New York Anime Festival Saturday Highlights

It's day two of the New York Anime Festival, and while many eager fans came out to enjoy the show yesterday, the general consensus is that Saturday will probably one of the busiest days of this three-day show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

While the Anime Insider World Cosplay Summit competition last night was less than mind-blowing, there were some outstanding entrants performing skits in outfits inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion, D-Gray Man, Naruto and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. In the end, the team wearing the Magic Knight Rayearth outfits took home the top prize, a trip to Japan to represent the U.S. at the 2008 World Cosplay Summit in Nagoya.

Here's the manga event highlights for Saturday:

• 10:30 am - 12:00 pm - Van Von Hunter and Princess Ai events at the Manga Panel Room, featuring the debut of the new Princess Ai music video. TokyoPop publisher Stu Levy was seen in costume yesterday with a Van Von Hunter cosplayer filming scenes from an upcoming film project, so we'll see what mischief they have in store for Saturday.
• 11:00 am - 12:00 pm - Breaking Into Manga Panel at the TokyoPop Booth (#100). TokyoPop OEL manga creators Amy Reeder Hadley (Fool's Gold), James Barry (Warriors: The Lost Warrior), Maximo Lorenzo (Bombos vs. Everything), Joshua Elder (Mail Order Ninja), M. Alice LeGrow (Bizenghast) and Svetlana Chmakova (Dramacon) share their tips for getting your foot in the door.
• 12:00 - 1:00 pm - The Translators Roundtable in the Anime Culture Room. Top translators for your favorite manga titles sound off on the unique challenges they face as they cross the cultural and language divide between Japan and the U.S. If nothing else, you can watch them all cringe whenever someone asks a question and pronounces "manga" as "MANG-guh."
• 1:00 - 2:00 pm - Katsushi Ota at the Manga Panel Room - Ota-san is an editor for Kodansha, one of the leading publishing companies in Japan, and he comes to the NYAF to talk about the new U.S. edition of Faust, a literary / manga magazine he helped found.
• 1:00 - 2:00 - Creating and Developing Manga Characters at the TokyoPop Booth - Drew Rausch (The Dark Goodbye), Jo Chen (The Other Side of the Mirror), M. Alice LeGrow (Bizenghast), James Barry (Warriors: The Lost Warrior) and Maximo Lorenzo (Bombos vs. Everything) share their secrets.
• 2:00 - 3:00 pm - Yen Press Panel at the Manga Panel Room. Join co-publishers Kurt Hassler and Rich Johnston as they reveal more manga joy for 2008, including their new manga anthology magazine, Yen Plus. Already announced to be in the first issue: Night School, the new series by Dramacon creator Svetlana Chmakova and a manga adaptation of bestselling author James Patterson's Maximum Ride series.
• 3:00 - 4:00 pm - VIZ Media Panel at the Manga Panel Room. No advance word on what VIZ will be announcing here, but as always, it should be worth checking out.
• 3:00 - 4:00 - Drawing for Manga at the TokyoPop Booth - Manga creators Drew Rausch (The Dark Goodbye), Hiroki Otsuka (Boys of Summer), June Kim (12 Days), Melissa DeJesus (Sokora Refugees), Maximo Lorenzo (Bombos vs. Everything) and rem (Vampire Kisses, winner of the recent Kodansha MIMC competition for International Manga) share their tips for creating eye-catching art.
• 4:00 - 5:00 pm - Aimee Major Steinberger's Japan Ai at the Anime Culture Room - Animator and author Steinberger shows off her charming illustrations and travel stories from her journey to Japan as chronicled in her new book from Go! Comi, Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan.
• 6:00 - 7:00 pm - Otaku USA Magazine Panel at the Manga Panel Room - Publisher and all around Japanese pop culture raconteur Patrick Macias showcases his manga, anime and more magazine, Otaku USA.

I'll be on the floor taking photos and taking in the action at the panels, so it'll be a manga multi-tasking kind of day. More soon!