Well the gang at Aniville came back from AnimeNEXT with a lot of stories and a lot of thoughts. So in this issue we will go over a lot of the good and the bad of everything that happened.

Aniville’s return to AnimeNEXT was a lot different then years past. We were actually attendees not merchants. For the first time in a long time at an anime convention I had to wait in line to purchase a badge. Which I have no problem with. I actually had fun cause it wasn’t something that I do to often.

Now your saying to yourself why were the members of Aniville waiting in line and not had a booth? Well after sending my packet in and not hearing anything back about my dealers packet. I ended up not having a table cause they were “sold out”. The only reason I found out was about 2 weeks before the con I contacted them cause my check wasn’t deposited in their account and I was starting to get worried that I wasn’t going to have a booth.  I don’t have heat with AN cause I know how hard it is to run an event like this and I give them credit. What I do have to mention is after talking to a few “friends” at the venue of the event they added another dealer or two in the dealers room on the day of the event.

Overall the Dealers room was very bland in my opinion and there was also merchants there that I thought shouldn’t be there. One was a stuffed animal dealer which really didn’t have much Japanese or anime oriented. The other is FYE. Why would FYE who has multiple stores in the area be purchasing a table and selling their DVDs for high marked up prices at a convention. In my opinion you go to a convention to get deals not spend high marked up retail prices.

Oh another piece of advice for some of the merchants. If you are selling a 1 color black shirt for $25 and it is not a mainstream market piece please rethink your pricing. Your really raping the fans. I sell shirts don’t get me wrong and I know how much it costs to make the shirt and you want to make a good amount of profit but $25 for a shirt that is not from the company that made the anime/manga is outrageous. A 1 Color on black shirt at most costs $10 a shirt a 150% markup is a lot. But then again I think this is why I sell out of my shirts a lot.

Enough about the dealer’s room I wasn’t really pleased about it but that could have been me just feeling down that I didn’t have a table there. Now how bout the Artist’s Alley…. I have to say I liked a few pieces in the auction I actually won one of the pieces and I will be giving it as a Birthday gift to someone in the next couple weeks. The artists were pretty good. A lot of the same type of artwork going table to table but overall some pretty good artists. I know some of the staff at AnimeNEXT are waiting to hear my complaints well guess what there is only one complaint…. The hallway to the Artist Alley should’ve never been lined both sides with tables. Holy Claustrophobic Batman! If you don’t get fined by the fire marshal I will be very surprised.  Anime Conventions a lot of the people do not shower. Just putting them into a small area just makes it worse. besides a tall person like myself I got groped I got hit and guess what I don’t mind it cause I am here for the art. But what the hey… that was way too close for comfort.

Overall at the end of Part 1 of my newest article I will say between the artist Alley and the dealers room I will say I enjoyed the artist alley a lot more due to the fact there was more creative items and not the standard dealers everywhere. If you would like to see the shoots from AN09 I will get more in dept into all that in the next article check out my pictures at

http://www.shareapic.net/content.php?gid=662628&owner=storystick

Between photoshoots and events at the con I will have plenty on my soapbox. Until next time this is Jay@Aniville signing off.