Yes, this blogpost came out quite a bit later than I would have liked for a variety of reasons but I figured I better start typing it out before I head off to another big event later this week.
Last year, I dedicated a separate blogpost to each of the six “major events” I attended. This time, with the promotion of what was the “side events” to main event status to give each event a proper day in the limelight no matter their size, the structure had to change somewhat. And thus, today I will be writing on the first two events I appeared at in April of this year: EMcon, and Castle Point Anime Convention.
Even with the size of the event, there was still a good, if small, selection of cosplays and panels to experience on the event’s two days. One of the comic artists even got an entire panel to himself to show off and discuss his work process. There was a video gaming section but it was only for fighting game setups (there were tournaments for Tekken 8, Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Dragon Ball FighterZ) and it was packed away in a room to the side, distant from the rest of the event and the various vendors and artists that crowded around the library’s main entrance. Surprisingly, I was able to walk away from the event with three commissions, including one from a longtime friend I had met at Castle Point Anime Convention 2016, the very first convention I ever attended eight years prior.
And that was pretty much EMcon, one that I would love to go into more detail on but when we’re dealing with the smallest event of the year, there’s only so much detail I can get into without stretching things too far. If you’re wondering why I didn’t take any pictures of the interior, the large number of children in the building (in addition to wearing myself out the night prior playing Splatoon for four hours straight) made me reluctant to snap too many general pics of the venue. Maybe next year I’ll try to get some out but don’t hold your breath. Until then, time to move on to…
…Castle Point Anime Expo 2024. If EMcon was the warmup event, then Castle Point was the first true big event of the year. Unlike 2023, the event got to experience actual sunlight in the day, allowing for the outdoor cosplay and general atmosphere shots that I severely missed taking at and around the Medowlands Expo Center. It all felt very familiar, as familiar as my first time attending the event following the pandemic two years ago. Parking was thankfully a non-issue, making return trips to the car easy, short, and convenient. Stepping inside, all I had to do was present a QR code and I immediately received my badge, allowing me to explore the rest of the event. The inside of the convention center stayed pretty close to its layout from 2023 with one very crucial and well-appreciated change: The sound stage was not only much lower in volume overall, but it was now concealed in black tarp on all angles which allowed the stage to have light effects on for the entire day. Of course I still ended up losing my voice partway through trying to talk through my mask due to the crowds pouring into artist alley, but at least I was still able to cleanly chat with and likewise hear the artists in the artist alley.
Speaking of the artist’s alley, in past years Castle Point would typically have a line leading into the vendors’ hall and artists’ alley. It’s something they’ve done for years as a safety measure to avoid causing a big fire hazard but for reasons unknown, or perhaps since they saw the line as unnecessary following the move to a new venue, this was their first event in years to not feature the lines I associated with the event’s storefront areas. All I can say in response is a blunt “thank god” since every other event I’ve attended has never had to contend with lines into vendor halls and artist alleys (but getting into panels and even the events themselves is their own story). As for the Artist Alley itself, I was mostly unfamiliar with but still got along well with everyone that I chatted with. Getting commissions was something of a struggle at first but I was thankfully able to score the usual amount I get from CPAC, give or take maybe one or two images, and you can see the entire set of pics over on my Aozora’s Adventure blog.
Across from the artist’s alley was the video gaming section, and if you’re familiar with the gaming areas in anime conventions, you know what to expect: there were lots of fighting and non-fighting games on consoles, Japanese arcade and rhythm game cabinets, and stations to play board games. The fighting games were mainly the usuals: Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear Strive, and Smash Bros. Ultimate, and all of the aforementioned titles held tournaments as part of “King of Castle Point” through both days of the event. Since fighting games were not the central focus of the convention, I didn’t really stay around to spectate the fights. Dragon Ball FighterZ and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were available to play, though neither game ran any sort of tournament. Of course I had to preserve the cute doodle of Ken Masters that accompanies the signup paper which to my knowledge was drawn by DrowZs, the artist of the webcomic One Time Taxes that was receiving funding through the tournament. (If I'm wrong, please correct me!)
I did attend a single panel held in the mid-afternoon, one that I ensure I don’t miss each CPAC: The Dad Panel. What is the Dad Panel, you might be asking? Well, it’s a big comedy routine featuring a collective of four dads with their audience playing the role of their theoretical, collective children. The “children” ask the dads questions and they react accordingly, and the amount of humor that was able to be blasted out in an hour thanks to the heavy audience participation element of the panel and a half was astronomical. If it was available anywhere online for viewing, I would have strongly recommended you check it out--but since it's not, I suppose you'll have to catch it when it returns next year!
Unlike last year, the entire set of console games went dark as soon as the vendors and artists closed up, and there were no late-night free play setups or tournaments held even if it’d be the perfect time to play some Mario Kart or go bash some skulls in a few rounds of Good-Ass-Tekken. Only the arcade games (in a dimly-lit gaming area), a few late night panels, and two music and dancing performances were held past 7PM including the event’s signature “CPAC: the Dance”. Thankfully, the event was still very much active—the arcade machines still had lines lining up to play the various rhythm games, the Initial D machine remained alive through the night, and a four-player Gundam arcade title with a spectator monitor got quite a bit of spotlight through the event. Many people also hung out across the venue even with the lights over most of the event shut off, chatting with friends and watching the last set of performances at the music stage before returning to their hotel rooms and calling it a night.
And that was Castle Point Anime Convention 2024. How was it overall? Well, a month past its original date, I still am looking back on it pretty fondly, being just the right size for my first big event after the end of my winter break. If there was anything I’d say could use work, the only thing that would really come to mind is everything in the game room shutting off after 7PM. The vendor’s hall was also somewhat not to my liking, but considering I do not attend conventions for the vendors for reasons I stated before, I am in no position to say how it could be made better, especially with the limited space the vendors could occupy compared to other anime shows like AnimeNext and especially AnimeNYC. The one saving grace this event had over 2023 was the weather being bright and sunny.
At this point, you all may be familiar with how I usually end these anime convention overviews: a look back at the “trends” of the convention via its cosplays and the arts and other merch sold in the Artist’s Alley. I’m just going to go out and say that Genshin/Honkai, Jojo, One Piece, and to a lesser extent Demon Slayer were the biggest winners when it came to cosplays. With the artist’s alley I couldn’t really tell what series would have “won” as there was quite a wide range of representation even with the obvious biases twoards the newest and most popular media franchises. And because I’m something of a fighting game guy and have friends in the FGC, I’m happy to conform that quite a bit of Guilty Gear representation was at the event via cosplays and a few artist booths. The same cannot be said for Street Fighter 6 or Tekken 8 despite the tournaments the two games had in the gaming section. If you’re wondering how big the cosplay photo gallery got, I was able to get 100 shots total. Not close to my current record but by this point I think chasing down cosplays is much more cardio than my body can take, considering 120 is my average for Castle Point Anime Convention anyways. Now that that's taken care of, you can see the complete cosplay shoot gallery here. The full commission haul for both Castle Point and EMcon can be found here.
That's all for now! See you next month for an overview on Cradle Con and Brooklyn Comic Con, which will also be... the month of my 30th birthday?!
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