Animazement 2005
May 27 - 29, 2005
Sheraton Imperial - Durham, North Carolina
Animazment, a convention only once went through a metamorphosis in their location, again returns for another round at hosting an anime convention. Looking at the geography and location of the convention, it's home to anime fans from the majority of North Carolina, parts of South Carolina, and parts of southern Virginia.
Even though Animazement hasn't changed locations, they sure have changed themselves in the words of arrangement of the convention for the good, since the previous year (2004). The game room was moved to the former con suite, video rooms switched with the art room, and more video rooms were replaced with other convention essentials (registration).
A new system for lines showed up for the first time at Animazement this year. Starting with 2005, instead of having a first come first serve to the cosplay event, you are to report to a booth Saturday morning, where you would be handed a sticker with a number, and with that number you're assigned a in a group (not seat) for the cosplay line. It kind of places you in a hierarchy for convenience. Oh yeah it's still first come fir serve for the stickers.
The Cosplay event will always continue the tradition of what it means to be an anime con, which will stay forever, and hearing around it was pretty decent. (Due to Graduation I had to miss the cosplay).
Bring on the Anime Music Video where the heat was on for who gets to be crowned king of creativity in providing the best AMV. There was however a difference this year by having the majority of drama than comedy, possibly making people fall asleep during the event, but why not throw a little Final Fantasy XI Matrix (by MasterTaco www.mastertaco.com - 2nd place win) and have yourself some enjoyment.
The video game room gave game players a place to place without being cramped for once. With the relocation of the game room to the former con suite, it provided more space for more games for the convention. Sure there were a lot of console and DDR, what really was unprecedented to the eye was for the fact the game room had a Pachinko machine! So there was a lot of luck and skill involved throughout the game room. Now only if they had a Ghost Squad machine...
There were a lot of cosplayers out this year presenting what they have to offer. Animazement is renown for novice and expert cosplayers to attend the convention showing their skills by either entering the hall cosplay or attending the walk-on a the cosplay. The Full Metal Alchemist group looked like they took the center stage this year as far as in the largest cosplay group getting together this year. There were only minor delays in each group due to a little confusion, including the Cosplay.com group, but they eventually band together in an impromptu manner and had a shoot. Other series that made a spotlight for a shoot were of course Naruto, and Sailor Moon.
Animazement is one of those conventions where you can't pin point on who is what, since there were many various costumes from many different series from A-Z, and every year something new is happening within the attendees. Many returning faces include the famous Russians, Spatula Ninjas, Sake Ninjas, and many more attending Animazement to be all they can be. These are the factors of what makes Animazement unique since you see the same faces, but you never see the same thing after every year.
There's of course the dance, again I had to miss due to graduation, but from sources, it improved a lot since 2004. People were elated for the fact; Betty Boop wasn't blasted on the dance floor.
Bring on the dealer's room, where the size and location of the room was unchanged. Unfortunately there were some empty booths with empty dealers for the attendees to buy from. Fortunately it still didn't fray anyone from finding their rare items for their collections.
Outside of the dealer's room however, there was the artist alley which took up an entire hallway. Artists come out with the best they have of arts, illustrations, and other random things which can be considered KAWAII!! to absolutely get a possession of. There were comic artists, and other with their projects, working away on commissions, or just doing their hobby, enjoying the artist alley to the fulliest.
GoH err, the Guest of Honors of Animazement are somewhat different than from what other small anime conventions offer. Fresh from Japan comes, producers and voice actors/actress who come and share their experience with Animazement. Guest of Honors who attended were, Kyoko Hikami (Japanese Voice Actress), Aya Hisakawa (Japanese Voice Actress), Chika Sakamoto (Japanese Voice Actress), Keiko Han (Japanese Voice Actress), Keiko Ichihara (Manga Artist), Akira Kamiya (Japanese Voice Actor), Yasuo Yamaguchi (Various careers), Michihiko Suwa (Executive Producer), Koichi Tsunoda (Various careers), Pamela Houle (American Voice Actress), Scott Houle (Voice Director / ADR engineer), and Kyle Hebert (Voice Actor).
Animazement is sure has to be one of the strangest convention, well not for the convention but for the hotel. For the third straight year, plants for decoration of the hotel were peculiarly showing up on the elevators. Next thing you know it, most of them were unexpectedly spawned on the first floor. For the means of guessing, there are some hyper or bored Otakus at the convention.
As far as in attendance, walking down the parking lot, most of all the vehicles had pretty much a North Carolina tag on them, with a handful of Virginia, and some South Carolina. Increasing number of attendee has risen over the years showing positive signs for the convention.
-Quadrain.com Staff