Since many people (particularly students) have Good Friday off, the convention kicked off earlier in the day than many weekend cons, so by the time I flew to Boston and took the "T" train to the hotel/convention center/mall complex it's already close to 3 p.m. and the cosplayers had taken over the Hynes Convention Center, the Sheraton hotel (which housed registration and the rave, among other things), both deli restaurants directly across the convention center's entrance, and the Dunkin' Donuts immediately next door... not to mention the majority of the sprawling shopping complex.

The Friday panel schedule included Funimation's presentation of its new Funimation.com beta, which took place in a surprisingly small room given Funimaton's draw and a few people were turned away at the door. The panel's content, after a short sales pitch for the site, was presented in something like a "live-action website" concept in which everyone in the room answered a selection of questions (like "which character would you want as a study partner, which would you want at a party, and which would you want as a sidekick?") about a variety of anime titles.

Other panels throughout the evening included a roundtable romp through fan controversies and a panel on understanding intellectual property, as well as a Vertical Inc. panel which was not on the convention schedule and as such was missed by ANN's representatives. (We caught up with the publisher's marketing manager, Ed Chavez, later, though, and although the panel contained no new licensing announcements, we got to ooh and ahh over the Princess Knight manga covers.)

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