Hyuu hyuuu. So I went to AnimeNEXT 2009 this past Saturday. I must say that I was slightly disappointed by it this year for a few reasons:
1.
IT RAINED. Rain means no awesome super fun tiems cosplay photoshoot on the awesome locations outside in the field which were perfect for photoshoots. And it also means no sitting around and chilling on the grass XP
2.The location of the con. AnimeNEXT moved this year to a new location that spanned two buildings: The DoubleTree Hotel and the Garden State Exhibition Center in Somerset, New Jersey. This location was a bit farther than last year. There were a few things I liked about the new location. Since they have more space, that gives them more opportunity for more events and panels and such. Their rooms for karaoke and the artists' alley were MUCH nicer this year as opposed to last year's modified parking lot. There were also more places to just chill and take a break from walking around and stuff too. However, I didn't really like the fact that you had to walk between two buildings to get to where ever you want to go. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't rainy and wet XP
3.Despite all the added space, there wasn't really that much going on. There weren't very many interesting panels. There were no guests that I really wanted to see. Upon looking at the schedule, the only things I really wanted to go to were Anime Jeopardy and the Anime Dating Game. We ended up ditching Anime Jeopardy because we got to the con a bit later than expected and didn't want to go find the room and get there while it was halfway through. Anime Dating Game was a big disappointment because we couldn't hear a blessed thing any of the contestants were saying, despite having mikes. Not only did they not have that much stuff to begin with, but a lot of their panels randomly got canceled. Those of you who didn't go to ANEXT, didn't really miss out on much, unless you wanted to go see FAKE?, which according to
missykitty0115 and several others I've heard from, was the most exciting part of the convention. I hope next year's AnimeNEXT will be better. They probably just have to get used to their new place. I will probably end up going to next year's, but I REALLY want to go to Anime Boston.
4.Despite going to six conventions prior, I had never gone to a Cosplay skit masquerade. I had always wanted to go to one, so I decided to try and go the one at ANEXT 2009. The skits were pretty lame except for two or three
really good ones. This isn't the convention staff's fault though.
5.The dealer room was a tad disappointing this year too. There wasn't as much variety in merchandise as I would have liked. Except for a Ciel Phantomhive ring, there really wasn't anything else that I wanted. I actually never got the Ciel ring that I wanted,
NO ONE had it except for one booth, which sold out of it before I could get it ;0; In the end, I only ended up buying two boxsets of
The Wallflower ((which I probably would not have bought had I not met my friend who reminded me that I wanted to get the entire series.)) and a Versailles Philharmonic Quintet CD which I've been wanting for a while. Oh, and a couple of prints of me and my friend cosplaying as Envy and Greed from FMA, and for food of course. That's probably the least I've ever bought at a convention o___o;; I do kind of regret not going back to the Artists' Alley to get some prints of stuff though.
But overall, it was still a fun day. I loved seeing all the cosplayers as usual. I revived my Envy cosplay from
Fullmetal Alchemist and was really glad to see a good handful of other Fullmetal cosplayers there too. The fandom's coming baaaack 8DDD I was also stopped at
least 50 or so times to take a picture XDDD I almost forgot how much of a fan favorite Envy was XDDDDD
Hyuu, I'll end here 'cause I don't want this entry to be too long XDD Pictures in my next post~