Month: July 2016

From the suburb to the city, AnimeNEXT starts it’s new life in a larger venue, the Atlantic City Convention Center. Much larger than the Garden State, it has room for the growing number of attendees. This year, I know many have decided not to trek it out to East coast’s own city of temptations, but they missed out on an exciting weekend of music, fashion, anime and fun.

Headlining guests is the creator of Black Lagoon, Hiroe Rei-sensei, seiyuu Matsui Naoko-san and Producer/Director Daichi Akitaro-san (Fruits Basket). TRIGGER Wakabayashi Hiromi and Koyama Shigeto returns third year in a row with Inferno Cop’s own designer Amemiya Akira-san. Stateside guests includes voice actors Richard Epcar, Todd Haberkorn, Bill Rogers, Marc Swint and more. Mint Neko is will be on the show floor with his latest from Japan along with a fashion show by Vedetta Marie. AnimeNEXT is also happy to celebrate ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D’s 10th Anniversary at AC with a Friday concert along with ZAQ’s live on Sunday. Also returning to AnimeNEXT is the World Cosplay Summit finals with the chosen winners going to compete in the 2016 WCS in Nagoya, Japan!

Atlantic City…here is AnimeNEXT!
Continue reading “AnimeNEXT 2016 – a con in review”

Since the masquerade and the autograph signing was at the same time, I was late in heading to the Main Events hall. It started a bit late since when I arrived, they were only on the 6th performance. This masquerade is special since aside from the usual main performances, it also housed the World Cosplay Summit US finals where Team USA will be chosen to compete in Japan this year. Go Team USA!

Continue reading “AnimeNEXT 2016 – Masquerade and WCS USA Finals”

Publishing Manager Evan Pago hosted the Sekai Project panel. He opened by noting that everyone who worked with Sekai Project started working with other parts of the industry. He shared his love for Idolmaster and noted that all who work in the company need to like Idolmaster. A bit of history, founded in 2013 by a group of anime fans and headed by Raymound Qian and Chris Ling. Met in a restaurant and decided that the industry can be alot better since there was very little overseas fan representation from and to Japan. Their main goal is to make sure that visual novels get a shot in the US as well as show Japan that there is a viable market overseas. Also, Sekai Project would like to give smaller Japanese creators a chance to market their games overseas.
Continue reading “AnimeNEXT 2016 – Sekai Project panel”

From left to right, designer Koyama Shigeto, animator director Amemiya Akira and director Wakabayashi Hiromi on the laptop. Wakabayashi Hiromi-san hosted the panel, led the questions and provided a plethora of information to the fans. First, he commented that he was surprised at the immense reception and crowd which showed up to the panel. (Considerably, since the room was packed with people lined up on the sides and standing in the back.) He continued by stating that due to this visit to New York/New Jersey, Amemiya-san made a new episode for Inferno Cop that he will be showing at this panel. He added that it was Amemiya-san’s first time overseas.
Continue reading “AnimeNEXT 2016 – TRIGGER Inferno Cop panel”

With a mixture of rock, rap and high energy beats, ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D returns to take Anime Next by storm, gracing the first con night with a live concert that shook the masses. The concert opened first with ‘In My World’, the ending to Ao no Exorcist which got the crowd jumping to the awesome rhythm of the guitar and drums. Vocalist SHiNNOSUKE stood middle of the stage with his guitar with RYOTA at the left and drummer in the middle back of the stage. Support guitarist KAT stood at the right.
Continue reading “AnimeNEXT 2016 – ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D concert”