This year was my second year checking out the New York Anime Fest (NYAF), and I was quite excited to go! I have to say that it seemed a lot smaller than last year, but I still had a great time and enjoyed all of the panels, costumes and booths that I visited.

My first day was Saturday, and I arrived a little bit after the show opened. The con took place in the lower level of the Jacob Javits center, and was set up a bit better from last year. The dealers room seemed smaller, but there was still a good amount of things for people to browse, and happily it seemed that Artist Alley (independent artists) seemed a lot larger, and I had a great time browsing and wound up picking up a couple of chibi Zelda stickers (one now resides on my DS).

Along with the NYAF was the World Cyber Games competition for the US. I stuck around to watch some of the Gears of War 2 tournament as well as some of the Warcraft. The way these guys play really puts me to shame, but it was really fun to watch the teams!! While I was at the WCG area, I was also able to stop in at the Samsung booth and check out their Solid State Drive that was in all of the gaming systems at the WCG. The SSD is an advanced NAND flash based computer storage solution. The main feature is that the SSD provides high reliability, low power consumption, less weight and very fast performance. I was able to play Need for Speed shift which was running off of an Alienware laptop, and I definitely noticed a faster load and rendering time with the game.

There were some interesting panels that day. I wound up checking out a bit of Iron Cosplay (where people had to make a cosplay outfit out of materials given to them), some of Anime News Network’s panel, and some of the events that happened by the stage (some great dance performances!). I ended my day with a bit of the Korean and Japanese MMO games panel before calling it a day and heading home before my feet revolted against me being on them all day.

Sunday was a lot more subdued as most people I’ve noticed tend to come for Saturdays. I was able to navigate the dealer’s floor better and get a chance to play some Fairytale Fights (which was AWESOME!) and Bayonetta. I also was able to look through some manga and regret the fact that I don’t have the funds to buy some box sets of anime that I’ve been wanting. Since I arrived later, I made it to one panel that I thought would be really fun which was “How to Get A Job in Video Games” which had some bloggers and developers on the panel. It was informative and the crowd enjoyed it a lot as well. I stuck around for “The Top 10 Best and Worst Video Games” for a bit before heading home.

I did get to see some great costumes such as the Katamari girls, Auron, Chii, a plethora of Death Note characters and Bumblebee who was probably my favorite. There were also many great Lolita costumes which I enjoyed seeing. I will admit that there were still a bunch of costumes that I did not recognize that still looked pretty impressive.

All in all I had a great time and look forward to next year when the NYAF will be combined with New York Comic Con. It will be interesting seeing the two groups together in one place for both events!