Hey Folks! Take a look at our Thursday coverage of the festival! More to come tomorrow! to download Save link as(640x480 35.5 MB, 4:06 minutes) Some Show Notes: DAY ZERO was, December 6, 2007. In addition to the show’s general setup and early badge pickup, Day Zero was also the day of the ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga. ICv2 hosted a presentation followed by moderated panel discussions of industry professionals, covering a range of topics specific to the anime and manga markets here in the U.S. Topics covered were: -ICv2 Whitepaper; Anime and Manga (general overview of the market) -Marketing to the Otaku Generation -Girls, the “Other Half” of the Otaku Generation -Technology and the Otaku; The New Media Frontier These events had the aim of educating industry professionals, retailers, and institutions the varied ways in which the anime and manga industry function, how the market reacts to certain things, and what to expect in the future. Some major points that were made known were: Tokyo Pop is working on developing a method of manga content delivery to cell phones and other hand-held devices, but it will be a long time before print is dead.Japanese studios are still looking to begin co-productions from the ground up in an effort to both finance production as well as release properties simultaneously in different regions in order to avoid the loss of revenue that comes from anime downloads which happen in the long window between release in Japan and release in the U.S. (We could have told you that years ago).Manga is doing well while anime DVD sales have steadily declined. Downloading of anime fansubs by fans is a problem because it makes the market look bigger than it really is. (We don’t like to hear that any more than you do, but prove us wrong).One Piece turned out the way it did because of the FCC, much as Otaku would like to think otherwise. The way to get girls to buy manga and anime is basically to just put Sessho Maru on the cover with his shirt off. But some think that panel was total crap. You'll find out later. Don’t ever eat the cookies at the Javits Center. The highlight of the programming was as is know widely known, the statements of 4Kidz CEO Al Kahn regarding the relevancy of Japan as a major entertainment exporter, and his plan to distance 4Kidz from their current position regarding Japanese properties. ICv2 Has released some written coverage of this event which can be found here and here. For those of you out there that feel left out, look forward to audio coverage of the presentations and panel discussions coming soon from the Ninja Consultants. This was the first anime convention ever to be held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, which is one of the few facilities in the city capable of handling a show like this. The Javits Center union wouldn’t let us on the floor of the convention during setup, but we ended up sneaking in (sans giant camera) anyway. The Javits center is a massive complex which was able to hold an ongoing World Championship of Magic the Gathering next to the NY Anime Festival and still look really empty. Also, it has many clearly marked exits.