NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: General Impressions

Even with just the preliminary numbers out, an estimated 96,000 attendees, New York Comic Con (and Anime Fest) far and away had more people than any other convention I’ve attended in the past. It made it exciting but also daunting, however at the end of the day things went pretty smoothly considering the enormous crush of people during points of the convention, especially and not surprisingly on Saturday. All different sized cons have their own magic, but there is no denying the elation felt at something huge like Comic Con and you can only expect it to get bigger in the coming years.

hisuiconI have never been to the madhouse that is the San Diego Comic Con but I got a bit of a taste of what that is like by going to the New York Comic Con. At a busy time during the weekend it was like being thrown into a sea of humanity (some of which could use a little more exposure to water). I saw a ton of people I knew but hardly got to interact with anyone for an extended period of time because everyone was always running off to do something. The convention itself had a bit of something for all variety of geeks, nerds, and otaku. There were panels, premieres, and announcements for anime, manga, video games, comics, movies, television shows, and almost anything else you could imagine. The broader your interests the more you could get out of the convention and in an ironic note the more you missed out on. But unless you had extremely narrow interests there was always something for you to participate in every day which is the greatest benefit of such a huge event.

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NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Tweets

 Wow what a weekend! Thank goodness I have today off! Without seeing the numbers yet, I think New York Comic Con was the biggest convention I’ve ever attended. This is just a short update and a link to my tweets for the duration of the con. There was so much going on you can expect a lot of posts for the next week or so on all the great happenings. Our first post, General Impressions, should be up tomorrow followed by a ton of other info including the many premieres going on, the giant exhibit hall, and even a small podcast.

More NY Anime Festival and Comic Con 2010 posts:

NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: General Impressions
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Anime and Manga Industry
NY Anime Festival 2010: Artist Alley – Making it Big!
(guest post)
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Exhibitors Hall
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Premieres
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Panels
NY Anime Festival & Comic Con 2010: Minori Chihara

Two Cons in One! NYCC/NYAF 2010 Plans

hisuiconThis is the first year we have an amalgam New York Comic Con and New York Anime Festival and is has as busy a schedule as you would expect. Fears that the Anime Festival section would be a mostly forgotten red-headed step child of its older brother seem to have gone unfounded. There is are Japanese and American anime guests, several bands, premier shows, and a constant track of anime and manga programming and panels. In fact there are SO many anime premiers that we cannot go to them. This also means we miss out on many of the cool Comic Con premieres at the same time. Still there is always something to do and see at this convention. More than ever I will be very curious to see other people’s con reports to see what are all the things I missed out on. Plus as always NYCC/NYAF has all its programming ending at 10PM so I expect debauchery and decadence to occur every night of the convention especially with the Ard Rí na hÉireann Eeeper in town. I hope to chat at least a bit with everyone who attends so if you see me stop and say hello.

This combo convention will certainly be the biggest I’ve attended so far. Of course it is no surprise that the tentative schedule is jam-packed and even with that I am missing a few things. Oh, how nice it would be to be able to clone oneself! The most enticing things are premieres this time around, many anime ones to my delight. Even though this is an anime blog you can expect us to be gallivanting all around the con from comics to books and beyond. I’m really looking forward to how this new scheme goes, our own little SDCC here on the east coast, but I expect it to be back next year.

Friday
Why Graphic Novels Should Be In Your Library panel
Ban ’em, Burn ’em, Steal ’em! A Fan’s Guide to Graphic Novel Censorship panel
NYAF Opening Ceremony
Will Eisner’s New York panel
Minori Chihara Spotlight
MARVEL: Welcome to the X-Man panel
Extending Conversations about Graphic Novels panel
First Look! Upcoming DC Universe Animated Original Films & Shorts panel
Anime in Academia panel
Sengoku Basara Screening and Panel
Aniplex panel
A Geek’s Guide to Podcasting and Blogging panel
Mardock Scramble Premiere with Tow Ubukata
Anime You Never Thought You’d Like panel
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya with Minori Chihara

Saturday
Corey Feldman Offers a Glimpse of Lost Boys: The Thirst panel
The History of Superhero Movies- Past, Present, and Future panel
K.JOE’S Ultimate Tips: How to Get More Japanese Artists to Perform in America panel
Star Driver Premiere
Jim Lee and ICONS: The DC Comics and Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee panel
Crunchyroll Fall Season Announcements panel
Yen Press panel
MARVEL: Cup O Joe panel
MARVEL Television Presents MARVEL Anime panel
Yoshiki and Stan Lee panel
Minori Chihara Concert
Disney Epic Mickey panel
Unusual Manga Genres panel

Sunday
The Sons of Liberty, a Graphic Novel: The New World of Historical Fiction panel
Hipra Premiere
Oni Press panel
Gundam 00 Movie Premiere
Anime Recruitment panel