Anime Boston 2006 was held on May 26 - May 28 at the Hynes Convention Center. This year our group from Anime Bliss consisted of myself (Gollum), Galaxy and Xellos. We got a room in the Sheraton Boston Hotel which was connected to the convention center. The idea behind this was to allow us to stay later at the convention and attend events that we hadn't been able to in the past.

We got to the hotel on Thursday evening. The first thing we did was run to registration to get our badges since we preregistered. We got lucky and when we arrived there was no line at all. We were able to get our badges and swag in 5 minutes and then headed to the hotel lobby. We checked in to the room (which was really nice) and grabbed some dinner. We finished the night by watching some Saiyuki and then went to bed.

The next morning we got up and headed down to the convention. On the way we grabbed a quick breakfast. We spent sometime watching people walking through the main level of the convention until we were ready to get into line for the opening ceremony.

The opening ceremony was fairly standard. Patrick welcomed us to the convention and introduced all of the guests. After that we decided to hit the dealers room. I wasn't overly impressed by the dealers room this year. The selection of items was very small. There were very few people selling DVD's and graphic novels and there was a very small selection of other items but everyone seemed to be selling them. Also all of the booths were selling there items at retail prices or a little bit under. While there though, we saw a Chrono and Rosette cosplayers.

Next we headed upstairs to join the line for Steve Blum and Vic Mignogna's autographs. While in line we saw a little cosplayer who we just had to get a picture of.

After the autograph session we went to ADV's Sneak Peek. They showed us the first episodes of two series, Nanaka 6/17 which just recently came out and This Ugly and Beautiful World which will be out in the near future. David Williams spent the time we were watching the episodes trying to convince ADV Legal to let him announce the new series he had planned on announcing, but unfortunately had no luck. Instead they did a question and answer. David was able to confirm that there would be a live action Evangelion movie and that it was in preproduction. Greg Ayres was also present but was unable to answer most of questions. He was asked where babies came from however when David had to run off and answer his phone. He said that they come from someplace evil and are like poems, they are only magical and meaningful to the people who make them.

We then went and grabbed dinner and sat in the room and watched some Chrono Crusade until it was time to go to Whose Line is it Anime. Vic Mignogna, Richard Epcar, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, and Steve Blum were the guests who participated. It was amusing for a little while, but after about 20 minutes you could tell the Guests were getting tired and it started to go downhill. After Whose Line ended we went to watch the Overflow AMV's. Most of these were really bad and we left before they were over. By really bad I mean that they were badly put together, some used low quality clips from Cartoon Network, too many fancy transitions, etc. After that we headed to back to the room and went to bed.

Saturday started way too early. We wanted to go to Funimations premier of Negima!. We got there but the doors were locked. The panel was supposed to start at 9:30 but convention staff didn't show up until 9:30 and then couldn't get into the room. It was 10 AM before they managed to get the room open and got going. This was unfortunate and definitly showed a lack of organization on the part of convention staff and security as there should have been someone there long before the event was supposed to happen to make sure things were going to run on time. The event itself previewed episodes 1 and 5 of Negima! which comes out Aug. 1st. Unfortunately they had to end after that and skip the question and answer period.

Next we were forced to leave the room and come back (which was a waste of time when they were already running late) for Greg Ayres and Carrie Savage's panel. Jonathan Klein also sat in for the panel. The panel was fairly standard with people asking the normal array of questions, like how do you get into the industry, what is your favorite series, etc. Unfortunately, even though they told us at the beginning the panel would run the full length of time, they cut it half an hour short.

After that we spent sometime wandering the convention and wandering the dealer's room until it was time to go to the Chibi Project. For those of you not familiar with it, the Chibi Project was started by Patrick Delahanty who is also the convention chairman. What happened was one day he was given a Chibi Moon figure which he decided to try to destroy. Unfortunately it just wouldn't die so he ran lots of tests to see what it would stand up to. Since then he has run tests on lots of other anime toys. The experiment for Anime Boston this year wasn't live because it involved a Sailor Venus doll and a potato gun. When Patrick asked the crowd what they should do tests on and with what, he got a large number of responses. The best though was someone said they wanted to know if a Naruto Headband would really stop a bullet. Patrick then yelled, "We are doing that." He obviously was very excited about the idea. After that panel we wondered for a bit and I took some more Cosplayer pictures. We also wanted to check out the line for the Masquerade out of curiousity. The majority of the convention had to have been there. Here is a picture of about 1/10th of the line. It wrapped around the entire second floor of the convention center.

The final panel we attended on Saturday was the FUNImation panel. They announced Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid and Beck: Mongolion Chop Squad. Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid was announced via press release the day before, but this was the official announcement. The reps from FUNI had just found out the day before about the license and were very happy about it. They were even more excited to finally be able to announce Beck though. More than 2 years worth of work had gone into finalizing the licenses to be able to release Beck. They also showed us the Boxes for their release of Basilisk and Negima!. Basilisk is going to be a wooden box with a bunch of extras, most of which are undetermined. Negima's box is not wood, but it is just about that sturdy. It will be a flip top box that comes with a figure (as will every additional Special Edition in the series) and a sheet of vinal stickers. Greg Ayres actually raised his hand during the question and answer period and asked if he could get a closer look. When he looked at it he was obviously very excited by it. At the end of the panel, we were given Beck backstage passes which were made specially for Anime Boston and were individually numbered.

After the FUNI panel, Galaxy, Xellos and I got an interesting opportunity. We caught Greg Ayres at the end of the FUNI panel and asked him if he would be able to sign some items for us since we couldn't stay for his very late autograph session on Sunday. He said he would and we waited for him to come out. When he came out he signed the items for us an another person and the 4 of us got to spend 30 minutes standing there talking to him. We talked about a couple different topics like his meeting Daisuke Moriyama and Fansubs. For me, being able to stand and talk to Greg like we were all just a group of friends, was the high point of the convention.

Next came dinner, then we headed back to our room to watch some more Chrono Crusade. After a little bit we headed back down to the video game room to kill some time before Greg Ayres started DJing at the dance at 1 AM. The dance was a lot of fun. Greg really got into things and it was a lot of fun to watch him go crazy on the stage while were were dancing. At 2 AM when he ended his set we decided to leave and get some sleep.

Sunday just consisted of check out and one last trip to the dealers room. It was uneventful. Then we got in the car and drove home. All in all I had a lot of fun. I thought that there were some problems with scheduling and security that shouldn't have happened as this was Anime Boston's 4th year. Hopefully they will get this fixed for next year. Besides that it was a lot of fun and I would love to go back next year.