Instead of starting a new thread, I thought I'd share my experience at Nan Desu Kan (NDK). For those of you who don't know, NDK is one of two anime conventions that are here in the Denver area, NDK being the bigger and more popular of the two. I've been a pretty regular attendee since 2009, and this year was among the less than stellar years I've gone for a variety of reasons. So here is my general experience.
Pros: Without fail, the highlight of NDK is the dealer's room and an area called Artist Ally where independent artists sell their work. I bought some pretty cool stuff from both areas at the Convention this year, including a Fire Emblem Awakening Art Book, some Final Fantasy X capsule toys, two Case Closed statues, some really sweet pixel art of Squall (FFVIII) and Terra (FFVI), and about 5 really sweet custom video game poster prints that were created by independent artists selling their work. The artists in Artist's Ally were all very nice and it was interesting talking to them, specifically one that my GF has been a huge fan of online for a while and we finally got to meet her in person. She was very nice and gave us some free stuff. Another pro at NDK this year, that doesn't really have to do with the con itself is that it is only 10-minutes from where I live so it was easy to get there and get home each day I went. I am also happy that I was able to attend all three days of NDK this year since the past couple years I've been there have been a variety of factors that prevented me from attending as much as I would have liked, but this year no such issues prevented me from enjoying it to the fullest.
Cons: Sadly, NDK has many cons, mostly stuff that I go into every year knowing. These annual annoyances include the venue being way to small to accommodate its popularity, very rude staff, and about 75% of the attendees are some of the most obnoxious people you will ever meet. With that out of the way, here are a few cons that were unique this year. There was an overall lack of interesting panels this year. Of probably the 40 or so panels scheduled, there were about 4 that I was interested in, and sadly the 2 of those I made it to were pretty bad. One was a general discussing panel on video games, and the two mods were fairly uninteresting and lacked my confidence on their authority and qualifications to host such a panel. The other panel, actually more of a contest I went to, was the Anime Music Video contest, which was fairly lackluster this year. My final compliant about this year was the poor showing of playable video games in the game room. I can appreciate some FPS games, but there was an overrepresentation of COD and Halo this year, and a fairly homogeneous mix of fighting games. Mario Kart 8 was set up, but considering you had to play with a Wiimote I chose to pass on playing it.
Overall: If I had to give this Con a grade I'd probably give it a C-. It definitely excelled in its usual spots, while faltered in the usual ways it typically does as well. Sadly most of the things that could have distinguished it from past NDK conventions as being one of the better years were not there, and what was there failed to deliver as I hoped it would. Despite this, I still had fun and I will be attending next year. I just hope that NDK really steps up their game with the panels, and maybe addressing some of the long standing problems that have plagued this specify convention for years.
