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Anime Next 2009 Final Report

Posted by Kaitou Ace in Conventions June 22, 2009 at 12:56:40 PM

Anime Next 2009 Cosplay Gallery

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Anime Next is one of the 10 largest anime cons in the USA, with just under 10,000 people in attendance. Its a New Jersey convention, that takes place in early to mid June. Having been the primary NY area convention for a few years, ANext is getting some competition from the NY Anime Festival for the last two years. Fortunately the two cons are spaced far enough apart that it is fairly easy to attend the both of them.

This marks Anime Nexts' first year at their new location, the Garden State Exhibit Center, in Somerset, NJ. This puts them a bit further out from NYC then they used to be, but still not prohibitively so, and attendance seems to have stayed pretty strong.

While the dealers room and the main events hall were in the exhibit center, the video rooms, the artists alley and the video gaming were in the Double Tree Hotel. The hotel, a few minutes walk from the center, does have a covered walkway, something which became quite integral when it rained on Saturday, as few costumes are weatherproof enough to survive a rainstorm.

One area in which the con has greatly improved is the video gaming room. Where in recent years the game room was impossible to enter due to the amount of people in it, this year they had separate rooms for classic, console and popular games.

My main gripe with the con is still their main events hall, constructed out of steel pipe and cloth, and taking up half of the main exhibit hall area. The problem with this is that any skit with spoken word becomes very hard to understand due to the echo effect of the large area.

The dealers room seemed larger then in past years, but of course not the size that it is at cons such as Otakon. The variety was pretty standard, with a lot of the dealers that I'm used to seeing at these cons. Gashapon sets, PVC models, and assorted items of clothing embroidered with anime characters abound. The selection is pretty good, but I will admit to not having bought anything here except for one more pin to add to my hat.

Cosplay was as strong as usual, and there were a lot of great outfits. The colorful cosplay along with the outdoor areas of the con made for a very picturesque setting. Seeing TF2 cosplayers running seemingly playing a match was quite a sight. Anime Next tends to have a lot of strong cosplayers, and this was no exception. I have to say that don't envy the judges for any of the costume competitions.

Masquerade

The masquerade was solid. There were a few very good skits, the XXXHolic puppet skit, the Bleach arrancar dance skit, and of course the winning Utena skit. There were a couple of other good skits, but most of the others fell flat, either because of the content, or just because it was hard to get the jokes with the audio echoing as much as it was. The end of the masquerade also featured a sailor moon dance routine produced by the con.

In the end, I would rate the con a 7/10, and I'd really love to see a reorganization of the layout inside the exhibit hall for the coming years.

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