Big Apple Anime Fest
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| Big Apple Anime Fest | |
|---|---|
| Location | New York City, New York |
| Years in existence | 2001 to 2003 |
| Attendance | 12,832 |
The Big Apple Anime Fest is an anime convention which was held annually between 2001 and 2003. The event was organized by Central Park Media, a company that licenses anime and manga and translates it for resale in the United States. It was the first industry-organized anime convention to be held, and was reportedly supported by a consortium of anime companies. Big Apple Anime Fest is usually referred to by the acronym BAAF, pronounced "baff" rhyming with "laugh".
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[edit] History
[edit] Big Apple Anime Fest 2001
The event was held at the Directors Guild Theater in New York City, with a dealers room at the Park Central hotel. A symposium was held on Saturday at the Japan Society. Guests at the first Big Apple Anime Fest included Kunihiko Ikuhara, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Tetsuya Ikeda, and Toshio Maeda.
[edit] Big Apple Anime Fest 2002
In 2002, the Big Apple Anime Fest relocated to Times Square at the Marriot Marquis, and the Virgin Megastore and its Loews State Theater located within. Anime events of this size and scope were unprecedented in the area. Originally, a partnership was announced with the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA). BAAF would run the film festival side of the event while the SPJA would run the convention portion. The SPJA is best known for running Anime Expo, one of the largest anime conventions in the United States. This partnership became problematic, and the event eventually became two distinct events which ran concurrently within the same venues: Big Apple Anime Fest and Anime Expo New York.
One of the notable events in 2002 was the world premiere of the Cowboy Bebop movie. Guests included Akitaroh Daichi, Taro Maki, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Tommy Ohtsuka, Yoshihiro Komada, Shinichiro Watanabe, Toshihiro Kawamoto, and Yoko Kanno.
After the event in 2002, it was announced that the Marriott Marquis venue dates had been confirmed for the next three years according to this post on the website:
"The Big Apple Anime Fest will return to Times Square over Labor Day Weekend, next year, and thereafter, and will once again supervise both the film festival and the fan convention activities under one umbrella! 2003: August 29th - August 31st 2004: September 3rd - September 5th 2005: September 2nd - September 4th."
[edit] Big Apple Anime Fest 2003
2003 marked the second time that events were held in Times Square, with the BAAF organization helming both the film festival and convention activities. One of the main events this year was the literal World Premiere of Satoshi Kon's latest movie, Tokyo Godfathers. Kon even admitted at the premiere that the movie had been completed two weeks prior to the convention. Other World Premieres included Cat Soup, Animation Runner Kuromi, Initial D the Movie, as well as East Coast Premieres of A Tree of Palme, and Parasite Dolls. Other events included Cosplay on Broadway, the Big Apple Anime Fest Anime Idol voice acting contest, and Raijin Comics sponsored Mangafest.
Guests of Honor included Tsukasa Hojo, Yasuhiro Irie, Takeshi Koike, Satoshi Kon, Hyun se Lee, Masao Maruyama, Taka Nagasawa, Takashi Nakamura, Tomoko Taniguchi, Ren Usami, Tasumi Yoda, and Keith Giffen. Voice actor guests included Liam O'Brien, Lisa Ortiz, Eric Stuart, Michael Alston Baley, Marc Diraison, and Veronica Taylor.
[edit] Big Apple Anime Fest 2004 Cancelled
Despite confirmed dates for 2004, BAAF announced on its website that it would skip its event in 2004 due to the Republican National Convention, which would be held in New York City over Labor Day weekend. According to their website:
"Following a series of meetings in New York and Tokyo over the past weeks, BAAF has decided to skip a 2004 event due to the overlap with the Republican National Convention at the same time, in the same venues. As announced previously, the Convention has reserved almost all of the available hotel rooms in New York City over the Labor Day time frame, making it impossible for BAAF to mount the same sort of event as in previous years."
"Rather than change the timing of the event, which would result in conflicts with other trade and consumer events, or limit the scope of the activities, BAAF decided the best approach would be to skip 2004 completely, and focus on 2005."
[edit] Big Apple Anime Fest 2005 Cancelled
Again in 2005, despite confirmed dates, the website displayed the following words:
"Thank you for visiting. There are currently no plans to hold BAAF 2005."
[edit] Big Apple Anime Fest in the Future
With cancellations in 2004 and 2005, it seems unlikely that there will be any future events. The closest anime convention to New York City is currently AnimeNEXT. Large anime conventions in New York City are difficult to organize due to the limited space and the high costs involved.
