Battlemouth

This weekend I went to NYAF, the New York Anime Festival, at the Javits Center in New York City. Here is a recap of what went on. There were some license announcements, industry panels, and merchandise to drain the wallet. It didn’t seem as big as last year, but with Geneon gone and ADV lacking, it was to be expected. Viz didn’t seem to be anywhere either, again. Bandai and FUNimation were definitely the ones that stood out.

Bandai had a booth that was hard to miss to the right. They had a nice little set up with a screen to show trailers and a booth for signings. They sold merchandise on the other side which included a nice Gurren Lagann Flag (which I picked up of course). Their Industry Panel was held Friday morning. They mentioned that Code Geass R2 would be airing on Adult Swim in October and Gundam 00 will be airing on the Sci-Fi Channel in the fall. Ghost Slayers Ayashi (Ayakashi Ayashi) will see a release in January and will air on Imaginasian TV. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time will be released on November 18th (I highly recommend you see it). It will be released on DVD and there will be a limited edition release. The LE version will come with the OST (Original Soundtrack). On January 20th, Ghost in the Shell 2 will be released on DVD and Blu-ray. Sword of the Stranger, which looked awesome, will see a DVD and Blu-ray release. Both formats will have a LE release that will come with the OST. Freedom was also announced for a Blu-ray release on November 11th. They also announced that they will release Akira on Blu-ray. It will be $50, which is a good deal cheaper than it will be in Japan, and will come with storyboards and a booklet. The Gurren Lagann manga was also announced.

FUNimation was the other big booth at the con, located on the left side. Their booth wasn’t much for show aside from the huge fricking sword they had displayed to promote Claymore. Aside from that, it wasn’t anything special. They did have other things going on though. Early Friday I saw people wearing the Darker Than Black masks that some guy was running for. It was probably for the podcast. Speaking of the podcast, they had their crew filming at the convention. So you can look for NYAF coverage in their upcoming podcasts. Who knows, I may even be in there. So look out for it. FUNimation also had their industry panel on Friday. A trailer for Darker Than Black started the panel off. Adam Sheehan talked about the state of the industry for a bit. He talked about how they are everywhere. With YouTube they have been putting up the first few episodes of series to let people get a taste of a series. They also are starting to put things on Hulu which is legal streaming, for free. Right now they have Mushi-shi on there. They are expanding with Blu-ray aside from Dragon Ball Z. Vexille comes out on Blu-ray November 4th and Samurai 7 comes out December 9th. Samurai 7 will be their first complete TV series on the format. Dragon Ball GT box set will not be in widescreen format. Ghost Hunt will be released in 13 episode box sets starting in October. Jyu-Oh-Sei will be coming out in a box set containing all 11 episodes in October. More Negima will be coming out in October and Season 2 should be on its way next year. Also in October, the first volume of Claymore will be coming out. The series will be released in 6 volumes. The first will contain 5 episodes and the rest will contain 4 episodes. Ouran High School Host Club will be released in 13 episode box sets. The first will be released on October 28th and the second will be released on January 6th. Afro Samurai Resurrection will air on Spike in January and later released. Darker Than Black will arrive hit shelves November 25th. FUNimation also announced that they have required the live-action movie for Mushi-shi. It should be seeing a release next year.

Other than that, not much went on. Yen Press announced a few manga titles. Jyushin Enbu – Hero Tales, done by the creator of FullMetal Alchemist, is the first title and will be added to Yen Plus. Yen Press also acquired Welcome to Wakaba-Soh and Spice and Wolf. The State of the Anime Industry panel was a bit interesting. Everyone commented on the drop of DVD sales and the debate of fansubs continues. That is pretty much what I was able to catch. All in all, the convention was alright for it’s second year. I look forward to the next one!