I WENT TO THE ANIME EXPO IN NEW YORK TODAY AND IT KICKED ASS

Squall3X · Post by **Squall3X** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 7:35 pm

hey fellow anime lovers. I went to the anime expo today in ny. (the axny) and let me tell you it was awsome! I came up close and personal with anime stars like Shinichiro Watanabe, Toshihiro Kawamoto and Yoko Kanno! It was amazing! And i bought alot of cool shit at the crowded-as-hell- merchandise place. I saw the coolest costumes too. There was a guy dressed up as squall, a girl as rinoa, 2 lulu's from ff10 (

they were both hot), 2 Vash the stampede's, TOO MANY WOLFWOODS (with too many fricken giant crosses all over the place) a chun-li, a guy as Thun from final fantasy Unlimited aka Kouru Kaze in the Japanese version, and a lot more crazy stuff. It was awsome and I suggest that for those who didn't go, you go either on sunday or monday. It's so awsome. for more info, go to www.axny.com .

Cailet730 · Post by **Cailet730** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 9:08 pm

Hehe, I had fun too. I just wrote tons about it in my journal, too lazy to add more here ^_^

And I don't know why people dress up as Wolfwood. Who wants to be bothered lugging a huge cross all over the place?

Cailet730 · Post by **Cailet730** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 9:28 am

Sooooooo....did anyone go to the AMV contest at AXNY last night and care to report?

MeriC · Post by **MeriC** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 12:33 pm

Cailet730 wrote:Sooooooo....did anyone go to the AMV contest at AXNY last night and care to report?

.......... heh heh heh heh.............

Let's just say, it met my expectations I held based on what I heard about the original AX in LA. Take that as you will. (then again, I only stayed for 1/3 of the contest, so I wouldn't have much to report about). I'll write more laters, though.

Scott A Melzer · Post by **Scott A Melzer** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 3:57 am

I just got back from AXNY a few hours ago...
I thought it was an okay con. Didn't get to all of it.

Over all the panels were awesome. The Bebop panel was way cool, even though it was just people asking questions. The few other panels I got to see were great as well. Funimation gave away DVDs and showed a copy of their dub of the first episode of Fruits Basket (which I definately want to see now: It's great!).

I was rather disppointed with the AMV contest. First off Started about 1:15 late (supposed to start at 8:00, but they let us in after 9 and it didn't start right away). I was particularly upset because I had tickets to see the Cowboy Bebop Movie with friends at 11:00, and they left at 10:00 to get the tickets (they had them reserved). I had submitted two videos and certainly wanted to see how they would be received.

One of the reasons that the AMV contest started late is that they split the contest up into the two main ballrooms (and maybe more rooms, I'm not sure) and simulcast them into the other rooms. This took some rewiring and doing. It was very nice that they reserved the front two rows for creators and judges. I felt very special as I was led down to the front (even though it was kind of a small room, by comparison), but then I found that there were only about four other creators there. Maybe some were in the other room? The whole thing of giving tickets out seemed grossly unnecessary as there was a lot of space left after they filed everyone into the two (or more?) rooms.

To keep people calm (as I meantioned, Megazone was pretty cool and handled the self-deprecating humor rather well) they played a couple of videos. The first was Aluminum Studio's "Try" followed by Kevin Caldwell's "The Phantom of the Opera." They were both received quite well, but it was EXTREMELY unfortunate that one of the drama videos ALSO used "Phantom" (different version though). Who wants to be compared to Kevin? I thought that was a bad decision, but it was probably an accident.

The big problem was that they didn't make a compilation tape of all the entries. They turned on the lights and swapped tapes between each video. Now, admittedly the guy who ran the contest was a really nice guy (name of "Megazone") but I just found this to be incredibly distracting and time consuming. Plus, we had to wait for everyone's 30 seconds of black (usually a good idea) and the inevitable "Video Calibration" flash on the screen. Usually, that option CAN be shut off! Another thing was the decision of the order of videos. If you submitted multiple videos (in the same category) then you got shown next to your own work. One poor girl had the first three videos at the show. She sat next to me and left in tears. I didn't think that it was THAT bad but she seemed to feel extremely embarassed and rushed out of the room after the vids were over. It was curious that both of my videos were the last ones shown in their respective categories. I'm assuming, then, that mine were received last and they actually showed the videos in the order in which they were received instead of trying to spread them out.

Any way, the first of my videos played at 10:21, and I couldn't wait for the second one, 'cause I was already late to the movie. I was really upset, 'cause this was really the first time that video has been shown in public and I really wanted to see the reaction. *sigh*

I was disappointed at the lack of fan video works, but I did EXPECT this. No AMV panel, no fan parodies (I was told a flat "no" when I had asked months ago if they would show ours). There were panels on cosplaying, how to write fanfics and design a fan website, but over all there was a definate lack of fan based programming, which is usually what I look forward to.

I left around 11:00pm Sunday night (the con ran from Saturday to Monday, 'cause o' Labor Day) and don't know what happened afterwards. I skipped the Cosplay on account of not being able to hold back the anger/tears when crowds start chanting "Chair!" but it looked like it might have been good since the people coming out seemed to be in a good mood. Instead I caught up on a LOT of anime watching this weekend. I have almost all of it (very little was new, but there were a few premiers, albeit for disks coming out within the next month or so) but I haven't watched it, so it was cool. I actually didn't have a hotel room Saturday night (and couldn't find anyone who would share one with me...

) so I just stayed away and watched anime in the 24 hour video rooms. And passed out for 1/2 hour at a time incriments all day Sunday...

All in all it was... okay. Much of my downside was due to having no friends around on Sunday, so it was kind of depressing. But seeing Bebop in the theatre was really awesome. The Dub's really great, too, and I could appreciate the graphics a lot more than the one time I saw it with a huge fever at four in the morning at NekoCon last year. Also, the Virgin Megastore was having a $10 sale, so I bought a bunch of CDs.

Speaking of which, I really didn't like the Dealers' Room. It was kind of small (for a con that size) and I found several dealers selling bootlegs. One guy didn't know that "Ever Anime" was a bootleg company, like Son May. Sure, some people don't care, but I despise bootleggers as people who make money by leeching off of others.

The day that I find a copy of "This Is Otakudom" for sale at Pandora's Cube is the day that I probably get sent to jail for a looooong time...

Hope everyone else had fun. Anyone know who won? I'm rooting for the "Big O" vid in Drama myself...

jbone · Post by **jbone** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 11:43 am

I posted the winners of the contest under "AMV Contests."

The costume masquerade was a complete letdown. It was given a 4-hour block, and little else was going on at the same time, so it was basically all there was to see frm 8pm on. There were 52 entries, but a good 75% of those were just someone walking onto the stage, showing their costume, and walking off - there were only about a dozen or so actual sketches, and apparently nobody had explained to the contestants that microphones are to be spoken into, and are not simply stage ornamentation. So, by about 10pm, the masquerade was over. Judges were deciding on the winner, and in the meanwhile they played the AMV contest winners, as well as a couple of other random videos.

I didn't hang around long enough to see who won the Masquerade.

kiddingchris · Post by **kiddingchris** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 10:16 pm

i went there, i kissed most of the movies etc. and the only things they had there were a few dubs, and i wasnt too interested, i really wanted to see the dub for knocking on heavens door, and escaflowne 9too bad those were friday). also, there werent any people dressed up in terms of cosplay, but thats because the masquarede thingie was earlier (friday, or something), but this one guy came dressed up as sephiroth, only to find that it was earlier (poor guy, it was a good outfit too, sword and all).

jbone · Post by **jbone** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 10:28 pm

The masquerade was Sinday night.

thewhacker · Post by **thewhacker** » Tue Sep 03, 2002 1:22 pm

I forgot to go and i had no more money to buy tckets to AXNY ahhh fucking ebay is to blame. anyway on saturday i was walking by there and saw anime nerds like ourselves and then i went to virgin records and there was a line for autographs there was this hot chick and some guys signing and there were cowboy bebop posters all ver the place WTF what is this ahhhh damn and when i got on the line some japanese girl says no more autographs ahhhh im so pissssed. WHAT WAS GOING ON SOMEONE PLEAZ EXPLAIN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Miki · Post by **Miki** » Fri Sep 06, 2002 5:14 pm

thewhacker wrote:I forgot to go and i had no more money to buy tckets to AXNY ahhh fucking ebay is to blame. anyway on saturday i was walking by there and saw anime nerds like ourselves and then i went to virgin records and there was a line for autographs there was this hot chick and some guys signing and there were cowboy bebop posters all ver the place WTF what is this ahhhh damn and when i got on the line some japanese girl says no more autographs ahhhh im so pissssed. WHAT WAS GOING ON SOMEONE PLEAZ EXPLAIN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

What you walked in on was the autograph session for Watanabe, Kawamoto, and Yoko Kanno, that was open to the public, held by baaf.. The session was suppose to open at 5pm, but had a late start.. I was in the last group to go through for the signing, they tried to cut it off right in frount of me after waiting a few hours.. I quickly pointed out that we drove 16 hours to get there for that event.. and was let through. They really should of had more time for signing since they started late..