The ConBlog: Castle Point Anime Convention 2010
Castle Point Anime Convention (CPAC) is one of those smaller cons you probably haven’t heard of. CPAC is located at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. Despite being small, this convention has always been a good time. It’s only a one-day con, but the con still has plenty of interesting events going on throughout the day. Here are the highlights of what I did during CPAC 2010:
- Dealers Room - While being small when compared to those of other cons, the Dealers Room at CPAC was still full of interesting things to buy. Media Blasters & a J-List distributor had booths there selling some cool stuff. I almost bought the Rie Kugimiya “Tsundere” shirt but they didn’t have my size. >_<
- Super Mario Super Panel – This was a fun panel where the hosts ran some fun games about Mario trivia and also showed episodes of the infamous Mario Bros. cartoon shows. I still can’t believe I used to like those shows when I was younger.
- Uncle Yo - The otaku stand-up comedian took the stage and performed his hilarious act. Many laughs were to be had.
- The List: The Panel - This was a panel that I hosted along with my friends Ernie, Gina, and Krissy from Out Of Time Productions. In the panel, we picked various anime-related categories and we picked and talked about our favorite choices from each category. This is based on a web series we did a while ago.
Also at the convention was a gaming room, a DDR room, a cosplay masquerade, and even a cosplay repair station! Despite being such a small convention, CPAC managed to deliver quite an entertaining experience this year and offered many of the events and experiences that larger cons have to offer, albeit being on a much smaller scale. If you’re nearby next year and feel like spending the day at an anime convention without dealing with all the hustle & bustle of larger cons, be sure to check out Castle Point Anime Convention.
Posted on 2010-04-12, in Conventions and tagged castle point anime convention, out of time productions, uncle yo. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Janai
Antz
OtakuAnthony
jaysteevee
vtine
matty
machineslife
Nyanman
Hello. I just got back to the Boston area a few hours ago from this convention. A great con to go to– Castle Point is a small con with the flavor of being on a college campus. It is a perfect 1 day con to go to if you decide to spend a Saturday afternoon in New York City visiting Kinokinuya Bookstore among other things. Where else can you properly hold a panel on the anime series Genshiken but on a college campus– you can do this panel at other cons but you don’t get the same flavor.
It wouldn’t surprise me if I was the only major out of town traveller to this event over the weekend– I don’t think anyone else travelled more than 2 to 2 1/2 hours each way for this con.
Word of advice for travellers– Use Hotwire.com for hotel rooms for this con and save a lot of money. I was glad that I booked that second night in the Newark Liberty Airport area just before travelling to New York — that action saved me a lot of worry.
Here are the highlights of Castle Point for me–
(1) Visited the artists alley– got a doujinshi about a Japanese salaryman who wants to become a pro wrestler. Not bad at 8 to 9 pages for a dollar.
(2) Bill Rogers and Michele Knotz Power Hour– Got to meet up with them again after not getting to see them when they came to Another Anime Convention. (Panel mistakenly listed as “Pokemon” Power Hour on the program guide, but I wasn’t fooled.)
(3) Watched the Promise Sisters perform a few songs– their father/manager is no Johnny Kitagawa, however. (See Johnny’s Jimusho for an explanation).
(4) Reading Guin Saga vol. 1 in the manga room with a perfect backdrop of the Manhattan skyline out the window.
(5) The List– the Panel. Awesome panel.
(6) Uncle Yo’s stand up routine in Main Events. Co-highlight of the evening for me with the Genshiken panel following it.
(7) Genshiken panel with Bill Rogers, Michele Knotz, Rome Elliott, Ken Robert Marlo, and Michael Perrecca. They signed the back of my “Otaku Shop for Dojin” T-shirt after the panel as well as my copy of Genshiken 2 volume 3.
Great con for my follow up from last week’s Anime Boston.
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