The gaming rooms at PAX East 2012 and Anime Boston both featured classic games on consoles from nearly every generation of gaming. Many of the people who entered these rooms were hit with waves of nostalgia as they feasted their eyes on nearly three decades of games from all over the world. In many cases, shouts of ‘no way’ and ‘I remember this’ echoed throughout the room, not just by the doorways. Respectively, both conventions had their own look and feel to their gaming rooms and here is how they achieved the differences.

PAX East

The gaming room at PAX East featured a plethora of classic games. Included were multiple versions of the Atari gaming console, some from as the early 80′s still in functional gaming condition. The look and feel of this room was one of excited gaming, reliving the classics side by side with your friends. As expected, consoles from Nintendo, Dream Cast, Atari, Commodore 154 and Sega CD were present.

Popular games within the room included Super Smash Bros for NN64, Super Nintendo Duck Hunt, playstation’s Pa-rapper The Rapper, Ghost Pilots on Neo Geo as well as Mortal Kombat for Sega CD.

Throughout the weekend game-a-thon, festivities also included some prizes being given out to gamers who stepped up to the plate to duke it out against another similarly skilled player. Set up with chairs and tables, Gamers were constantly bombarded with games to play from nearly every table in the room. This room was full of people, even on the very last day, down to the very last hour of the PAX convention.

It is worth mentioning that though PAX East had a small size gaming room at the Boston Convention center, they did have separate platforms outside of this room for newer games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero style events. There was often a line for these gaming stages and friend often filmed entire performances with whatever electronic device they had on hand.

Anime Boston

On the other hand is the radically different feel of the gaming room at Anime Boston. Inside a huge exhibit hall on the second floor, this is one of the few rooms that felt airy, for the lack of a better term. This is because the high ceilings and loud music with a live DJ in the center of the room made it feel more like a party rather than a get together. In this room, lights were dimmer, the air was cooler and it certainly got loud. The music provided by the DJ did not drown out the sound of gamers screams and cheers however, as they bested one another at games past and present.

Up on the walls were huge projector screens of gamers playing everything from Halo to Twisted Metal. Off to one side of the large hall was an assorted row of Dance Dance Revolution, PUMP and other dance games. This also leant a more club or dance feeling to the room for which gamers enjoyed the music to go with their games.

The games that were assembled were good as well. Perhaps not as in depth with the variety of Atari’s as with PAX East but still a very good mix. Also included were a handful of Nintendo 64′s, Super Nintendo’s, Dream Casts as well.

There was also more modern gaming consoles involved with Xbox360′s in this room playing games such as Halo or Left for Dead. Perhaps owing to the slightly younger crowd that generally attends Anime Boston, a more modern console was required to hook curious gamers by the doors as they progressed into the room.

That isn’t to say though, that people didn’t gush over the Nintendo 64 while playing Super Smash Bros but the vibe here was much livelier. Intermittent line dancing would break out depending on music choice by the DJ right alongside gamers playing Raiden on the Atari or Dance Central on the big screen.

Thus, whichever room at whichever convention you happened to step into was guaranteed to entertain. A little more nostalgic than an anticipated, both rooms featured great content with a different vibe for gamers to enjoy. With a slightly more classic feel, the PAX East gaming room did not disappoint with its bevy of games.

Also not to be forgotten is the external staging area’s for Rock Band type games to be played. On the other hand the slightly more crazed and energetic Anime Boston gaming room left many wanting to dance into the morning sun as the conventions came to a close each morning at nearly 2 AM.

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The 10th year of the annual Anime Boston Convention has come to a close, and it was the con’s biggest year yet (despite the fact that PAX East was going on at exactly the same time.) For Toonari Post,  here’s what happened on the third day including some final impressions of the con overall.

The third day had even less of a crowd than Friday, but there were still a few hundred cheerful people walking around, in and out of costumes, getting their pictures taken, and buying some last-minute merch from the Dealer’s Hall and Artists’ Alley.

The Closing Ceremonies were the main draw for Sunday con-goers, and the lines started forming an hour before the auditorium doors opened at 3pm. There was a skit at the beginning with A-chan and B-kun, the con mascots, followed by a recognition of the volunteers who had been with and helped make the con for the past 10 years.

While the names and pictures of the 10-year volunteers displayed on the projectors, the Gotta Catch ‘em All song from Pokemon began playing, and partway through, everyone started to sing along. There were some guest speakers and videos and finally the Japanese and other guests came out and walked up and down the catwalk to applause.

Before the Closing Ceremonies though, we managed to steal some time in the gaming room down the hall. Here, there were eight retro consoles set up, ranging from Atari to N64. For the first time we really got to sit down and play with, and talk to, some of the other con-goers. It’s amazing how a convention can facilitate such a level of spontaneous friendship between strangers.

We sat down next to a young guy playing Tetris Attack for the SNES and started a two-player game. As we played, almost everyone that walked by us stopped and commented on the game, how it should have had a tournament at the con, how they hadn’t played it in ages but still remembered it from childhood. When we finished with ‘Bomberman,’ we moved on to the next open console.

Next up was ‘Super Bomberman.’ We spent some time and had some fun learning what the special feature of each stage was (and usually got ourselves killed in the process). Ultimately we lost to the computer each time, but we had such a good time playing with one another that it didn’t really matter. As we played, we also extolled the virtues of these old single-button games, where the focus is on strategy, without any complicated controls to get in the way of the goal.

After that, we went over to the N64, which at that moment had no game in it. Fortunately, a girl came over shortly after with a bag of her own N64 games and a group formed to play some classic 4-player games: Mario Kart 64, Mario Party, Super Smash Bros, and so on. Everyone was so genial, it was like being amongst a group of my own friends.

We also managed to get to a few panels, most of them led by guests of the con, rather than staff. They were people who cared passionately about the subjects they wanted to speak about, such as the guy who led the Tokusatsu panel on Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and (briefly) kaiju such as Godzilla.

He and his friend, who came in a very detailed and convincing Kamen Rider costume, seemed to know the series as deeply and intimately as anyone could. As he spoke about the individual Super Sentai rangers, he did their poses and spoke their names in the deep, dramatic sort of Japanese you hear in those shows.

He had watched all the series, even if they weren’t subtitled, and seemed to identify more with Japan than North America when he spoke. I was also amazed at how vocal the fan-base of these series were. One of the girls in the audience began heckling him when he slighted her favorite season of Kamen Rider; and when prompted, part of the crowd would call out something in Japanese and do a gesture associated with one character or another.

For a first-time visitor to the Anime Boston convention, it sort of had a feeling of Disney World. Kids and adults would come and take pictures with their favorite mascots, visit all the attractions, then go back to the hotel at night. The only difference, though it’s a major one, is that everything at AB comes from the fans themselves. There is very little industry support, aside from the guests and occasional Funimation or Viz panel.

The cumulative effect is that Anime Boston is much more a “community” than big industry conventions like PAX. You may come for the first time wondering what you’ll find–what do you do at an anime convention, watch videos all day?–, and realize you’ve found a community. This is especially true if you’re in high school and have a hard time making friends there. The con is a place where it’s hard for anyone to take themselves too seriously, and the barriers between people come down.

Whether you are into tabletop games like D&D and Magic: The Gathering, or video games, or cosplay, or steampunk, or dancing, or anything else geeky, there is a community at Anime Boston waiting to welcome you like an old friend.

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Saturday morning dawned on Anime Boston showing the expected increase in crowds than the average Saturday normally brings. Parents were often seen with their children, some as young as 10 years old, standing in line to get into the convention.

This was an interesting facet of Anime Boston, where whole families showed up. From the young preteen boy, who has a fascination with giant robots, or the teenaged older sister that not only spoke Japanese but read it fluently as well. The more traditional age of Anime Boston attendees fell into the typical age group of older teenagers and the early to mid 20′s adults.

Another key difference was evident in the artist alley for which a strange but not entirely unexpected shift took place. Fans noticed that several key artists, some of which created stuffed plushie toys or other types of art outside the traditional medium, had left the convention.

This could possibly be because of reasons unrelated to attending the convention, but more than 1 artist was noted to be missing on Saturday that had been in attendance on Friday. Perhaps they had just wanted to sell what artwork they could on one day and head back home? Regardless, some of these artists were missed by fans, one in which did make plushie toys and it’s a shame that they left.

By mid day, many of the higher quality lanyards had been replaced in favor of thinner cheaper string. It’s likely that the anticipated need for the badges was miscalculated since lines to purchase individual day tickets were still somewhat long. While 20 or 30 minutes to wait in line to order to get a badge for the convention wasn’t bad, that was calculated just after noon. Earlier in the day, the lines were reported to be much longer, requiring an extra room to be opened for standing.

In the extra room, the panels for Mecha illustrator David White were jam packed with people standing in the back while he spoke. David White has been an illustrator of Mecha for Games such as MechWarrior 4, Black Knight and MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries. He has also been a featured artist in several of the “How to Draw” book series, including “50 Robots to Draw and Paint” and ‘Mecha Mania”.

Another panel that took place at Anime Boston on Saturday was the Funimation industry panel where coverage of that panel is included here with previews for movies, TV episodes and glimpses into the past and present of anime fans.

The Plushie tutorial workshops were not only packed, but promised to teach, for a small fee, the ability to construct a specific set of Plushie toys. This effort was hit or miss, as learning how to make Plushies in under 2 hours is a hard effort by any reasonably intelligent Anime Fan. Still, some did succeed, owing to previous needle and threading experience while others lagged behind. The following panel after Plushie toys was naturally, Plushie Weapons.

The swap meet, which took place both Friday and Saturday, was an interesting piece of commerce for Anime Boston fans. If you had some items that you wanted to offload from your collection, this was the place to do it. Fans traded manga, action figures, toys, as well as other Anime trinkets.

Stepping into this room almost certainly required both buyers and sellers to haggle over what they were willing to trade with another member of the panel. Therefore, it paid off to know the worth of not only the items you had in your possession, but the item that you wanted in trade at the Swap Meet Panel.

Let’s not forget the Swordsmanship from the ‘Around the World’ panel or the Mock Combat for the ‘Cosplay’ Panel. Its intermediate level of combat as Friday was its beginners day, the mock combat panel kicked it up a notch for Saturday. Other notable panels run by guests included a historical panel on the history of Japanese Animation, Metal Gear Science panels, as well as a slew of Anime TV Episodes in the viewing rooms.

There were several 18+ ID required panels this evening as well, for which several were in the video rooms while others were more interactive. A viewing of Funimations Licensed series “Heavens Lost Property: Forte” was a treat for fans that were old enough to get into the viewing room of this up and coming dubbed series.

An adult Q&A panel by FAKKU Group also took place, for which fans of Adult Anime cheered. Loyal fans of the Fakku website later gushed about meeting their heroes from the largest online adult anime website. Despite the timing mix-up by Anime Boston staffers, the problem was thankfully fixed and the panel was a huge success.

The panel titled Extreme Geek in Exhibition Hall D ensured hours of laughter as Anime fans danced, cheered and had a generally uproarious raunchy fun time. There were other more Anime driven panels but this one offered the most variety in experience, from music to dancing to YouTube clips to a drag queen contest. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an entire room full of grown men and women do ‘Dance Central’ on camera on queue.

An informal dance, more appropriately mentioned by some fans as ‘the Rave’ took place at the same time as many of the evenings’ 10 PM panels. Dressed any which way as long as it was fun and exciting, the Hynes convention center as a whole was rocking hard until nearly 2 AM or later. Unfortunately, the Rave itself had an incident with the lighting as well as other additional safety concerns causing the party to end early despite party goer’s wishes.

The end of the panels and other events at Anime Boston on Saturday night were indeed not the total end of festivities as fans still littered the hallways and stairwells at 1 or 2 AM. The Hynes Convention Center, as well as the connected Sheraton Hotel and Prudential Shopping Center still had fans walking around, many still in full costume after more than 12 hours of convention events. Some fans were even looking for the bathroom to change out of their clothes, though many of them in the Prudential Center were closed unfortunately.

Day two of Anime Boston ended with thunderous applause from fans as events came to a close. Despite the early ending of the informal dance as well as the other hilarious panels, Anime fans walked away from this day at the convention having enjoyed themselves on Easter weekend.

Partying early into the morning, there are many Anime fans who will sleep satisfied with their Saturday at this Anime Boston convention. Day three coverage with the closing ceremony as well as final impressions to follow.

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Continuing our Battle of the Boston Conventions, we’ve covered the food, hotels, crowds and transportation to and from conventions but need to get down to the nitty gritty details. Management and content are two of the most important factors at a convention — it takes a steady hand from the management to keep the show running smoothly. Without a doubt, these two items are the details that make or break a convention.

Management

Anime Boston was run by a dedicated staff of people as well as a steady stream of volunteers. Many of the staffers have been there for a decade or longer. The volunteers and security staff work very hard to ensure a smooth transition between panel rooms and answer questions very helpfully. The visual and audio personnel are also very knowledgeable about the current systems at the Hynes Convention Center. It should be noted that many of them are on the younger side, early twenties.

Part of the Reed Exhibitions Network, PAX East is a Convention on a whole other scale from Anime Boston and it shows in how it is run. Bigger and more streamlined, there is a formula of sorts to Reed Expo’s work, a flavor that they possess for the lack of a better phrase. In many cases, not only are the security people here strict and professional but friendly as well. Aisles are not only numbered for fans to find booths and for friend to find each other but the industry support from Reed Expo ensures that no matter the panel or the event, attendee’s will have fun.

Winner: PAX East

Content

PAX East was a gaming convention of fairly epic proportion. Not only was a live taping of G4TV’s X-Play done there, but there were all kinds of goodies and free swag for fans. From the free gear bags at Magic The Gathering to the Dance Central 2 on stage prizes, this was a convention that focused on games and games only.

Smaller game developers got to strut their stuff right alongside the big dogs in the gaming industry as they presented their games, many of them strategy games that have won awards or were soon getting ready for full launches.

Industry support is a huge and critical element in the gaming industry and so many of the top game developers also shelled out cash to maintain real estate space on the show room floor. It showed in the towering structures from developers such as UbiSoft, 2K Games and Microsoft that they meant business.

In the other hand Anime Boston had many panels run not by industry professionals but by budding entrepreneurs or loyal fans making a statement about their favorite Anime. There were few and far between professionally held industry panels and those that did take place were often packed out the door of their respective rooms.

In terms of sheer versatility however, Anime Boston had a slice of the pie for everyone. Whether you were a steampunker fanatic, an Anime nerd, a Gaming geek or a cosplay role player, you felt right at home at Anime Boston.

Both conventions featured a dealer room but more often than not, the dealer room at Anime Boston was a bigger success for fans. With plushies, dresses, music, movies, posters, manga, toys and food; this room was regarded as a highlight of the convention for its variety. The dealer room at Anime Boston also had classic gaming consoles for sale, old classic games as far back as the Atari as well as newer fresh out of the factory gaming joysticks.

Both Conventions also featured gaming rooms with classic gaming consoles available for players all the way into the late evening hours so both deserve credit for running an excellent game room. Hats off to Anime Boston for having a better console gaming room than PAX East since Anime Boston’s game room also had DDR, PUMP, Dance Central and a live DJ.

Anime Boston was hurt by the loss of Bandai in North America as well as loss of other industry support. PAX East suffered from a smaller dealer room and a vastly smaller game room but won points for its better established table top gaming section. Pax East also lacked the versatility that Anime Boston provided in spades and didn’t necessarily feel as comfortable.

Anime Boston felt like coming home to that favorite meal where friends and family welcomed you with open arms while PAX East felt like the carnival that just arrived in town to put on a show and then leaves later in the week. It’s two varying experiences and hard to judge but in the end there must be a winner.

Winner: PAX East

By a small margin, the content presented at PAX East was more professional and less prone to errors or crowd displeasure. Pax East won mostly because what it lacked in general variety it provided for in gaming content so high in quality that Anime Boston could not hope to match it.

With demos, free prizes, game play videos and other assorted gaming bonuses, PAX East just plainly felt like the more adult convention to attend. Anime Boston was an excellent jack of all trades that provided a fabulously entertaining experience but felt like it still had some kinks to iron out. Pax East was a well oiled machine for the most part and that feeling translated into a more streamlined experience for fans.

Overall Winner: Pax East

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In a not so distant land in the great city of Boston, the first full weekend of April heralded the return of two great conventions in the New England Area. Both Anime Boston and PAX East were held from April 6th through the 8th, generating what was sure to be a huge amount of economic income for the great city of Boston.

An anime and gaming fans dream weekend, there were some that could not stand the allure of two simultaneous conventions and therefore attended both. At around the same price and in relative distance to food, hotels and transportation, what is a fan to do when faced with the challenge of deciding which event to attend. A variety of factors contributed to which convention many of the Convention goers wanted to attend, some of which were small differences that made a huge impact upon the conventions attendance rate.

Transportation

Anime Boston was held within the Hynes Convention Center, which geographically was located much further than Boston’s South Station transit hub. In contrast, PAX East was located a literal stone throw across the Fort Point Channel from South Station, making transportation that much more convenient for PAX attendees.

Logan airport is minutely closer to PAX East but a cab ride is required for both PAX and Anime Boston. Trains were also available that traveled right past the convention center but traveling with luggage on a public train is not advised.

Winner: PAX East

Hotels and Motels

Both conventions, due to being a short distance of about 3 miles apart, shared many of the same hotels. Many of the downtown area hotels were booked solid through the entire weekend, especially those closest to the convention centers and with cheaper deals. For those looking for cheap hotels, looking away from the Hynes Convention center was a smart strategy since the surrounding areas were considered more trendy and expensive with hotels such as the Hilton Back Bay, The Mandarin Oriental as well as the Sheraton already attached to the convention.

The hotels surrounding the Boston Convention Center aren’t all that different either unfortunately since it’s close to waterfront property as well as downtown, theatre and financial districts. Research is required for the savvy traveler to find a good deal on hotels but for easy access to some of the best hotels in town the area near the Hynes can’t be beat.

Winner: Anime Boston

Food

Continuing the trend from the hotels, the food surrounding both conventions is good but equally expensive in some cases. Convention goers can expect to have a variety of food available with food west of the Hynes convention center being on average, cheaper.

Another area that is right between the two convention centers for cheaper food would be Chinatown and the financial district and so it’s really more about finding the right places, doing the research to save money where desired. For a more trendy and upscale eating experience, head towards the food around Anime Boston and the Hynes convention center, even the people at PAX East will tell you that.

Winner: Anime Boston

Crowds

Both conventions were huge events taking place with tens of thousands of people in attendance. Badges were sold out for the first two days of most events on top of an early sell out on the 3 day badges. The feeling though, was that even on Sunday, the slowest day for both conventions, PAX East still felt more crowded as well as more exciting than Anime Boston did on Saturday, Anime Boston’s most crowded day.

However, the numbers themselves do not lie. Historically, Anime Boston has about 20,000 people in attendance for its 200,000 Sq Ft. event space, if you include the registration center inside the Sheraton Hotel. Then consider that historically, PAX East usually has more than 30,000 attendees for its nearly 600,000 Sq Ft. event space at the Boston Convention Center.

These numbers are only accurate in that this is generally the total allotted number of passes sold, not the total number of times a person attended. That number is the turnstile number, for which a single person with a 3 day pass is counted 3 times. AnimeBoston’s posted turnstile number is a tabulated 53,007 total attendees for the entire 3 days while PAX East’s number is likely 70,000+ turnstile.

It becomes clear that Anime Boston was more crowded because Cosplayers, decked out in full anime costumes with large wings or swords, stopped foot traffic because people kept taking pictures of them. Far more line inducing at PAX East were the demos, pre-orders, convention and game exclusives but that didn’t seem as bad considering the Boston Convention center is nearly 3 times bigger than the Hynes convention Center.

Winner: Pax East

Price

At about 30-35 dollars depending on the day in which you went, as well as how early your ordered your pass, both conventions are the same price. Saturday is generally the biggest day with the most people who have time to attend and so it accordingly costs more. If you were lucky enough to snag an advanced 3 day pass your savings were that much greater!

Winner: TIE

Part 2 in the Battle of the Boston Convention wraps up both the management and the content of both conventions, yielding a winner by a narrow margin.

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