I attended my very first Anime convention yesterday with the New York Anime Fest. I've certainly seen some Anime. Mostly TV shows. A few Anime films. Read very little Manga. (Japanese comics). So, it was a bit of a learning experience for me. I was quite confused as to whom were most of the cosplayers. Some I figured out, but others...no clue. It took a small area of the convention center. Only 5 aisles. I walked it through twice and saw a ton of Manga, Anime, clothing, art, toys and a creepy little life-like robot girl called Project Aiko. It seems as though the culture is bigger than the actual product. As in all of the various types of clothing and weapons/toys that were on sale.
What did I get out of it? Truthfully, very little. Yet, I still enjoyed it. There were a TON of cosplayers and most were in their tweens. It was a bit disturbing seeing some of the very young ladies so scantilly clad with their MOTHERS RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. Like obsessed stage mothers in a kiddie beauty pageant.
I didn't purchase much, if anything. I found a comic in the tiny artist alley that looked interesting and picked up 6 issues of it. There were some incredible artists in the alley. Again, all very young. Quite impressive! I took their cards to look up later and perhaps get in touch.
Now, the real show was later. The Far East to East Showcase at The Knitting Factory club. About 7 bands were playing starting around 7 p.m. My homies, The Notorious MSG were basically headlining and going on later in the evening. So, I met my friends Mike and Jon there around 9 p.m.
A Japanese band called quaff was starting. They had a heavy blend of hard rock and rap all in Japanese. They fucking rocked the house. Really fun and they clearly were having lots of fun themselves. Even doing a cool cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". Yeah, that's right. We dubbed them the Japanese Poison complete with a C.C. DeVille look-a-like!
They were followed by a local group called Echo Stream. I describe them as sort of Bjork meets Evanescence. Very smooth and cool and a great contrast of vocals and music. They also did a fine cover, but it wasn't no Michael Jackson. It was Radiohead's "Creep".
Soon after, the Chinatown boys, The Notorious MSG, took the stage and stormed it with a raucous show full of energy, hilarity and awesome music. They did an unyet heard of song from their upcoming new album. It kicked all sorts of ass! It was great to see them perform live after interviewing them a couple of weeks ago and listening to their music for weeks now. We all thought the show was over, so we went out to the lobby area where some of the bands were hanging out. I got to chat with the MSG boys for a bit as well as some of the others.
We soon realized there was more show as a band took the stage. TsuShiMaMiRe. A 3 girl Japanese rock/punk band. And motherfucker did they kill it! Jon and I were banging our heads along to every unintelligible word. (It was in Japanese...duh!)
I enjoyed the show so much, that I ended up buying CD's for quaff, Echo Stream and all 3 available by TsuShiMaMiRe. You'll soon be hearing about them on Comic News Insider, I'm sure.In the meantime, go click on the links for the and check them out for yourself. Don't be scared of the Asian rock. We know how to kick it like Chan!
More pictures later or check them all out on my flickr page.
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