It is normally said that anime fans are sleepy headed because they like to sleep in during the day after a long night of watching anime and playing Nintendo DS. However, theres not a more energized fan than an anime fan at an anime related event specially early in the morning. Some of these fans even go the extraordinary length of not sleeping just to attend, usually this can be seen by glaze on their eyes as they wait in line for the doors to open and on this day it was no less different. Before the doors opened to Kinokuniya’s in midtown Manhattan, there was a long line that went down the block and around the corner full of eagerly awaiting and at times jittery anime lovers and cosplayers.

At 11am the doors magically opened and the chorus of cheer arose forth from the line, those who were the lucky first 30 in the door were able to receive a nice freebie courtesy of the New York Anime Festival who was hosting the day of events.

At noon, the first even started which involved an introduction to cosplay presented by the lovely ladies from the US Team for the World Cosplay Summit 2009. These fantastic ladies know alot about cosplay and were very informative in sharing with the crowd of eager fans who were interested in learning how to get into cosplay and what tips they could use from being a walking disaster for first timers.

Following the ladies, at 1pm, the director for the Krazy exhibit at the Japan Society, which if you are in the NYC area you should check out if you can, went over the reason of the exhibit and what it showcased.

Renowned local artist Misako Rocks gave a fun interactive presentation at 2pm, where she discussed how she got into the art world, where her sources of inspiration for her artwork comes from, and as well as gave two simple lessons on how to draw an anime female and male character.

At 3pm the Keio Academy Summer Camp gave a presentation on how it has been bridging the gap between US teens and Japanese teens in ways more then common interests, by giving them the opportunity to work and learn from each other and make life long bonds.

This was followed by a presentation by Samurai Beat Radio at 4pm.

Echostream followed at 5pm with a session on how they produce their music presented by Tony of echostream. A very informative session which many fans were delighted to understand and see how music has come along in the digital age. Tony was joined by the beautiful and talented Ryoko and the gently and friendly Tomo as they performed 3 ambient songs from their first cd.

The day ended with a fun raffle where many free gifts, cds, tickets, and tshirts were given away; followed by a meet and greet with echostream.