Con Review: “Anime Weekend Atlanta” shows the times

Anime Weekend Atlanta is Georgia’s biggest convention covering anime and the related subcultures. Taken place on September 18 through the 20th in the Renaissance Waverly, the con has expanded to it’s largest space yet. Despite this, the industry’s on a downturn… does Anime Weekend Atlanta stay relevant?

With near-empty wallets and various outfits, the staff of gaijINside went to Anime Weekend Atlanta mid-September.

We survived to tell the tale.

Only one month later.

Chad Bonin

Last year, you had everyone from FUNimation and Bandai to Cartoon Network (notoriously canceling Toonami at this time last year) attending the convention. This year? Only FUNimation, and nothing new on their end. Cartoon Network, despite effectively being down the street, did not show up to this convention, but that almost falls in line with their diminishing focus on animation as a whole, and only a few scant hours of anime on the channel any given week. ADV Films is in it’s weird state of legal hibernation, Geneon’s slumbering, and Bandai just decided not to show. Basically, this is almost indicative of the anime market; FUNimation rules the roost and everyone else is either defunct or just not big/caring enough to show up.

Every year up to this point has seemed to have an almost universal theme in cosplay. Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, Bleach… usually, one show has stepped above all the others in notoriety that year. This year? Nothing significantly notable. While an increase in Kamen Riders is always appreciated (all the imagins from Den-O AND the villains from Kiva? Nice.), this lack of an overwhelming majority is just… sad. Usually, one show gets everyone together, pumped up and excited. If anything, the last show to almost be universally praised was Gurren Lagann, and outside of a movie released earlier this year, it’s effectively over.

The anime fandom is just splitting, and it’s a sign of the times. Nobody buys DVDs because the internet’s available, no companies come because they’re losing money… because the internet’s available… It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that, while bittorrent can definitely help spread word of a series or two, it’s not exactly helping the sales of DVDs.

Not to say that companies aren’t trying. In the dealer’s room as always, gaijINside staff personally found some good deals. A Playdia with Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z games nearly wiped one out, while rare DVDs of Fist Of The North Star helped deplete the budget of another. If anything, the holy grail that is Daitenzin, the pornographic comic origin of Excel Saga, has been finally found.

Obviously, Anime Weekend Atlanta is worth attending, if you’re interest in anime and manga. Hopefully, there’s an upswing of the quality coming out and in the industry in general, or else the convention will just be a more depressing sign of the decline of the fandom.

Scott Laney

It’s September, and you know what that means. It’s time for another Anime Weekend Atlanta. This yearly convention that happens in Atlanta, Georgia is no laughing matter. It is one of the biggest conventions in the south, only beaten in size by the likes of Dragon*Con. This year marks the 15^th year that the convention has been going, and going strong it has been. The attendance numbers haven’t been released yet, but with an attendance rate of around thirteen thousand from the previous year, we can only hope that it has grown since then.

This year was my 9^th year of attending this regal con, and I have seen many things happen over the years; guests come and go, spectacular costumes, and lots of drunken people. This year was a great opening, as everyone seemed eager to get going on all the panels they wanted to visit, photo shoots with other strangers with similar costumes, and the holy grail of the con, the dealer’s room. Seeing the line for the dealer’s room was like standing outside a game store in Japan when a Dragon Quest game debuts. The dealer’s room itself has everything you could have imagined, from food, to toys, CD/DVDs, and books as far as the eye can see. Being broke as I am this year, I did not have the pleasure of purchasing anything but a very nice hat.

There were dozens of rooms dedicated to showing anime of one genre to another, from movies to individual shows, and an AMV hall where you could chill and relax, and even a manga reading room, just in case you wanted to check something out before you purchased it from the dealer’s room. The anime viewing rooms this year were a bit lighter than previous years however. I found myself looking through the lists of what was playing, and as much as I wanted to sit and watch some things, I had a harder time this year than previous years finding things that were relevant to my interest. It was too much new stuff, not enough older material. As far as panels go, sitting in on some voice acting panels was interesting, learning about the various aspects of what goes into the job as well as what you get out of it in return. One of the better panels this year was the Gundam panel, hosted by fellow contributors Richard Hoelsher and Drew Sutton. Even when Anime Hell and AMV Hell were running through their panel, they still almost had a packed room, which says something about that fan base.

Normally, I’m just an observer and not a cosplayer, but this year I decided to break out my old Viewtiful Joe costume that I haven’t worn in a few years. The response I got from it was phenomenal, which says a lot, considering the last game was released about four years ago. Using this outfit, however, I decided to enter a Rock Band contest with fellow writer Jason Sohiel Asgari. With style being a part of the competition, we thought we had a good chance, with being all dressed up in costumes, where no other band did that, but being ultimately thrown out of the running for “choosing a bad song”. Nuts to them, I still think we did a better job than the rest of the entrants.

As for the rest of the weekend, it was all a very great experience. I met new people, One couple of which was planning a Kamen Rider Kiva themed wedding, a bevy of beautiful cosplayers, artists who do a more exceptional job than I’ve seen professionals do as of recent years, and of course, what con is complete without any drinking to be done? AWA 16 was more than expected due to previous years being a little bland, and I was thoroughly surprised at the usual amount of overly nice people that attend them, especially during the third day, in which everyone is hung over, tired, and not in entirely good moods. With that being said, I am already looking forward to next year, and hopefully, another great AWA.

Jason Sohiel Asgari

This seems to be the year I’ve been going to a lot more cons than usual. MTAC, AFO, and Dragon*con just to name a few, but what always come up that I always look forward to the most is Anime Weekend Atlanta. It maybe cause it was the first convention I went to back in 2001, or it maybe cause I have made a lot of friends at this gathering for the past few years, including the friends I already had way before the convention started. Overall, the panels and guests are almost the least of my concern when it comes to family.

One of the major and most notable improvements that the AWA staff decided to do is that they moved the Artist Alley into its own room instead of having it in the area in between registration, AMV room, and Main Events room. Instead, that area was taken up by a guided line that was used for people who pre-registered their membership as that has always taken up the most space, especially on Saturdays. They even used that for lines for the Cosplay Contest and Night Rave. This really freed up the crowds from one of the main traffic areas and left a really open space in the new Artist Alley room which was really enjoyable.

This year guests include Troy Baker, Caitlin Glass, Amy Howard Wilson, Samantha Inoue Harte, and Vic Mignogna (whom has been to every con I was in this year as well!) Each of the voice actors had their own panels which I haven’t had time to see them all (I avoided Vic’s not because of him, but because of the fan girls that come to his panels). Of course, everyone always ask “How can I be a voice actor?” thinking that it’s an easy thing that they can do and don’t realize the hard work that the actors actually do to get into the business. Funimation as usual, but one major player that didn’t come this year was Cartoon Network. Which is a shame because I really ask about the new live action direction that they decided to go on and why their HD channel doesn’t actually air the shows in HD. (Note: Cartoon Network has corrected this problem before this article got published.) Just didn’t seem the same without the popular Atlanta based channel represented.

The main attraction that I attended (with fellow gaijINside staff member, Scott) was the Rock Band Competition. Our band had to go through some changes though. First, half of the members did not like how the band name had the word “The” twice in it and so The Muz and the Creeps had to get renamed to The Muz and Sexual Chocolate (in reference to Coming to America). The second change that greatly affected us was that our original drummer couldn’t make it to the con and we had to do some major shifting which caused Viewtiful Joe to be the guitarist, Blue Demon on drums, and new comer, Unicorn Man on bass. I, The Muz, was the only one that stayed in my original position, vocals. We even played up the crowd as we used the missing member to play up to get a “random” audience member to play bass (the Viking helmet losing the horn though was not expected and we played it out perfectly). It seemed like we played up the crowd great as they went along with the music and kept clapping to the beat, but all was crushed when the judges told us that we were a huge disappointment cause we decided to choose to sing “Snow (Hey Oh)” from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and saying we were not rocking enough. They really slammed us on our song choice and it was more of a matter of their song preference than our actually performance. I will say, I wasn’t perfect, I did sing the wrong verse in the beginning, and then sang it again when it was time for it. And halfway through, I lost all my energy as I couldn’t breathe. Tip for any future performers; don’t sing a 4 minute song with a mask without any mouth holes! Also, the band that won did do a much better job than us. Well all experience will only make our entry next year much better, so look for it!

Unfortunately the Rock Band competition caused me to miss the AMV Awards that I always attended and were interested in. I did catch a few in the AMV room and saw some impressive stuff as usual, and of course what even come up better than the AMVs is the peoples Cosplay. Chad, Scott, and I even dressed up. Chad went as Sunred, Scott was Viewtiful Joe, and I went with another friend as luchadores in business suits (and there were other people that did that too). Of course L’s were around and Naruto and Bleach cosplayers a plenty. Some of the coolest ones I saw were Dark Prince from Prince of Persia, Green Lantern, and Donald Duck.

There’s always a sense that I’ve been to many conventions when people recognize me from other conventions earlier in the year from other southern eastern areas. And of course I recognize some people who wear the same cosplay outfits in all 4 cons as well, and Vic and his fans were there too. But it’s always good because I have made new friends along the way and always have a good time. Can’t wait to see my AWA family grow even larger!