For those of you who aren’t aware the Anime Festival was in New York City the weekend of September 25. The Anime Festival is a smaller sized convention when compared to others like Comic-Con however the Anime Festival was still an interesting and fun time and Lvlone was there to report on the sights and the happenings of the convention.
One of the first things we noticed when we walked in was the cosplay, many conventions have a tradition of people dressing up as their favorite characters from games, movies, and of course animes, the Anime Festival was no different. Notably we saw Link, Solid Snake (with box in hand), Naruto, Zack from Final Fantasy 7, the witch from Left 4 Dead, and a slew of others. Admittedly the Lvlone crew isn’t made up of anime fans so there were many costumes we didn’t get especially those of lesser known shows.
An aspect of the festival that really got our attention were the sale of weapons, dozens of different types of weapons were up for purchase and many of them bargains. The Master Sword from Legend of Zelda definitely got our attention and even more so when we realized the sword was made of actual metal. Another weapon that particularly got our interests were the dual blades used by Kratos from God of War, complete with with chains on the blades. There were also swords from many other anime shows that we probably couldn’t identify. Either the sale of these weapons was a definite highlight and yes we walked away with a blade or two purchased.
As far as video games go there was a fair amount to offer. Several kiosks were set up that sold old school games ranging from the NES to the Playstation, and even the Dreamcast. There were also some games on display including most notably Bayonette from Sega, other games were Need for Speed Shift, Resident Evil 5 for some reason, and Gears of War 2. Several tournaments took place as well, including the always popular Counter Strike.
Overall the Anime Fesival was a fun time, being gamers we aren’t exposed too much to the anime culture so the Festival was also a learning experience for us and that always a good thing.
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