Ninja-Con

Fun little convention, a bit too spread out with not enough signage to show what is where, but it was their first year so I’m not going to give too much grief. I enjoyed myself, though.

I’m an old school gamer and admirer of animé artwork. When I heard about Ninja-​Con, I immediately told my friend and he jumped at the chance to come along as he’s a HUGE fan of all the animé series I know nothing about. Actually, I told him because I wanted to talk trash in front of other onlookers while playing Super Street Fighter 4 while I go «rarr rarr» and electrocute him with Blanka. That’s what a good friend does, right? Revenge complete!
We had an opportunity to mingle with aficionados of artwork from many of the video games I’ve grown to love throughout the years. I got a firsthand glimpse to watch an artist draw a piece on request aka «concessions» from scratch.
All of the vendors had cool artwork and/​or pieces for sale. I grabbed these magnetic «8 bit design» pieces of Link and the turtle you step on from Super Mario Bros. The vendors were super friendly and enthusiastic to discuss anything about video games or animé (in my friend’s case)
I ended up leaving the convention with a 12 – 2 win ratio using Blanka in Super Street Figfhter 4. Hearing the voice actress of Tekken 3 play her her own character and re-​create her overdubs in itself was a treat. I loved the garden area downstairs which took me back to my time in Japan. Oh, I really like the costumes many people showed up in. Where else could you take a photo with a cute, female Link?!
Looking forward to next year’s event. Hopefully it’ll be bigger with more booths as if not for arriving early and getting the video games to ourselves we probably would have left an hour earlier.

I think the title of the convention was a misnomer. Yes the details say animé, but I did not see any ninjas, AT ALL. Only 1 demonstration of Martial Arts was performed: Filipino Martial Art of Arnis… a.k.a. Kali… a.k.a. Eskrima with Ryan Arciaga. And before this revealing workshop was finished, the Tokari Maids disrupted the presentation by getting on the mic and holding a raffle. RUDE!!! RUDE AND DISRUPTIVE to Mr. Arciaga who took the time come to this convention and present his artform. (Guy was cool about it, handled it all in stride.) RUDE to the people trying to listen to him. You really couldn’t wait another 7 minutes and do it during the dead time after the time allotted to him?!? Or how about the dead time BEFORE he started? Ugh! Inconsiderate people irk me! Sword Fights Inc. was a choreography team who had a entertaining presentation of different blades & each of their nuances. No ninjitsu presentations though. There were other presentations but weren’t so interesting to my kids as there was more of an emphasis on cosplay. Lots of people in costume mode, or cosplay, of animé characters. The Tokari Maid «Café» had 2 TVs to play video games… 2. This is supposedly a convention, suggesting lots of people will attend. The organizers only had 2 TVs in the Maid Café and 3 TVs in the Raging Nerds zone. So more watching than playing was seen. Pretty timid allotment of video game access. I’m thinking if you wanna set a buzz for your convention to make people come back ya gotta wow them with something. 5 TVs won’t wow anybody. Pretty small Artist Alley with less than 15 vendors. As this was a focus on animé rather than martial arts, why weren’t animé movies being shown?
So, not much to rave about for the 1^st annual Ninja-​Con. There was definitely an interest as there were a number of people there, I just think it was a missed opportunity to do something amazing and it fell short of my expectations.

Great Idea, but it could have been better.
The event was pretty small, and there wasn’t too much to look at. It was nice that there was an all day panel at the Miyako Hotel, but not everyone comes just to sit and listen to people talking all day.
There wasn’t too many things to buy here either. There were only about fifteen or so booths with artists selling their work.
True there were lots of cool things to buy at at Jungle Animé… but then again, it’s just a store. And I’ve been there several times before.
A majority of the people who came here also looked let down. Since there was nothing much to see or do, most of the attendees hung out in front of the community center just to people watch.
My friends and I have been to other conventions like Comikaze, PAX East, and Wondercon and Ninjacon so far is the worst.