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Conventions September 27, 2009 at 12:33:49 PM
Day II
Day Two of the New York Anime Festival featured lots of great costumes, competitions, crowds and celebrities! Saturday is definitely the day where NYAF gets its main audience, and those who showed up for day two got to end the day with a treat of a masquerade. This year did not feature the World Cosplay Summit, but the show turned out to be a great one regardless. Read on for more details!
The crowds were everywhere on day 2, and at some points I wondered how well it would fare when NYAF and Comic-con join forces next year. It'll be insanity, but perhaps insanity in a good way. The best costumes appeared today, with people coming in dressed in a range of characters from original and out-of-print series to the current hot shows. I even saw quite a few game, american cartoon, and 'net meme cosplayers. For me, the one that took the cake was a nearly 10-foot tall BumbleBee (of transformers fame) who even came with working lights and a functional loudspeaker. It was awe-inspiring. Check out our gallery for photos of that and all the other awesome costumes we saw!
There were all sorts of competitions and events going on throughout the day. MTV had an audition of their "Made" tv show, and directly afterwards the same area hosted an anime-dating contest. At the same time, a veritable sword brawl was going on across the hall. The swords may have been foam, but that comes as no consolation to the loser in the round that I witnessed. He thought he was going to win, until his barely-five-foot-tall opponent picked up her own foam bat and whipped out some some crazy kendo-like maneuver to literally bring him to his knees. Nothing warms my heart more than a good emasculation in the morning. Sadly, all these events seem to have actually pushed the "maid cafe" off the schedule. If you showed up on saturday looking for it, you would have been very disappointed.
The gaming competition was still on in full force. Though it was a shame that the main competition was watch-only for us NYAF-folk, it was pretty amusing to watch the game announcer flip his lid as one player zerg-rushed another. If you enjoy watching a good match of starcraft or guitar hero (where the margin of victory is less than 1%) then you'd have like the show. As for me, playing games is a heck of a lot more interesting, so I moved on. There were actually a couple games scattered throughout the dealer's room. One company was demoing their soon-to-be-released game Fairy Tale Fight. It featured an amusing way to melt your opponent's face with rainbows, but the company had booth babes hovering over us as we played. Booth Babes. In an anime convention dealer's room. It was in pretty poor taste.
The screen of Soul Eater was to be had, as well as signing by the american voice actors, flanked by their official cosplayers. It's an amusing show, and worth checking out if you haven't yet. And though I'm usually loathe to say so, the english voices are pretty good!
Last but not least, the end of the day brought us the masquerade. The location was odd, in that they held it in a small stage area and simulcast it to two other large rooms. But they started on time. I'm not sure if that's ever happened at a masquerade that I've attended. Not only that, but by my watch they started early, and they hit the ground running. The MC, "Uncle Yo" was pretty funny, and his impromptu initiation of The Potter Puppet Pals' 'Mysterious Ticking Noise' had the entire audience in an uproar. The show started with a recently imported japanese idol singer, and then a host of talented skit performances.
The first skit, for me, stands out the most. It was a simple dance number by two very young cosplayers, and though something went wrong during their routine, they just kept on going and didn't even lose a beat. I was impressed, because that's tough to do! I tip my hat to them, and I have a fancy hat. The following skits all had points of note. Some were funny, well coordinated, one featured a hilarious solo involving food and another featured stage magic by a famous duet of french cosplayers. It was quite a treat to see. And while filming was prohibited, I'm sure you can find most of the skits on youtube by now.
NYAF is now currently wrapping up it's last solo con. As of next year, they should be combined with comic-con. While the events will maintain their own schedules and guests, they will have a single badge that works for both. It's exciting, because it will fill in the gaps for many of the smaller items that NYAF is admittedly lacking. And who knows, maybe we'll convert a few of those comic fans. With a masquerade like the one I just saw, I think we can pull that off.
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