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AnimeNEXT - Author's Notes - 2005 Notes started after a fast ride to the Newark airport in a car with an underinflated rear tire: AnimeNEXT felt like a larger and livelier version of Ushicon. Both conventions were single-room events, using an expanse of concrete cut into separate areas. After moving between hotels in New York suburbs, AnimeNEXT settled into the Meadowlands Exposition Center, one of the instant-suburbia buildings that's popped up in the area surrounding Giants Stadium off the New Jersey Turnpike. The center offered a single room that was split into areas for the convention - a main area, an autograph area, etc. Like a convention center, the place had a couple of concession stands, but the facility had a fairgrounds feel. At Ushicon, their basement area in an atrium hotel was divided with big foam blocks. At AnimeNEXT, all of the main floor areas were divided by eight-foot drapery dividers, with the author's photo booth location on one side of an aisle created by those dividers. On the other side was a medium-sized area used as a panel discussion area, and that area produced one of the most fascinating scenes of the weekend. Actor and musician Vic Mignogna brought his "Fullmetal Fantasy" live-action fan video to AnimeNEXT, and spectators filled every inch of the panel area to watch the film. Those who couldn't get inside just lifted the drapery dividers out of the way to watch the show. That same area was used for a discussion by dub actors on the convention's Friday. One of those female actors - too bad we didn't note her name - actually admitted she was one of the pseudonymously-credited voices in the anime hentai dubs made in the New York area. That audience produced one of the most familiar sounds of the weekend, the high-pitched squeals of delight from the fans who attended the event. Those squeals were oddly amplified by the building's concrete floors and 25-foot high metal ceilings. But if you really wanted to see an intense crowd reaction, you needed to be at the convention on Saturday afternoon when Ein arrived. Back in 2002, when this site attended C-Kon in Indianapolis, we went to a panel hosted by master costumer Nickey Froberg. One of her displays was a larger-than-life head of Ein, the Welsh corgi from Cowboy Bebop. The head was all that existed of the costume at the time. Nearly three years later, Froberg had gotten married, been from the U.S. to New Zealand and back, and in the middle of all of this the Ein costume was completed. When Froberg got in the costume and waddled down the hall to present herself for hall costume contest judging, it was as if Gackt or Mana had walked into the convention center. From all parts came the cry "Ein! Ein!" as camera-toting fans rushed to the amazing costume. Eventually, the convention had to assign a couple of volunteers to watch Froberg, as if she was a rock star or a dignitary. For an hour or two, she held out in the hot foam confines of the costume, being judged and photographed, before climbing out and heading for cooler ground. The hard work paid off, though, as the Ein got the "best of weekend" award from the hall costume judges. We last saw the Ein, in two pieces with Froberg carrying the head and another person with the body, being taken out of the building.  Yes, the photo booth: the convention was kind enough to offer the author the space to take and sell cosplay pictures, and we took them up on their offer. When things got busy on Saturday, we had three or four customers stacked up at once, and we had to scramble fast and hard to make sure everyone got what they wanted.  Fans seemed pleased with the service, and business didn't drop off until around midnight when the Saturday night dance began. And even after the author had started disassembling his equipment, a couple of costumers arrived for picture and we had to pull out some stuff to provide the images they wanted. The only thing worse than a lack of customers is a dissatisfied customer...and we were one of those bad customers when US Airways lost our equipment bags at the Pittsburgh airport on Friday, Minus the big bags of stuff, we had to rush off to a Wal-Mart located a couple of blocks north of the Hampton Inn where we stayed, buy another printer and use that until the main collection arrived - 13 hours late. It was either that or disappoint people, although we were left without the attention-grabbing sample binders of pictures and the inflatable sign bunny until Saturday. Playing vendor meant we had to miss one of the best parts of the event, the guests of honor. Along with an appearance by Fullmetal Alchemist actors Mignogna, Travis Willingham and Caitlin Glass, there were lots of New York-area performers and two great Japanese guests - director Akitaroh Daichi and actor Reiko Yasuhara. We saw the latter two only from a distance as they signed autographs. And any chance to meet those guests on the convention's Sunday was tossed away in favor of an early-morning dash back home to arrive in time for the U.S. Grand Prix, the Formula One auto race. That trip put this writer in the middle of an event that was so stupefyingly bizarre that we're compelled to write about it, even if it involves the motorsports that this writer enjoys but most anime fans ignore. On arriving in Indianapolis on race morning, we spotted the Indianapolis Star story detailing tire problems encountered by race teams using Michelin tires. This writer knows one of the racing reporters, and when we bumped into him at the track we asked, half-jokingly, if there would be a race. "I don't know," was the reply. "They're saying only the Toyota guys are having troubles (one Toyota crashed, the other had a tire fall apart) so we'll have to see." There was no "race." Fourteen Michelin-shod teams dropped out before the start, and three Bridgestone-shod teams started the event. Six cars for a 20-car, 190-mile, 90-minute race. The crowd response was amazing. As one, the audience rose, booed and whistled (the European equivalent of booing). It got bad enough that riot police were called, just in case. We've been to a lot of races and sporting events, but we've never seen anything like the intensity of that crowd response to the Michelin boycott. "Suck" was the most polite word used about the guys who didn't race. We saw fans throwing full cans of beer, and there was an immediate stream of people toward the exits - and those were the Ferrari fans who benefited from the event when Michael Schumacher "won." Any convention security people who complain about anime fans never had to deal with angry race fans, many of whom already were lit from huge tubes of Foster's beer before the "race" began. At least we got a couple of sets of pictures from the mess: images of the unusual cosplaying Ferrari fans, and pictures of what there was of the race for gearheads. AnimeNEXT Main Page