This weekend marks the first edition of the New York Anime Festival (NYAF... Nyaa~F?), taking place between December 7-9 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan. Visitors are promised to get a glimpse of "the best of anime pop culture, including the latest anime, manga, Japanese cinema, music, and games, and anime-influenced comics, animation, and films from around the world". So, naturally, all the big names in US / Western licensing and publishing will be there, with or without the mandatory booth babes.

Apart from lewd attractions, the show will host an arcade space with the latest games straight from Japan, like Culdcept Saga, Soul Calibur Legends, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus, Neves, and plenty more. And there will also be three fighting game tournaments - featuring Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, and The King of Fighters XI - for those who love a good old ass-kicking. More details on the proceedings can be found over here.

But moving on to more serious stuff (yeah, right), here are some of those big names and their menu for the show:

- Bandai Entertainment will host panels for Code Geass on December 8, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya on December 9 (hopefully bringing details about Code Geass 2 and Suzumiya Haruhi 2), coupled with announcements of new anime license on December 9.

- Tokyopop will debut the Princess Ai: Broken Leash music video at the event on December 8. This will serve as a proof of concept for the upcoming film Princess Ai, which melds traditional anime (by studio Satelight) with live-action and CG animation (by Menfond Electronic Art).

- VIZ Media and its little-sister company VIZ Pictures will up the ante, by screening six live-action films: Love*Com the Movie on December 7, Kamikaze Girls, Ping Pong and Gackt: The Greatest Filmography Red on December 8, and finally NANA, and Honey and Clover on December 9. They will also greet visitors with a comfy Manga Lounge full of free manga samplers, as well as an Anime Screening Room showing the first two episodes of Bleach (December 8), and the first two episodes of Death Note (December 9).

- ADV Films will premiere its English version of the Devil May Cry: The Animated Series on December 8, and they will also have demos of Capcom's new Devil May Cry 4 game ready for sampling on the spot. Both the PS3 / Xbox 360 game, and the first English volume of the DMC anime are set for release on February 5, 2008.

Phew... I would say we'll give you more news as they emerge from Nyaa~F, but we actually have a mate coming over from the land of legalized narcotics tomorrow, so... odds are we'll be pretty wasted for the next few days.