Photographer Tina Chou reports on the third and final day of mighty AnimeNEXT 2009! From Tina Chou: Hello again! Today was the last day of AnimeNEXT and this convention has definitely been an interesting experience. I’m a con n00b no more! The peak of the convention was clearly yesterday so things were mostly were winding down today. I was still able to get a full day in tho!

I arrived at the Arena at around 11:15AM in time to catch the end of Cosplay Human Chess. There were so many spectators crowding around that I didn’t get any great shots but it’s basically what it sounds like. However, the human pieces duke it out in character and it was fun to watch. One character epically died but then he was revived by Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 who threw an imaginary Phoenix Down. Clips of it will probably appear all over YouTube from various angles.
After that, I played some Videogames (which still had lots of people around) and then photographed cosplayers. Almost everyone at the convention had some kind of costume and a lot have different outfits for each day. I only scratched the surface as there were several extremely good costumes. Everyone was taking pictures and I wonder how the anime convention dynamic has changed now that everyone has a digital camera.

My photo strategy, improved by the third day, was to hang around near the lake where a lot of cosplayers went to take pictures. This worked out fairly well. Two pretty willow trees must have been used in a billion photoshoots because a lot of the moss was scraped off. Most photographers there shoot for free so I don’t think cosplay photography is very profitable but it’s fun.

After watching cosplayers playing soccer on the lawn with plushies serving as goal posts, I left the beautiful outdoors behind. Back in the Artist Alley, some of the artists were still taking commissions. I sometimes wonder what I would look like as an anime character but I like the size of my eyes just fine. Michael Terracciano (dominic-deegan.com) had his manga books out and a lot of the sushi plushies had been sold (stuffedsushi.com). I didn’t go to any panels today but a few being held were “Con Horror Stories: Open Discussion”, “Otaku Perceptions & Misconceptions”, “Kimono!” and “Square-Enix Panel IV.”

FAKE? had a fan photo/autograph session at 1PM and by the time it started the line was already out the door. I wanted a group photo but when I came back, it had ended early and they were nowhere to be seen. However, I did hear they are hanging out in New York City for awhile…

After seeing a scary-looking adult dressed as some kind of wild tribal cat, I walked past the Sleeping Samurai Tournament Finals to the Dealer’s Room. A lot of the blog comments have been about the merchandise so I thought I’d revisit. With today being the last day, many items were discounted. Perhaps the best deal I found was 10 manga for $40 total. I was tempted to purchase the $25 water droplet (a Slime?) plushie but I chose not to. I also noticed that a lot of the DVDs were still there, evidence of a perhaps dwindling industry. The most common items being sold were plushies, posters, T-shirts, and accessories. For about $40 you could buy colored contact lenses.

I thought a lot of the T-shirts were funny or cute. Some of the dealers that displayed shirts were Modondi (modondi.com) and Tokyo Star Apparel (tokyostarapparel.com). There were also anime hats with ears, action figures, jewelry, and weapons. After 3PM they started closing down the Dealer’s Room so I headed over to the Feedback Session with several of the convention organizers on the panel.

It was surprising to me that most of the convention organizers and attendees weren’t Asian. I imagined perhaps a 60/40 ratio but I think it was more like 80/20. The entire panel was also male. Much of the feedback compared last year’s convention at the Meadowlands with this year’s new location. The general consensus was that the Doubletree was bigger and had more scenic places for photos, even though people wanted closer places for food. Security did an excellent job and a lot of people liked the Dance/Rave and the concert.

At 4PM, the Closing Ceremonies began in the same room. It was really another feedback session but this time convention chair Carlo Darcelin asked the questions and picked on people in the audience for responses. Michele Knotz (voice actor for Nurse Joy and several Pokemon) made an appearance and everyone sang happy birthday to Kyle Hebert (voices in Naruto, Bleach, Dragonball Z). I think by 5PM most people had left though the cosplay photoshoots near the lake were still going strong. I took off at about 5:15.

Overall, I think that for AnimeNEXT or any anime convention, there are so many activities to choose from that you can shape your own convention experience. I think there were over 8,000 attendees this year and AnimeNEXT will probably keep on growing. My friends spent most of their time winning prizes at the tabletop games. A lot of people probably went to screenings for hours or did the same with videogames. You could also have spent a good chunk of time in the Dealer’s Room or going to panels back-to-back. Most people made lots of new friends and took a lot of pictures.

Would I want to go back next year? I’m not sure. It depends if David Hou is willing to edit my blog posts and make me sound intelligent again (^_^). And if there’s another awesome concert I can photograph, I’m there. Everyone should go to an anime convention at least once, so you can have stories to tell. I had the most fun photographing cosplayers. After all, it’s not every day you have so many free models to choose from with their own wardrobe! – Tina.