Reisen Goes to School by Bus: AnimeNEXT

Summer's here which means the con season is about to start. What better way to start of the season than the 10th anniversary of AnimeNEXT in Somerset, New Jersey. This mid sized convention was held in the Garden State Exhibit Center and the nearby Double Tree and Holiday Inn hotels. This year the convention grew even bigger in size with crowds beginning to choke the convention even on a Friday. Despite the crowding, I've been pleased with the panel line-up, the constant presence of staff, and the overall atmosphere of everyone there.

Damn those trees!

First Impressions.

This is my 3rd time at AnimeNEXT and not much has changed since last year. Coming in on Friday I noticed that there were quite a bit more people than usual. Picked up my badge pretty quickly and had plenty of time before the first set of panels. Usually Fridays are more laid back, but this year almost every good panel was scheduled on Friday and felt like I had fun non-stop the entire day. Lining up for popular panels seems to have become a norm at animenext.

This is justice!

Panels and Guests.

Although AnimeNEXT is only mid-sized con, it is able to attract some big names in the Japanese anime industry. Studio I.G.'s animator, Satoru Nakamura, and episode director, Koudai Kakimoto, were the guests of honor this year around which was quite awesome as they are responsible for working on Moribito and Eden of the East. There were no big name musical guests this year which was somewhat disappointing but the ones that were featured were still very cool.

I attended many panels which were mostly hosted either by the Reverse Thieves, Anigamers, or Charles Dunbar who run many high quality panels. Whenever you see their panels listed in the con guide, make sure you attend them. I've noticed that panels were not scheduled until after 11 AM which is pretty good for most people. But there were still some problems with panel rooms being too small for popular panels. In addition, they put panels in workshop rooms that had no projectors which caused problems to panelists that depended on powerpoint for their presentation. I noticed that AnimeNEXT seemed to have a shortage of panels, with a few of them being programmed for all three days to fill in time. If you have a great idea for a panel, now would be a great time to think about submitting it for next year's AnimeNEXT.

@hisuiRT, @Poetic_Ink, and @VamptVo presenting a panel

Dealers Room, Artist Alley, etc.

Since the convention is in the same location, the dealer's room is the same size as it was, crowding near the entrance was somewhat of an issue but once you leave the area it was pretty smooth to navigate. The variety of dealers wasn't as good as last year mainly due to the fact that AnimeNEXT was scheduled at the same time as another bigger convention. There were noticeably more booths for guests and such than before and Funimation, who's usually at AnimeNEXT, was completely absent.

They located the artist alley in a completely different place than last year. Last year the artist alley was in the double tree hotel. This year they moved it to right across the dealer's room next to the main events stage. This was a good decision as it enlarged the artist alley and allowed for more walking space.

Once again, the anime screenings and the video games were in the training center and the holiday inn hotel as last year. Unfortunately, this will always be the issue of the venue. Fortunately, I was not troubled by the detachment of screenings and video games as I never really had time to check them out.

I scored her at the con. She now protects my anime.

Closing words.

In short, AnimeNEXT continues to be one of the best anime conventions to attend in the North East US. This year, there was a significant increase in attendance and the convention will continue to grow. Although the convention will still take place in the same venue next year, I can foresee AnimeNEXT to outgrow the convention center and eventually move once more to a bigger venue. Hopefully, next year, the convention won't be scheduled on the same weekend as another bigger convention.

I realized I haven't updated my blog in a while. Been kind of busy with life in general and didn't put any time into blogging. Fortunately, the summer con season is upon us with AnimeNEXT and I took this opportunity to write up a con report. Enjoy!

Thursday: Day 0

Thankfully, AnimeNEXT had pre-registration pick up on Thursday as well as regular registration. Picking up the badge on Thursday alleviates anxiety from having to deal with missing out on panels or programming while you wait on-line to pick up the badges. The pickup went pretty smooth and it only took me about an hour of waiting in line. Already, people there were upbeat about the con and some actually cosplayed even though it wasn't a convention day.

Friday: Day 1

I wish more conventions would do this: Open the con at 9 AM, but schedule panels a few hours later in the day. AnimeNEXT did just that. This allows people who didn't pick up badges on Thursday to not worry about missing out on an interesting panel. By the time the first panel started, most people already had their badges. AnimeNEXT changed up the convention layout this year. There were 10 rooms in the Doubletree hotel dedicated to panels and workshops. Artist alley was enlarged, and video games moved to the Holiday Inn hotel in across the street. Once again the video screenings were in the training center.

@TheDigitalBug: Always impressed by #anx2010 variety in the dealer’s room.

@TheDigitalBug:…but no touhou in sight…

Panels, Panels, and more Panels...

The majority of the time at cons, I spend attending interesting (or so I hope) panels. Today was no exception. I started out my day by attending the "Rando Me!" panel. It was a fan panel about random gag anime such as Excel Saga and Cromartie High School. Other than that, there was nothing note worthy to say about this panel.

I was very impressed by the panel I attended next: The "Inside the Lives of Congoing Otaku" panel focused on a discussion about: What is to be a congoer. How do others view congoers? General behavior of congoers. What is the past, present, and possibly the future of conventions? The panelist predicted that conventions are going to continue to grow and that many more are going to show up. Concurrently, new small conventions will appear that specialize in a genre of anime or a very large series like Gundam.

“You don’t want to be glomped by a 400 lbs slave leah.”

AniGamers and Uncle Yo presented a panel on "Fandom & Criticism: The Art of Active Viewing" which discussed techniques on critiquing Anime, Manga, and Video Games. This was a very useful guide for bloggers and writers who spend a good amount of time reviewing an object of interest.

"FAN-WANKING"

As any convention, AnimeNEXT has opening ceremonies. Unlike other conventions, AnimeNEXT attempts to introduce the convention to the attendees with a humorous skit. This year, they did a silly awards ceremony which although wasn't of the best execution, managed to keep everyone in the seats at least amused.

The Japanese guest of honor for AnimeNEXT this year, besides the musical guests, was Kenji Kamiyama: A high profile director and screenplay writer of Production I.G. Some of the shows he worked on was Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Seirei no Moribito, Jin-Roh, and most recently, Eden of the East. A usual, a Questions and Answers panel took place and everyone had the opportunity to ask Mr. Kamiyama questions about him and/or his works. The crowd managed to ask him some very interesting questions and Mr. Kamiyama was very open with answering most questions.

This year, the musical guest was a mostly-girl band from Japan titled "Stereopony" who are responsible for a few songs that appeared in Bleach, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Darker than Black OAV, and Yatterman Movie. I was pleased by the fact that the concert ACTUALLY had standing space for a change as opposed to just seats. Stereopony's music is a colorful melodic rock and the crowd responded very lively. Their concert went very well despite the fact that press were hassled by the staff for taking pictures even though they're press!

I finished the day by attending a Hello! Project Idol Madness panel. Since I know very little about Hello! Project idols, I came mostly to see if I can learn more about this Japanese phenomenon. Even though I expected a discussion panel, it was mostly a game show that gauged your knowledge of Hello! Project idols....*sigh*.

Saturday: Day 2

@Thedigitalbug:

Crowd today is noticeably younger. #anx2010

I fired up my AnimeNEXT day with some Rock Band at the Holiday Inn hotel and checked out the video game rooms there. Basically, they took three rooms and took out the walls in between them. There was a large abundance of fighting games, only a little bit of first person shooters, some rhythm games and plenty of old school console games on SNES, Sega Genesis or Dreamcast. Rockband was in a room by itself as well as Dance Dance Revolution. As usual, there were plenty of tournaments going on throughout the whole weekend.

Just like any other anime convention, AnimeNEXT had anime screenings. But unlike most other conventions, the screenings were playing 24/7 and there were a total of 5 rooms just playing anime non-stop. Funimation also brought in Master of Martial Hearts to screen at AnimeNEXT so it was a good opportunity to get a preview of the whole show.

In attempt to master the art of spending money on a con, I attended the ConBudget panel which was loaded with tips and tricks for minimizing the expenditure of a convention trip such as how to travel, stay overnight, shop, etc. Following the ConBudget panel, I cought the better half of the Otaku: Through the Generations panel which featured more discussions on verious generations of Otaku.

Funimation was the only company that had an industry panel at AnimeNEXT. We had the opportunity to meet Josh, the new man that will be hosting most Funimation panels from now on since Adam Sheehan was promoted to a different position in the company. Unfortunately, Funimation had nothing new to announce at AnimeNEXT and so if you already saw the news from Anime Boston or Anime North, you pretty much knew everything that was going to be shown at the panel. Josh wasn't as lively as Adam, but once he gets the hang of his job, he'll get better.

A weathered veteran of the anime industry, Greg Aryes, mainly discussed the impact of piracy on the anime and manga industry as well as the recent scanlations shake-up. Greg Aryes has already talked in the past about how piracy and fansubs are ruining the anime industry hoping that his voice would at least inspire people to take a stand. He was questions whether his efforts are in vain or whether they actually cultivated fans to respect copyrighted works and perhaps stimulate the industry. He does not know, but I believe from what I seen, that his struggle did indeed sway fans toward a more legal approach to appreciating anime and manga.

Ever wondered why older anime has such different drawing style? How bishounen came to be? Evan Minto of AniGamers answered these questions and discussed the evolution of character design at The Changing Faces of Anime panel. He discussed all the styles that became building blocks for later styles in modern anime one time period at a time.

Uncle Yo provided an hour of nostalgia at the "As the Otaku Grows" panel where he discussed all the old shows and cartoons that most of us grew up with. As usual, the panel was filled with plenty of humor as well as revelations of cartoons that got away with some perverse stuff.

I wrapped up the day with a hentai panel...but unfortunately when I got out of a previous panel there was a long line of people waiting to get into a small room. Surely I wasn't going to get in, but I persevered and midway through the panel I was finally able to get in. The panel focused mainly on series that were not licensed (yet) . But they did show a good list of quality titles.

Sunday: Day 3

@hisuiRT: "Best" #anx2010 experience. Walking in on someone masturbating in the bathroom!

Sunday at three day conventions is always a day of relaxation. A day to cool down after two days of partying. For some people Sunday was the only day that they attended the con so the energy was still there. I didn't do much other than do some last bit of shopping and then sat in some interesting panels.

Every convention should have one of these: A panel on otaku by otaku for otaku. The discussion ranged from how otaku are potrayed by the media, how otaku are viewed by normals to what makes otaku tick.

I have not seen Legend of Galactic Heroes, but I was intrigued by it since I keep seeing and hearing people talking about it. So I took the plunge and watched the first movie of it along with fan commentary. Pretty good stuff.

Appearing for the second year, a Psychology and Anime by Charles Dunbar discusses philosophies in psychology and how they apply to anime and anime fandom. This was a very insightful and educational panel where we got to ponder the implications of how we perceive and interpret anime.

To close off, AnimeNEXT 2010 was a blast. Although a moderately sized con, AnimeNEXT is able to provide the congoers with plenty of things to do, and very interesting guests. Although there are still some issues that AnimeNEXT needs to iron out for future years, AnimeNEXT is going to continue to grow and bring quality entertainment for attendees for years to come. On a completely different note, here's my weekend spoils: