Category Archives: convention

Preview of My NYAF Mascot Submission

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Sakura-con (was) Live on Nico Nico

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Sakura-con this year decided to broadcast a stream LIVE directly to Nico Nico Douga, giving Japanese viewers perhaps their first REAL glimpse at American otaku. I jumped on the stream, eager to see not only what the con itself had in store for us, but also what everyone REALLY goes on Nicovideo for: the comments.

The camera was at the con karaoke bar, and it’s amazing just how much the song selection was indicative of the American fanbase. I jumped on a little late, but highlights include the first Naruto ending theme, the first Inuyasha ending theme (TWICE!), BOTH “Simple and Clean” and “Hikari” (English and Japanese versions of the Kingdom Hearts opening respectively), the Sakura Taisen opening and the dub Pokemon 1st opening sung by almost everybody. The show stealer though was a 10 year old girl who sang the entire 1st Japanese Pokemon opening, Mezase Pokemon Master. Showing more showmanship and honest love of anime than any of the other singers, the Japanese crowd cheered her on, knowing that this was truly a fan, a fan of anime.

Of course, not all of the comments were nice, as they referred to an overweight girl as “Totoro” and “Pizza.” But they were also enamored by some of the more attractive cosplayers. And there was also a bit of a clash between Japanese viewers and non-Japanese ones such as myself, as the latter tended to send comments in English and the Japanese did not appreciate this. Still, things managed to cool down and karaoke continued.

After karaoke was over, the camera hovered over some people organizing their figure collection, which was an unusual mishmash of Warhammer, moe PVC figures and shounen action. At this point I had to stop watching, but I began to wonder if the Japanese people would want a convention like this in Japan. I asked on Nico, and at least one person said he would definitely want to see something like this. The American fanbase’s lack of shame is both its greatest weakness and its greatest strength.

Sue and Patty’s Excellent Adventure: Pop Japan Travel’s “Fujoshi Paradise” Tour

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Kransom has informed me of Pop Japan Travel’s plans for a tour package in Japan centered around fujoshi activities. Departing from Los Angeles, prospective American fujoshi will get to walk down Otome Road in Ikebukuro, hit up Akihabara, go to a butler cafe, and visit something called the MUSCLE MUSICAL. I haven’t bothered to research what Muscle Musical is because the name alone has sold me. If there’s any indicator that the word “fujoshi” has creeped into the American otaku lexicon, this is it. They want people to spend money just for the right to live like a Japanese fujoshi for a week. You know aside from shamefully hiding your fetishes and living in a small dinky apartment saving money as much as they can so they can make the occasional yaoi doujinshi purchase. Close enough, though!

2channel has gotten word of this development, and they’ve got some amusing comments to throw around.

パティみたいのが大勢来るのか
Will there be lots of girls like Patty’s coming here?

らき☆すた？それとも絶対可憐チルドレンのパティたん？
Lucky Star’s? Or do you mean Patty from Zettai Karen Children?

いや、「げんしけん」のスー
Nah, they’ll be like Sue from Genshiken.

腐女子までいるのか
There’s fujoshi over there as well?

アメ公のキモ腐まで来んな
Stay away, you disgusting American fujoshi!

アメリカ人の腐女子なんてたくさんいる。
スラッシュ（ヤオイのこと）小説の二次創作サイト運営してるし、
オタコンなんかでは毎回ボーイズラブ小説家が招待されて
サイン会とかやってる。
There’s plenty of American fujoshi. There are sites devoted to “Slash” (Yaoi) fan works, and every Otakon they have autograph sessions for Boys’ Love writers.

Oh the wonders of fandom.

Polytechnic Anime Society Spring Festival 2009

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As mentioned previously, I attended the one-day Polytechnic Anime Society Spring Festival 2009 at NYU Polytechnic (formerly known as simply “Polytechnic”). It wasn’t my first visit there; I had friends tell me about it back when it started. Still, I figured that it was worth a trip into Brooklyn to see what was up.

Sadly, I was unable to attend Sub‘s panel on Most Dangerous Anime, which he informs me was just watching Crystal Triangle and being amazed at how every scene, every moment, had something terrible about it. Still I got to see cool dudes and it was fun seeing the younger anime fans going around.

What I like about the PAS Spring Fest is that it gives young anime fans in New York a taste of what anime cons are like, especially because it’s free. It doesn’t prepare you for everything, but it lets you see stuff you haven’t seen before, lets you hang out with friends in a somewhat unfamiliar environment, and meet new people. I personally did not do much at this event, but I don’t think PAS Spring Fest is really meant for that sort of thing.

After the event was over I had sushi with Sub and other excellent dudes. What better way to cap off the day? I mean, that’s what I do at Otakon too, so why not?

One criticism I do have of the event is the lackluster execution of its game rooms. The event had two rooms for games: The first had only two TVs with a PS2 and a fighting game each, way down from the last time I went where there at least twice as many TVs and the game variety was excellent. The second room however was six tvs, but they were all devoted to Smash Bros Brawl. The worst part? You couldn’t even play a casual game of Smash as ALL SIX TVS were taken up by all-day Smash Bros tournaments! And later I found out you couldn’t even sign up for the tournament AT THE CON and that you had to do it on an internet messageboard weeks prior!

But as long as you weren’t looking forward to playing the games, it was an all right time.

Polytechnic University’s SpringFest NY 2009

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It’s a one-day anime con that’s run by the school’s anime club. I’ll be heading there today, chilling out, having fun. You might see other blogging luminaries there, or at least one.

Good times for all.

Official Website

Don’t forget, it’s free!

The Potential Return of Anime Clubs

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Note: I had published this on Sunday the 8th but it apparently did not go through. I am dating it as such.

We’ve got a suffering economy that’s impacting the anime industry and its viewers in a number of ways. People have less disposable income. Anime dvd sales have been declining on top of fewer people buying dvds in general. Some internet providers are limiting bandwidth while others have plans to do so in the near future. This affects not only torrent downloads but also streaming sites such as Crunchyroll and Youtube, especially as the quality of  video streaming gets better and better. This even affects simple file transfers over instant messenger programs. This can force anime fans to explore other methods of exchanging anime, such as good ol’ “actually walking up to someone and giving it to them.” Be it downloaded anime stored on an external hard drive or usb drive, or purchased legitimate dvds or even high-quality streamed episodes, people will have a reason to gather in order to minimize bandwidth and money usage.

At this point, you wouldn’t really call these gatherings “anime clubs,” as it’d just be a bunch of friends who already know each other, but isn’t that pretty much the way clubs start off? The major difference would be that while there might be a disparity in amount of anime possessed by a single person, it wouldn’t be the case where one person has all the power, especially when it comes to downloadable anime. Exchanging files (and let’s not forget you can officially download some shows now for a nominal fee so “files” is not inherently an illegal word) would be like trading tapes or having vcr parties, only much much faster. In time, maybe people will want to watch it together or talk about the shows they’re trading.

Nothing like necessity to force nerds who might normally curl into a ball to go out there and talk to people to get some more of that precious anime stuff. Not saying this is a guaranteed chain of events, but I feel like there’s a decent possibility this might happen.

King Kirby Over: New York Comic Con 2009

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New York Comic Con 2009 came and went, and all I have to show for it is some good memories, some good friends, and an autographed copy of Crisis On Infinite Earths. Good times.

I got to the Jacob Javits Center Friday afternoon, and with the benefit of a professional pass was able to enter the con without too much waiting. It was in this early period that I managed to get an autograph from Marv Wolfman, one half of the creative duo for the first Crisis series. I also got a chance to meet Peter Laird, co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I then looked for the panel rooms, but could not find them in time and missed one of the panels I wanted to see. Instead, I got to sit in on a panel devoted to building manga collections for libraries. Apparently the answer is “Kazuo Koike.” Sage advice that I will not argue against. I also got an autographed sketch from Mike Krahulik (Gabe) of Penny Arcade. He drew a Witchalok.

At some point I met up with Sub and other friends, and Sub and I tried to get tickets for the Friday showing of the new Yatterman live-action movie, but a deadly wall of raving fangirls prevented us from getting tickets. Apparently the lead actor playing Yatter-1 was one Sho Sakurai, a super popular j-pop boy band singer, and the fangirls were willing to do anything to get close to him. The Yatterman booth attendants had planned on bringing Sho Sakurai down, but when they saw the fangirl mob they told them that Sho Sakurai cannot come down in that current situation, and if they all left the area he would arrive. Naturally, this caused them draw in closer to the booth, and ultimately led to Sho Sakurai canceling his appearance.

Sigh, fangirls.  And I bet they didn’t even appreciate the Yatterman movie they diligently lined up for, and then squealed whenever Sho Sakurai was on-screen. Please do not tell me if what I said was actually true, because I’m really afraid.

We then saw the new Futurama movie (funny, not really good as a movie), and then ate at a nearby diner and talked about a variety of topics, as we all ranged from super American Comics fans to Anime fans and Sci-fi and everything in between despite being a relatively small group. Good fun for all.

Saturday’s crowd was, as expected, much larger than the Friday one. The first Saturday highlight for me was the Penny Arcade panel, as I have never been to PAX and thus had never seen them in person prior to getting that sketch on Friday. It was really a hilarious panel, and I recommend that anyone who gets the opportunity to go see them, even if you’re not much of a fan of Penny Arcade, as they know how to make a panel enjoyable.

The real high-point of NYCC Saturday though was a blogger dinner with many fine individuals, though the way we ended up sitting at the Tick Tock Diner, I spent most of my time with Sub, Evan of Ani-Gamers and the Reverse Thieves, Narutaki and Hisui and also Kohaku. Missing the Rodeo Burger of Burger King, I decided to construct my own. Also, the fact that you can order just plain cereal at a diner never ceases to amaze me. The topics of conversation ranged from Godfrey Ho Ninja Movies, Segata Sanshiro, Gold Lightan, and uh…teachers from our youth who turned out to be pedophiles…

Anyway, it was really great.

After dinner, some of us joined another group consisting of the Ninja Consultants, Dave (minus Joel), the paranormal Ed Chavez, among others, and we sang most excellent karaoke. Sub joined with me on a number of anime songs that began with Yuushaoh Tanjou! and included Ai o Torimodose! and Chala Head-Chala, finally concluding with KING GAINER OVER. We’ve done it before, but I think every time we try (key word being try) to sing King Gainer Over, it leaves us with a newfound appreciation for the song.

Sunday was relatively uneventful con-wise, though I attended the Penny Arcade How to Make Comics panel which was intended for elementary school students and ended up being populated by mostly adults. Funny how that works. The best part was that the PA guys did not change their lesson in any way.

Jerry: How long have you been drawing?”

Mike: (speaking to audience) Why, I’ve been drawing since I was YOUR age!”

Sunday’s con ended pretty much with me getting the last autograph given out by George Pérez, the other half of the creative duo responsible for Crisis On Infinite Earths, making my copy now Perfect. I actually had been looking for him all weekend, but some misinformation on the part of the con made it so that I had to rely on a friend to tell me exactly where he was located.

This is probably a good time to talk about some of the issues I had with the con, some legitimate, some simply personal preference. First was that there was NO schedule chart for the con on the website or with the con guide, and it made scheduling for anything impossible. At some point I just decided to abandon the notion of having a well-constructed plan for the day and just did whatever, as you may have noticed. Also the con guide itself was horribly out of date, which just compounded the problems.

New York Comic Con is a professionally-run for-profit convention, and it shows in many ways, not least of which is the fact that the Dealer’s Room is the centerpiece of the whole thing. Being located in NYC, home of Marvel and DC Comics, it allows them to get a lot of professionals and to really play that part of it up. This is good in that it gives you access to a lot of pros you wouldn’t meet otherwise, but the overall result is that a lot of the panels have a pure PR-type of feel to it, and only guys such as the Penny Arcade dudes can bridge this gap. Compare this with the also-professionally-run New York Anime Fest, which had its share of problems too but also had a greater fan aspect to it, with panels run by non-professionals.

NYCC is also, at least for me, a commuter con, and commuter cons feel very different from cons for which you stay at a very nearby hotel. I prefer the latter. I also have this strange feeling that the con floor is not good for walking as my soles were aching all day.

But I criticize because I love. Or something.

The con was over, but the day was still young, so a group of us consisting of some common friends, the Reverse Thieves, and Sub traveled to Kinokuniya and Book-Off, where we claimed many wonderful prizes. The highlight for me was another volume of La Sommelière and a copy of the Matsumoto Leiji manga Big Metal III. Sub purchased many excellent things, and I’m expecting him to review them all. YOU’D BETTER, MAN.

Riding the train home, saying my farewells (until next time), it was overall an enjoyable con, though murder on my feet.

I leave you then with this realistic rendition of Sho Sakurai fangirls at NYCC.

Less than 1 Week Until New York Comic Con

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Let’s see what fun surprises are in store for us.

Not really much in the way of anime-relevant guests but for comics in general the guest list is astounding. You have Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis, ART SPIEGELMAN, Gabe and Tycho, and Marv Wolfman and George Perez, among many others. And I hear the Ravedactyl artist’s alley table is gonna be back this year. Let’s hope the man himself also makes an appearance!

Panels and screenings are a bit more anime/manga-relevant but still kind of hilarious. “Turning A Bestselling Series into Manga: A Dark-Hunter Journey.” Well, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

There’s the Live Action Yatterman movie which I feel needs some watching.

Otacrates

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Based on a number of factors, from columns in anime magazines to forum posts, from knowing people both online to talking offline, I realize that when it comes to understand the larger trends at work in something we might call “anime fandom,” all I know is that I know nothing.

There may have been a time when those willing to discuss anime are the ones driving the industry, but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. That’s just how it is: the casual will always outnumber the hardcore, and there’s nothing wrong with this. I have a relative who reads manga and watches anime with some frequency, but I doubt I would ever see him discuss it on a forum or go to an anime chatroom. When you go to a con, what you’re seeing are those who are dedicated enough to make the trip, and it’s not even necessarily a dedication to anime so much as it is to the trip and the event itself.

To understand what anime fandom as a whole is like is probably the key to success for anime companies in the US, so I’m not going to even pretend to answer when many others with more information have probably tried. This is more a personal reminder that as much as I study and discuss and enjoy anime and its fandom in one or two or even a thousand directions, there’s still infinite angles.

Ogiue Maniax on Answerman

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I submitted a response to Anime News Network’s (new) Answerman and it got published. Go there if you want to read yet another story about me relating to Ogiue.

I really enjoy this new Answerman, Brian Hanson. He brings a level of positivity and sincere respect for his readers and anime fans in general. Really good stuff.