June 18-20

AnimeNEXT 2010 celebrated old and new as it brought cosplayers and anime fans back out to Somerset’s Garden State Expo Center(GSEC) for its second time at these facilities.

As in years past, it was brutally hot for this year’s AnimeNEXT. Some took advantage of the hotel pools to alleviate this factor. But many seemed not to care. I have to say I was truly impressed by the many cosplayers sweating it out make their costumes look perfect despite the heat. Fortunately this year it did not rain the whole weekend as with the previous year, which allowed people to walk around more without getting stuck in the mud.

The layout changed and expanded into the Holiday Inn this year, which made the con somewhat better. Starting wiith the GSEC, AnimeNEXT expanded seating for their mini-stage with a better layout overall. The GSEC staff was also prepared this year; they accommodated the guests much better by having their food staff stay later. The Doubletree changed as they expanded the Artists Alley, but they removed one of the large panel rooms to get it done.  They also moved all the video games to the Holiday Inn across the street. Now onto some of the panels and events we attended:

Panels and Events

Uncle Yo

Being in the Northeast area, we’ve seen Uncle Yo perform many, many times. He’s always hilarious, fun and down to earth. But this time Uncle Yo actually got to headline. He was Friday night’s main event.

It was great to see Uncle Yo as a main event. We’ve seen him many times as a side attraction and he’s definitely funny enough to warrant main event-status. The line Friday night was enough to prove this. Hours long, it wrapped around the inside of the con center. The event got a huge attendance.

During the show, Uncle Yo seemed endearingly flattered by being a main event. There’s something really refreshing about a guy who, despite being a main event, hangs around the con and talks and acts like he’s just another one of the nerds. He had the crowd roaring the whole time during his show, especially during his famous “Your Mom” joke (I won’t repeat it here. It’s something you have to experience yourself). At the end, Uncle Yo received a well-deserved standing ovation.

Iron Cosplay

Though it borrowed its concept from “Iron Chef,” Iron Cosplay wasn’t a cheap knockoff. I have to admit right at the start that my assessment of Iron Cosplay is extremely biased by the fact that my friends participated and won a round of it. That said, if you ever get the chance to participate, I highly recommend it.

From a cosplayer’s point of view there’s something both sacrilegious and hilariously fun about making a costume from tape, scraps and pins in 30 minutes after spending two months carefully crafting a costume for the convention itself.  Even those not participating had a blast though. The host was an impressive improviser. He spent a lot of time interviewing and interacting with the crowd while the teams worked to assemble costumes, keeping everyone entertained until the competition ended.

The Dunk Tank

This year, AnimeNEXT had a charity dunk tank. On Friday outside of the GSEC we walked by a blue tank of water thinking that some party company forgot to pick it up from a previous event.  But we were wrong.

On Saturday, for one dollar you could dunk guests like Greg Ayres and Uncle Yo, or staffers like the con chair and head of security. This was an absolutely fabulous idea. Having an outdoor event (especially one that involves water) is perfect for AnimeNEXT. The expo center has a ton of great outdoor space that is sadly under-used. I really hope AnimeNEXT invests in more outdoor events like this in future years. It was a break from the usual con stuff, a lot of fun and a great way to raise money for a worthy cause.  This year’s cause was Haiti.

Hangry and Angry Fashion Show

AnimeNEXT hosted the Hangry and Angry fashion show. The models were chosen from applicants on the AnimeNEXTwebsite. The designer Gashicon also attended the event. They made creative use of the stage and used the walkway between the rows as their runway. The only bad thing about the event was the lighting. While light is good, light that blinds your audience doesn’t usually go over too well. We have photo coverage of the full event in the photos section.

Anime Jeopardy

If any of the panels we went to were a little underwhelming, it may have been this one. The hosts didn’t have the answers to the questions, which led to a lot of stalling and confusion between questions, and slowed down the entire game. Perhaps we’re just older fans, but a lot of the questions were based on anime that were way too new for us to know the answers to.

The event was well-attended however, especially for a Sunday panel. And the panelists did a fantastic job of keeping the crowd involved, actually pitting them against the three main contestants to see who knew the most.

Pokemon/Digimon Soccer Game

This event originated on the AnimeNEXT forums, after it occurred at MangaNEXT in 2008 where there were a bunch of Digimon and Pokemon fans in cosplay. The Digimon fans somehow came up with a plan of playing a soccer, then the brilliant idea of challenging the Pokemon fans.

While not an official AnimeNEXT event, the second annual soccer match took place Sunday afternoon, perhaps the hottest and most humid day of the weekend (a fact that had me seriously worrying for some of the cosplayers out there).  Some of the “athletes” played in full cosplay while others had modified uniforms.  Either way both sides had fun.  This may have been my favorite event of the entire weekend. It was a perfect way to end a great convention. What’s better than sitting outside in the shade near a pond on a gorgeous day watching Pokemon play soccer against Digimon? Very few things, if any. In this year’s match, the Digimon and Pokemon teams just couldn’t seem to outdo each other. The match ended 1-1.

Other Observations

AnimeNEXT did have many improvements. They brought in more frequent shuttle service to get to and from area hotels, food and the train station. As mentioned in the beginning, they shuffled around the layout of the con for the better. The staff worked out many of the facility quirks and had better security along with having an external hired security team to help manage parts of the event.

Staff wise there was some changing of the guard happening. Some turned out well while other positions kind of suffered, but being a tight ship they got help and back on their feet. It’s a process the con has to go through and it’s great that they let new people step up in staff positions.

If there is one thing AnimeNEXT has to work on it’s the lines, which they still seem to have no defined plan for. We did not attend the masquerade, partly because the lines were long way before the event even started.

The attendance this year was rumored to be up; taking place later in June allowed more of the student-aged attendees to make it to the event. But with the crowd spread out a bit more it was harder to tell. In our opinion though, growth isn’t everything. As long as the attendance is steady and the people there want to attend the events it’s a good thing. We did run across quite a few people who just showed up at the location socially without buying passes. It’s our hope that AnimeNEXT can keep producing a quality convention to bring in guests and activities that ultimately do entice people to buy a badge.

And to end on a good note: Universal Animation, Inc. the governing organization behind AnimeNEXT, green-lighted MangaNEXT for Halloween 2010. We’ll see you there!