Contaniméted 1993 was the second anime convention to be held at the New Cobden Hotel Birmingham, and it showed. The convention was much better than last year, there were three projection video rooms, and had more non-video events.
The non-video events are particularly welcomed by those of us who have been in fandom for several years, and suffer from the "I have watched that before syndrome". When you are new to the game, conventions are all about watching anime, but as your collection builds up, you seem to watch less and less anime at cons.
There were quite a few new faces at Contaniméted, presumably from Manga Video's efforts in the field of anime, but there were also quite a few faces missing, for reasons best left unsaid.
It was a friendly con, and I am left wondering whether this was the last "small" con before the anime explosion. Now that the BBC has "discovered" anime the explosion could be just round the corner.
The two memories that I have taken away from the con were the Masquerade and Helen McCarthy's talk on the American conventions.
The Masquerade didn't have that many entries, but it did have quality Sandokan Solomon who won, should have received a prize not only for quality, but also for quantity as over the con he wore four different costumes.
Helen's talk on the American cons, wasn't that well supported. This was strange considering the turn out for Helen's talk the previous day (which may have something to do with the presence of a BBC filming crew). It was however a good talk, Helen's enthusiasm for anime is very contagious, and when she talks to a small group it feels like she is talking to you, rather than a group.
To sum up it was a fairly good con, but for my money Anime Day is a better con.