I am aching and semi-conscious, but I really oughta make a NYCC post here before I finish my ANN work and hit the event up on Colony Drop.
There is a point at which the sheer attendance of a con becomes a detriment to it, and NYCC has been at that point for a while now. 100,000 people is simply too many. The entire Javits wouldn't have been enough to hold all these people, and we didn't have the whole Javits. Thursday, when the attendance was capped at 10k, was without question the best day of the weekend. From then on, the show floor was unbreatheable and I'm pretty sure that several of the lines were honest-to-god mile-long lines. As I said to people at the ANN panel, I really felt nostalgic for the relative peace and quiet of the biggest anime cons and their 20k attendance numbers.
If you had doubted my "anime ghetto" hypothesis at all, NYAF was back to prove it in style. Without getting too deep into it-- saving that article for CD-- the intent of this area is much more clear this year. NYAF is absolutely an event designed to corral anime con kids away from the main show floor: the space is little more than a huge lounge-- no open space, only seating, a stark contrast to the rest of the Javits-- and an artist's alley. Sure, there weren't many events or panels to speak of, but you could stay there all day if you were an anime kid-- and many did. The place looked even more like a daycare than it did last year.
I was also doing work for ANN: you can see my writeup of the Yen Press panel, and I gave an interview-- the first I've ever given in my life, imagine my nervousness-- that'll go up in a while. Feeling really "pro nerd" about now.
ANN panel went well: it was nothing more than audience Q&A with us, but the boss had some pretty enlightening things to say about the business end of streaming video. I got the best laugh of the panel, so I'm pretty content. Wish I'd brought more toys to give away: my two figures disappeared at lightning speed.
Skullgirls is gorgeous. Video doesn't do it justice, you need to go see the game on a TV with your own eyes. I didn't get to the other fighting games because even on Thursday, even with tons of cabinets, the lines were unreasonable. The reveal about SF X Tekken-- the gem system, by which the player increases base stats and other properties with equippable items that will very likely cost money-- sounds like an incredible, community-wide disaster in the making. We'll see.
I regret not actually making it to Pony Bar. I try to get a pint there whenever I'm at Javits. Oh well.
Skull Girls does look gorgeous in real life, and yeah the videos don't quite do it full justice. The rabid boob bouncing a little too much for my taste, but I can understand why.
Posted by: omo | October 17, 2011 at 02:23 PM