NYAF: Yoshiyuki Tomino and Final Thoughts

Well I gotta admit folks, NYAF was one heck of a weekend. Full of some pretty amazing sights. Most of these sights were the waves and waves of costumes I saw. It was pretty amusing seeing about…oh…waves and waves of Narutos and Ichigos, pretty much jsut alot of Bleach and Naruto characters in general. I think it was more frustrating than amusing seeing it because it showed a lack of creativity or something else? I dunno. Though despite so many Naruto and Bleach characters, they were actually genuinely good costumes, so I guess I can’t hate on them too much. As I said before in my previous post, this was more of a vendors festival. Various store and shoppes selling their wares that appeal to the Otakus of NYC. Very few major companies displayed their stuff at this Festival. However Sega unveiled a playable demo of Bayonetta while Funimation used the con to present to the US audience Soul Eater. They definitely milked this as much as they could with mural paintings and hired actors in costumes along with autograph sessions with the voice actors of the series.

The only thing that made it somewhat relevent to an anime convention besides the cosplayers were the various panels that were going on. One panel in particular that I attended was a Q&A panel with the Festivals featured guest Yoshiyuki Tomino. The panel was an amazing experience. Tomino is one of the more well known and famous old school anime directors and creator of the hit series and franchise Mobile Suit Gundam. He gave several amazing anecdotes on his career, he answered many questions presented to him by the fans, and he also premiered a long awaited sequel to one of his many short films. Sadly I wasn’t able to record this movie, but it was a great panel. When I asked some of the panel goers their opinion of the Festival in general they said that the festival in general was pretty lack luster but the panels themselves really saved the convention from being totally mundane. This is something I totally agree with whole heartedly.

Next year the Festival will be doubling up with the NYCC to make one big giant conglomerate convention of fanboys and otakus, worshiping thier idols hand in hand in a convention of nerd sweat. Will I be there reporting? You know I will. I honestly believe that something like this will do the NYAF some definite good. Hopefully this will bring out more big time Anime production companies and manga distributors to the Festival. My final thoughts of all of this? Decent convention, pretty good atmosphere, but it could have been better.

See You Next Year!

Click here for a slideshow of the shenanigans and Phire having far too much fun