were congregating and talking to each other rather than “entertain” the guests. I guess many of those cosplayers will never experience what a REAL maid cafe is like in Japan (and I never may either).

This con is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Most of the lower floor of the Javits is taken for…and that’s that. DigitalLife, the consumer electronics expo was expected to take the big hall on the ground floor, but that was canned due to “economic factors”. So far, the VIP experience has gotten me a free t-shirt, admittance into the mcchris concert and nothing much else. Tommorow, it will probably be much more of a use for me with the bigger Saturday crowds.

Bye for now, I need sleep. P.S. This girl who cosplayed as Nanaka from “Nanaka 6/17″ is the bestest cosplayer…ever. Because she dressed up as a character from the greatest Anime of our time!

EPIC WIN.

Check out all my pics so far.

Tomorrow, Anime and Manga fans will take over mid-town Manhattan for the 2nd annual New York Anime Festival. I’ve never been to one of these before, so I don’t know what’s in store for me. Thanks to a twist of fate on a late Monday night, I scored VIP passes which will allow me to skip EVERY line for EVERY panel except for all but one autograph session (Rie Tanaka). Considering this is NYC and a LOT of people potentially are within a stone’s throw by mass transit (LIRR, Metro North, Path, Amtrak, Grayhound, etc), I expect a lot of people to show up. Certainly not in the numbers as Otakon, but maybe AnimeNEXT numbers.

As I did with the Otakon schedule, I went over the NYAF schedule of events and picked out some panels that I might be attending. Today I’m going over Friday’s slate of events. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m really getting sick of going to industry panels. For the most part, they don’t reveal much actual news lately and most of the people who ask questions there are so uniformed about what is being released. Still, that won’t stop me from attending them since I got a lot of swag from them. The NYAF schedule is available in grid form for each day. You can also look at the panels, screenings, autographing, concerts and other special events going on throughout the city over the weekend.

Friday September 26

Bandai 1:30-2:30p (Anime Panel Room) They say that new stuff for ‘09 will be announced. If I can to this on time after me and my friend take a diversion to Image Anime, I’ll be here.

Anime Journalism 1:45-2:45p (Manga Panel Room) Anime News Network is hosting this. While I’m not fond of the much of the viewpoints of the editorial staff, you have to say that no one does it like ANN when they cover news pertaining to Anime and Manga.

Funimation 2:45-3:45p (Anime Panel Room) After getting all that was left of Geneon’s corpse and sucking the life out of ADV like a Vampire, what is next for the house that DragonBall Z built? (Hopefully, NO MORE DBZ Blu-Ray!).

Saber Academy 7-8p (Akihabara Stage) NY Jedi will perform on the stage. There was an episode of Rocketboom a year or two back that showcased these guys. Think of people fighting with those fiberglass lightsabers. Yeah, kind of neat and nerdy at the same time.

mc chris 8:30-10p (Anime News Network Theatre) The only reason why I’m showing up to this event is because it’s included in my VIP package. For those not in the know, this is a “nerdcore” rapper. You might have noticed him while watching “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”.

With Jedi, nerdcore rappers and Morimoto from Iron Chef coming down to this event, is this really related at all to anime and manga? I shouldn’t be too noisy about it since many other Anime cons invite folks who have little or any connections to the world of Anime or Manga.

Coming up September 26-28 (That’s this weekend), the 2nd annual New York Anime Festival will be held at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC. As I am a local in the Tri-State area (Long Island to be exact), this will be the first time I’m going to my “local” con. No, I-CON is lame and so is it’s Anime track and AnimeNEXT is moving to Central Jersey next year, which makes it a bit harder for me to get to. The con is run by Reed Exhibitions, the same folks that run New York ComicCon and the first ever East Coast Penny Arcade Expo coming to Boston in 2010. With unlike non-profit cons like Otakon, this one is driven by pure profit and they have the VIP packages to prove it. Me and my friend picked up the Rie Tanaka VIP package, which will ensure us a ticket to the autograph session held on Sunday. Rie Tanaka is the Japanese voice actress who is best known for doing “Chii” in “Chobits”, a favorite of mine. In addition to that perk, I get to cut every line for every panel, sans the other autographs sessions. (The complete VIP package which gives you access to EVERYTHING is sold out). Continue reading →