With well over 15,000 people expected over the 3 day event, Anime North is one of the top 5 largest conventions in all of North America. It is held in Toronto, Canada the last weekend of May (Memorial Day weekend for those of us in the States) and encompasses the Toronto Convention Center and Doubletree Hotel, as well as the Renaissance Hotel just down the road. For one weekend the area is completely dominated by cosplayers, anime lovers, game players, and yes, even yaoi fans.

Anime North boasts a full schedule of special events, panels, workshops, video rooms, game play, and concerts. As mentioned earlier, Yaoi North is a dedicated section of the convention for fans of the genre. Also, there is a large dedicated area for video gamers including tournaments and open play. A large Artist Alley and Dealer room fulfills all your purchasing needs.

Some of the major and most popular events include the cosplay masquerades, Momiji Award Brunch, J-rock concerts, and a Moonlight Masquerade Ball. Of course, what convention wouldn’t be complete without special guests and stars? This year’s guests included: Corinne Orr (Trixie from Speed Racer), Peter Fernandez (Speed in Speed Racer), Matt Greenfield (ADV Co-founder), Wendee Lee (Faye in Cowboy Bebop), Stephanie Sheh (Orihime in Bleach), Derek Stephen Prince (Uryu in Bleach), Johnny Young Bosch (Ichigo in Bleach), Keith Burgess (Hyuga in Evangelion), Tiffany Grant (Asuka in Evangelion), Patrick Seitz (Kurosaki in Bleach), Michelle Ruff (Rukia in Bleach), and Sonny Strait (Hughes in Fullmetal Alchemist and the original ‘Toonami Tom’ for CN). Musical Guests of Honor included ZZ (Rock-rap Group), Spider’s Kiss (J-rock, metal Group), and Wire (DJ Group).

Day 1 Highlights

After attending the opening ceremony, with an introduction to the special guests, I took some time to walk the Artist Alley and Dealer Room at the convention center. As you would expect, you can find a wide variety of art and trinkets.

After that, something caught my eye on the program guide… “How to Get a Convention Girlfriend.” Having a high level of journalistic integrity, I had no choice but to cover such a discussion panel for the betterment of all. After slinking in…er…entering the room, which had a fair number of both sexes in attendance, I sat listening to the sage advice of the panelists. One of the panelists was ‘The Wombat’, who has been around Sci-Fi and other conventions for over 30 years. Their advice to the con-goers was sound and fun; sadly I wasn’t able to put any to practical use that weekend.

With that panel finished, it was time to head over to the main stage area for the Friday night Masquerade. This entails skits performed in costume. They could range from musical numbers to pure comedy. Fun was had by all.

Day 2 Highlights

As the day started, the first highlight would be the Momiji Award Brunch. This is a paid ticket event, which usually sells out prior to the Convention. This year’s recipients were Corinne Orr and Peter Fernandez for their long and distinguished careers. This is a time to sit, eat, and share the company of the guests.

I decided to take in the J-Star show in the main ballroom, while waiting for a few panels to start in the afternoon. This is an opportunity for budding Pop Stars to show their talents. After getting into the spirit with some music, I headed out to the “Living in Japan” panel. This was a rather popular and packed panel as one would expect. The panelists all had lived in Japan for some time and were there to share their tips and tricks of survival. This was quite an informative session, and Anime North should really look into expanding something similar to this in the future. They were able to provide facts that the unsuspecting new resident might not have been prepared for such as: the use of cash for almost everything, unlike how we tend to use credit for everyday purchases. How the post office is pretty much its own banking system. And many other little tidbits.

After the “Living in Japan”, it was time for the Paradise Kiss guest panel. The guests included Stephanie Sheh, Michelle Ruff, Johnny Young Bosch, and Patrick Seitz. As you find with most of the panels that include the voice actor guest, these turn out to be quite fun and also tend to derail into unrelated discussions. After some banter around about the show and how some people seemed to have been able to watch, or even worse, had the show without having bought the DVDs, Stephanie wanted to show the commentary track that was left of the final disc of the show. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a DVD player and TV available in time for that. So your intrepid reporter volunteered to retrieve his laptop to show it on from his car parked all the way back across the street by the convention center. (Since I didn’t want to carry it around with me that day, it would figure that’s when it would come in handy). I had to make the trek back through the Cosplay Conga-line that was weaving their way around the convention center and parking area. So 15 minutes later, and rather out of breath, I arrived back at the panel. When I asked if I missed all the good banter and embarrassing stories, of course they said yes… just to rub it in I suppose. Don’t worry though, it was all for nothing. The audio track was just too low to be heard for some weird reason. Now I was stuck carrying the heavy thing all around again! It’s alright though; Stephanie was very nice about it, so I was able to forge ahead.

Following that experience, it was time for the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Canadian Premiere. Of course, what video premiere would be complete without a Haruhi Dance Contest. The cosplaying contestants did an admirable job performing the ending dance number. Videos of the contest can be found Here. Following the decision of the guest judges (Wendee Lee, Michelle Ruff, Stephanie Sheh, Johnny Young Bosch, and Patrick Seitz), it was time to show the dubbed version of Episodes 00 and 1 to a packed crowd. Ah, I forgot how fun episode 00 was.

ADV Panel Recap

Once again though, there was no time to rest, as I needed to make it over to the “State of the Industry” panel followed by the “ADV Industry Panel”, both with Matt Greenfield.

Since he had no announcements to make, these were just opened to questions.

When asked about the trend of companies financing animes to get a foot in on the licensing rights, Matt was quick to point out that they have co-produced over 40 animes to date and was the first company to do so. Just because they are part of the production committee, doesn’t mean that they would get the licensing rights. It’s still a bid process and who is he to argue if another company wants to give them more money than they even thought it was worth!

The next question up was about High Definition releases for anime. Basically his reply was that not much anime is actually being produced in HD, since it is much more cost effective right now to be done in standard definition. Also, since both Sony and Toshiba produce anime productions and have competing HD standards, there are usually exclusivity clauses in the licensing agreements. So the format war is definitely having an effect on the industry.

He mentioned that they are releasing Air every month and that it’s already in production. They are taking a risk on the series as most retailers didn’t want it. ADV also had to deal with 2 companies to get both the movies and TV series, while keeping each of them in the dark or the price most likely would have been impacted. (By the way, if you’d like to see Kanon licensed, then he said you need to buy Air… as that will be an indicator that these types of shows will sell.)

Asked about some companies that are releasing titles without dubs (and selling them at Japanese prices as well), Matt stated that title with dubs simply sell 10x better than ones without. ADV will only release something without a dub track if the original is just too old and the materials are just not there to do it. In the same vein, he had to take a shot at companies trying to us non-native speakers for dubs made overseas.

During the discussion, the inevitable Evangelion questions arose. A couple quick points to note on this: Eva is not the cash-cow people think it is for ADV. In fact, Hello Kitty makes more money. They do release it and promote it simply to keep it in front of new fans entering the anime genre. The 10^th anniversary edition of the show is on hold right now, due to the announcement of the 4 new Eva movies in Japan. When asked about the several releases in the past couple of years, Matt replied that they may have been pushing it with yet another. However, the joke was made… “We released it five times now… and you bought it all 5 times!”

When asked about the future plans of ADV, Matt indicated that they are really interested in seeing where unknown people using the new tools out there to collaborate on making their own animes will lead. Also, they are concentrating on their current lines and not looking to expand into licensing games. He did indicate that he’s been excited by the current season of shows in Japan and things that they may have turned the corner back into epic animes being made once more.

Day 2 Highlights (cont)

Following the ADV discussions, it was time to head back to the ballroom for one of the conventions main events, that being the Saturday night version of the Masquerade. In this version, contestants are given a minute or two to show their costumes to music or short skits or demonstrations. By design this events is placed in direct conflict with the concert held that night due to the large number of attendees. You need a wristband for either event, to help control the numbers. So if you plan on attending, make sure to acquire your band ASAP.

Saturday night is toped off with the ticketed event of the Moonlight Masquerade Ball. This is a gala event to showcase your best semi-formal to formal wear, with a healthy dose of cosplay as well, and then dance the night away. As I am old, and didn’t have a ticket, I had to dance my way to my hotel for bed.

Day 3 Highlights

As the day started early for some Q & A media interviews with the guests, I then headed back to the convention festivities. First up was the Bleach Guest Slam, which was a time to take to the voice actors from the hit show Bleach. As Johnny Young Bosch stated, they weren’t exactly too sure what “slam” would entail. But all the comments and questions were of a good nature.

Following that it was time to head to the charity auction. Anime North has raised over $80,000 for the Hospital of Sick Children Foundation in Toronto from con events. This was an opportunity to bid on donated items to help a great cause. Yes, they got me for 30 bucks for a couple of pictures that I didn’t really want… but hey, it all for charity.

After a final tour around, I attended the final event of the convention for me, “Improv with the Guests.” The improv group, 404s, along with Stephanie Sheh and Patrick Seitz, put on a show for the attendees. They preformed admirably at the funny situations and lines they were forced into. Probably one of the funniest hours I’ve had.

In conclusion,

As with most large anime conventions, there is just too much to do and not enough time to do it in. But that is also the draw; you can always find something to keep you interested. So if you’re looking for a fun convention to attend and live near Toronto or the US border… look up Anime North. Perhaps I’ll see you there some time. Just look for the 30-something not in a costume.