thegamecubist
05-31-2004, 08:22 PM
Being abit of a n00b to anime, I was hesitant to go to Anime North. I wasn't too sure what to expect, what to do (the webiste is not all that helpful), or if I'd make a fool of myself. One doesn't rebuild engines after 5 minutes of study; the same idea applies here. My friends stong armed me into it anyways.
Anime North (AN) 2004 meet my expectations in most areas, exceeded in some, and fell flat on its face in some areas. But, as a whole, it was equal to, not greater than, the sum of its parts.
First, the good. The site is huge; so big it was seperated into two buildings. This gave me plenty to do in the two days I was there. There was a dealer's room, where you'd buy anything anime-related, the artist's alley, where you could buy pics, paintings, or dolls made by fellow fans, the screening room (watch anime), the games area, discoussion panels on anime, and finnally, a workshop area where you'd go to learn Go or draw manga style. The sheer amount of things to do left you tired at the end of the day. Not only, that, but there was events too; a "King of Games" event where you'd test yourself in games, a DDR contest, and the best in my opinion, the Masquerade. The Masquerade is where the people that were cosplaying would do skits and get judged. Some were just wacky (a group of people dressed up as Pocky Boxes), and some just insane in how close it was to the anime (One person looked just like Vash from Trigun, another did a naruto skit repute with flips and kunais). And the vetrans at the convention (you could tell) we willing to give a hand.
The crap was the interior of the main builing. OK, so this is somewhat out of AN's hands, but in all honesty if all the people and the exhibits were removed and replaced with shelving, that place could have been a warehouse. It doesn't make a good first impression. Not only that, but a power outage (out of AN's power of control, I know...) occured during the Masquerade. It had people waiting an extra hour (and the German Hamtaro group were cut off in the middle) to see other wise a great presentation. And one of the pronouncers could have worked on her Japanese pronounciation; she messed up on Miroku. MIROKU, of all names
The great was the atmosphere. It was so energetic, lively, that it didn't matter that the convention was held in a warehouse-like convention centre. And the cosplayers were just amazing. Most costumes were good, to say the least. Final props go to the people signing autographs (Richard Cox from Inu Yasha, etc..). They stayed and waited propbably an hour after just to finish the line of autographs, and wern't just there to sign and move on. They made small talk with everyone.
If I were to rate Anime North out of 10, I'd give it an 8.5-9. Most of it was good, but my first impression still lingers.
-thegamecubist
Anime North (AN) 2004 meet my expectations in most areas, exceeded in some, and fell flat on its face in some areas. But, as a whole, it was equal to, not greater than, the sum of its parts.
First, the good. The site is huge; so big it was seperated into two buildings. This gave me plenty to do in the two days I was there. There was a dealer's room, where you'd buy anything anime-related, the artist's alley, where you could buy pics, paintings, or dolls made by fellow fans, the screening room (watch anime), the games area, discoussion panels on anime, and finnally, a workshop area where you'd go to learn Go or draw manga style. The sheer amount of things to do left you tired at the end of the day. Not only, that, but there was events too; a "King of Games" event where you'd test yourself in games, a DDR contest, and the best in my opinion, the Masquerade. The Masquerade is where the people that were cosplaying would do skits and get judged. Some were just wacky (a group of people dressed up as Pocky Boxes), and some just insane in how close it was to the anime (One person looked just like Vash from Trigun, another did a naruto skit repute with flips and kunais). And the vetrans at the convention (you could tell) we willing to give a hand.
The crap was the interior of the main builing. OK, so this is somewhat out of AN's hands, but in all honesty if all the people and the exhibits were removed and replaced with shelving, that place could have been a warehouse. It doesn't make a good first impression. Not only that, but a power outage (out of AN's power of control, I know...) occured during the Masquerade. It had people waiting an extra hour (and the German Hamtaro group were cut off in the middle) to see other wise a great presentation. And one of the pronouncers could have worked on her Japanese pronounciation; she messed up on Miroku. MIROKU, of all names
The great was the atmosphere. It was so energetic, lively, that it didn't matter that the convention was held in a warehouse-like convention centre. And the cosplayers were just amazing. Most costumes were good, to say the least. Final props go to the people signing autographs (Richard Cox from Inu Yasha, etc..). They stayed and waited propbably an hour after just to finish the line of autographs, and wern't just there to sign and move on. They made small talk with everyone.
If I were to rate Anime North out of 10, I'd give it an 8.5-9. Most of it was good, but my first impression still lingers.
-thegamecubist