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NYCC/NYAF 2010: a con in review

Aired: October 21st, 2010



The New York Comic Con has been going on for 5 years while the New York Anime Festival has been running for 4. However, this year’s convention is really special with the combination of the two. On October 8-10, both conventions were held at the same time at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Unwilling to give anything up, the organizers strove to hold the same number of panels, invite the usual plethora of guests and have as many special events as possible for BOTH conventions.

Not just the panels and extensive Exhibition Hall, there were some pretty amazing announcements and premiere screenings that were held during the course of the weekend thanks to some extraordinary guests. Yoshiki of legendary X-Japan and Stan Lee announced their special collaboration project on Saturday night. Actually, anything with Stan the Man had rooms full of reporters and screaming fans. On the NYAF side of things, Vocaloid fans flock to hear the history behind their beloved blue haired idol straight from Representative Director Ito Hiroyuki-san. As for premieres, my favorite of the weekend would have to be the Gundam 00 the Movie: Awakening of the Trailblazer premiere on Sunday afternoon. This is only a small part of the guestlist and events of that weekend. Two times the conventions, if only we had longer hours….

Friday: October 8

My morning at the con started at 6am. Autograph tickets for singer Chihara Minori-san was given out at 7am. Of course, I wasn’t the only obsessed fan there….

Somewhat on schedule, they started opening the doors and handing out the tickets after 7am.

After breakfast, I headed to the Exhibition Hall which had professional hours starting from 10am. From that time until 1pm when they opened it up to all the attendees, it was the best time anyone could have gotten to check out the hall. As with all conventions, the hall was crowded throughout the weekend with tons of events going on at various booths.

The star attraction seem to be ‘Michael Jackson: The Experience’ at the Ubisoft booth with people dancing on the stage at all times. Complete with steam, lights and screens to teach you the moves, everyone was dancing to ‘Smooth Criminal’ and ‘Thriller’ among other hits.

The Aniplex and Bandai booth was nearby along with Funimation. All had events and signings going on at various times throughout the weekend. But what caught my eye was the other Bandai booth farther down that had a large collection of Gundam models.

The Square Enix booth had the new Kingdom Hearts: Re:coded game for playing. There were other games to try…but the KH one took my breath away. The FFXIV trailer was awesome as well.

The Archie booth had the re-release of a sold-out edition of Archie’s first homosexual character. The re-release features a ‘new’ cover with Veronica’s dress in red rather than white. The artist stepped up and announced that he was the one who did the coloring.

I think one of the most interesting events that Bandai/Aniplex did that weekend was their scavenger hunt to promote Durarara!!!. There was a list of things that we could do in order to receive the prize of 4 postcards. (The postcards are actually given…one type each day of the con with another given only at the Durarara!!! cosplay gathering at the booth.) The things we could do include certain types of photographs and texting, ‘Attn Dollars! Come to the Aniplex Booth #1605 at NYAF to promote Durarara!!’ The acparadise cosplayers assisted with the scavenger hunt with hilarious results.

The area in front of the Varient Stage features the comic related artist alley, Intel and small press.

There was also a Lego booth which had awesome sculptures.

As usual, we have a chalk drawing area with this year’s subject being Toonzai, featuring Yu-gi-oh! and crew.

I made it for the second half of Cristina Vee’s ‘Afterschool Tea Time Band’ K-on! concert. Of course, they sang the OP and ED among some others. Stephanie Sheh (Yui) was also singing…proving once again that English voice actors can actually sing character songs well.

Panel-athon

My first panel of the day was the Minori Chihara Spotlight panel. As the seiyuu of the convention, Bandai had tons of events and The Melancholoy of Suzumiya Haruhi promotions that surrounded Chihara-san. After the panel, I headed to her autograph session.

Due to the signing, I arrived in the middle of the VAMPS panel. The panel following that was the Aniplex Industry Panel.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

The final panel of the first day was the Haruhi movie. The panel was obviously filled as I entered. It’s unfortunate that the screen was placed at the left side of the room…with the giant pillar near the right blocking most views. I sat on the left side, but truly, this room wasn’t the best for the screening. (Though it was used again for the Gundam 00 movie screening on Sunday.)

Cristina Vee appeared as Haruhi from the ASOS Brigade and she introduced Stephanie Sheh (Mikuru) and Chihara Minori (Yuki.)


Cristina warns everyone to not record the movie…. *turns off the audio device* ^.^

The movie was awesome. It came out near the end of last year…which is why the premise of the movie was about Christmas. It began like any other Haruhi episode, but once the movie plot kicked in, things started changing. Everything was closely interwoven into Haruhi’s past…and how everything fit into Kyon’s realization of things. He is faced with his own Shinji-like decision…of whether he is pleased with the way his life is…or he is not. Some of those scenes where Kyon is deep in thought is very much like the Eva moments when Shinji is beside himself in the train car…but let’s not get too into that. ^^; The movie goes deep into the backgrounds of Yuki and Kyon…making them very much the main characters, but saying too much about that will give away too much of the movie.

Someone who doesn’t know the series deeply may be able to understand what is going on anyway. The characters are easily explained. Just that they won’t notice the little antics and hints that are shown. Overall, a perfect movie for the series.

Saturday, October 9

The convention opened on Saturday morning with the news that the Saturday/Weekend badges were no longer being sold. The organizers noted later on that if they had known about the sheer number of people that were there on saturday, they would have cut the ticket sales earlier. That is a pretty bold statement to note since the convention is an industry convention rather than a fan based convention like Otakon.

I looked around the Exhibition Hall before heading to my first panel….

Fun with panels!

I attended the Bandai Industry Panel which had some exciting announcements to make. After the panel, I checked out the ‘maid cafe’…and discovered much of the same as previous years with a few additions: the stage. The same as before included the maid and butlers not being able to serve food…but become more like the entertainment rather then one-on-one interaction with the guests. It’s unfortunate that the essential details of Japanese maid cafes could not be done during a convention as initially hoped. The stage was utilized for most of the ‘events’ that I saw. They played games on stage and read aloud…I’m not really sure what I was hearing. Romance novels? Fanfiction? Whatever it was, it seem like they took turns during that session. I only saw one or two butlers as well.

After the mini break, I headed to the Voice Actors: East Meets West panel. It truly was amazing to have soooo many voice actors in the room, all asking each other questions. It definitely became one of my favorite VA panels.

autographs-athon

As one of my few Comic Con related events, I wanted to meet Cary Elwes, the man behind ‘Men in Tights’ as well as ‘The Princess Bride’. I discovered the Cary Elwes line quite easily…since it spanned the room. He wasn’t the only one signing as he was there as part of the cast for ‘Saw’.

Afterwards, I headed to the Bandai booth where the creator and Executive Director of Bones, Minami Masahiko-san was signing.

My last signing of the day was the Black Butler signing at the Funimation booth. Ian Sinclair, the director and voice of Bardroy was there along with the voice of Sebastian, J. Michael Tatum.

One major event after another….

Being that it was a Yoshiki AND Stan Lee announcement panel, although I arrived an hour and half in advance, there was already a line forming. (I know that 1.5 hours isn’t that early. ^_^) Since Yoshiki-san was in attendence, there were tons of Japanese attendees, many at the front of the line (with flowers.) It’s amazing the kind of dedication and devotion these fans have for the idols they love.

Chihara Minori live

I arrived at the IGN theater, the location of the Masquerade and concert in the middle of ‘Junpaku Sanctuary’…which is awesome timing since it’s one of my fav song of hers. Her setlist was:

I love her outfit. Blue, with slit sleeves, flowing fabric and awesome boots. Her dancing is smooth and nothing too strenuous since this was a live and she needed to sing. Even without a live band, her solo singing had so much energy that the crowd couldn’t help but sing along, waving glow sticks and dancing. Throughout the concert, she spoke in English. There was a script in hand of course, but I applaud her courage. The last song of ‘Hare Hare Yukai’ had Cristina and another girl dancing to the left and right of her. Of course, everyone else was dancing as well.

NYAF masquerade

Sakurai Takamasa (guest and one of the judges as well I believe,) talked about the crossing over cultures with cosplay. Pretty amazing opening speech. ^_^ Uncle Yo (who is mcing as usual) started the masquerade with one of his usual speeches.

Overall, I must say that the skits were a bit weak. There weren’t any truly bad acts but there were only a few that I felt was very good. To mix things up, they mixed the the skits and the walkons which made for some interesting moments. The walk ons had some impressive costuming. The winners for the masquerade were blatantly clear. (I kinda blame it on the WCS perliminaries not being held here anymore…but then again, it could also be because many of the good cosplayers are attending NYCC events.)

The Legend of Zelda skit ‘Unintended Cosplay’ which was hilarious and won the Yume Cup (trip to Japan) was the very first one and held a big impression on everyone. It was one of the few skits with an actual story/singing that was funny. A personal favorite was the Clover one which won Runner Up Craftsmanship, though I’m totally biased being a Clover and CLAMP fan…but can you blame me? Not to mention, lights on clothing! (Now, all awesome cosplays will feature LED lights. XD) I also really enjoyed the Saiunkoku Monogatari dance that won Yume Runner up which featured beautiful costuming and dance. Also the OP song featured in the skit is a fav of mine. For good solo acts, the dancing Mario won Audience Favorite #1. He is awesome with street dancing. The only way he can be more awesome is if he breakdanced. But the fact that he did everything else is pretty cool. Great one man show.

For the walkons, I thought the Venom Spiderman was pretty cool…his head was extremely well done. But of course, the best had to be the winner, Steampunk Ironman which lit up and was simply amazing.

Mario Bueno cosplayer/singer performed during the masquerade. He sang ‘World End’ from Code Geass and then surprised everyone with…’It’s Morphin Time!’. O.o For the exhibition skit, Mario was the star in ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. Comic Con’. His exhibition skits are always amazing, incorporating the screens to go with the action on stage. The singing at the end was totally awesome of course. BTW, he had official martial art choreography for this skit which was smooth and well done.

Sunday: October 10

I headed to the Bandai/Aniplex booth for the Haruhi autograph signing with Stephanie Sheh and discovered that The ASOS Brigade aka. Cristina Vee and Mikuru was there singing. Of course, they ended with ‘Hare Hare Yukai’.

Ms. Sheh was delayed but the others started signing posters as the famed ASOS Brigade.

Stephanie arrived within a half hour and joined the signing.

‘Yes, My Lord.’

After looking around the Exhibition Hall one last time, I went to the Black Butler Screening and Panel. The line for the panel was looooong and the fans were singing ‘I’m Alive’, the ED to the first series. It was worth the wait as the screening and Q&A was hilarious.

Gundam 00: The Awakening of the Trailblazer

I mentioned to people prior to the convention that no matter what, I wasn’t going to miss this movie. Even if a Yoshiki panel was during the same time, this movie takes priorty over everything else. It’s being shown in Japan currently, and for us to see it now and so soon…is beyond amazing. And it’s subtitled too! I couldn’t ask for much more.

The screening started with Sakurai-san greeting us. I don’t remember what he said (being too excited) but it’s awesome that he came to speak with us. They show the special video message by director Mizushima-san. The one thing I remember very clearly from his message is that he gave a ‘warning’ to everyone near the front since the effects will be very intense.

In The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, I mentioned that those who are new to the series can probably pick that movie up anyway…but not Gundam 00. Too much character info and plot is lost since they are tied into the series so closely. The fight scenes were amazing as all Gundam films. The ones in mecha, hand to hand combat…or just Allelujah running about…! I love the choreography. It was unfortunate that although all the characters (who are still alive) make a comeback in the movie, their presence is not as strong as the Gundam Meisters and their crew.

Though I was mesmerized by the amazing fights, the dialogue was beautiful as well. Lots of what was said and left unspoken…. And the animation was of course breathless. For a Gundam movie, it went from realistic to totally spiritual in no time at all. I didn’t hate it and surprisingly, the hardcore Gundam fans didn’t seem to mind either. They were totally thrilled with it at the end. I guess people suspected that since the series became more and more vague near the end of the second season.

The ending of the tv series, the SD preview shorts all gave hints to the movie itself. The biggest spoiler would probably be in the ending sequence for the last song, ‘Trust You’. Already, things from the ending of the tv series was featured in that song…and the last scene of the song….

People have asked if this is my favorite Gundam movie. Right off the bat, I can’t even say it is. It stands on a level all its own. Endless Waltz was waaaaay more realistic, but although it’s from the same franchise, I can’t even compare them. I love the movie for itself. It’s amazing…but amazing doesn’t even begin to describe it. There are many reasons to dislike the movie…since there are elements that deter people from it. In all honesty, if people disliked the direction the tv series was taking at the end…then the movie is definitely not for them. The movie reveals all the elements hinted at in the series and blows it out of the water. Surprising, shock, amazement was the result.

Prior to the screening, we were told that the movie is super long…and that yes, there will be an extra scene after the credits. (Not giving a spoiler, but a warning in case people may leave early.) The Bandai staff WANTED us to wait and see the end. They also PROMISED that they will let us watch until the end. When the credits roll…indeed people have forgotten the message (or just wanted to leave,) and the con staff was ordering people out. We (the dedicated fans that we were) stayed in our seats, yelling out for them to fast forward the credits because we were determined to NOT leave until we see the scene.

Eventually, we got our way and saw the amazing last scene which was a wonderful conclusion to the convention.

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