Category Archives: convention

Hey You Got Your Starcraft in My New York Anime Festival

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New York Anime Festival has announced that it will be the proving grounds of the WCG USA finals. As someone who enjoys watching Starcraft AND enjoys watching anime, this feels like the most wonderful kind of Peanut Butter Cup.

While the Starcraft scene in America pales in comparison to South Korea’s, where it’s treated as a legitimate sport full of pride and rivalries and an official Air Force Starcraft team and most importantly fangirls, it is still full of good players who are always seeking to push their game and the game in general forward. The winner here gets to fly to Chengdu, China for this year’s World Finals.

I know sometimes people, including myself, will say, “Hey get your irrelevant topics out of my anime convention!” and Starcraft is an AMERICAN game played mostly by Koreans (I know how racist that SOUNDS, but what I mean is that you can’t even use the IT’S A PART OF JAPANESE CULTURE angle with it). However, I am willing to make an exception. Really.

I hope they get some announcers to liven up the event, and I hope they’re good announcers of course, even if they’re not Tasteless.

Oh, and don’t forget there are other games too. I know some will be more interested in the Virtua Fighter USA finals.

New York Anime Festival 2009 is September 25-27 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan.

Anime cons are pretty cool, you dig?

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When it comes to talk about anime conventions, a lot of complaining happens. I’m guilty of this myself on numerous occasions. So to combat some of the general negativity that comes with convention talk, I want to talk about the things that make anime conventions good, possibly even great.

1) The Ability to See Other Fans

Now, this point actually applies to any convention be it anime, fantasy, carpet-racing, etc. One thing that’s said about conventions in the internet age is that they’ve lost some of their utility, as conventions used to be about meeting people you couldn’t otherwise, whereas now you just head over to your favorite chatroom/messageboard/whatever and talk it up. One thing that hasn’t changed though is that it provides a common gathering point for fans, only now instead of meeting total strangers you get to meet people with whom you’ve chatted, and once after you’ve bonded over fine anime and cola, you can then continue your friendship online. On a personal level this has worked out quite well for me. Quite well.

2) The Growing Population of Younger Anime Fans

Some might call this a serious negative, but you have to look at this in comparison to science fiction conventions, where they’re having continued trouble bringing in new blood and the mean age for sci fi con-goers continually rises. In contrast, what this means for anime conventions is that there will be a new generation to take up the order once the current generation of leaders retires and then probably the next one after that. There’s a good chance that the conventions you love will undergo drastic changes at that point, but at least they won’t be dying off.

3) It Lets You Experience a Tangible Anime Fandom

This relates to the first point in that I want to reiterate that the internet, as wonderful and convenient as it is, is still not a perfect substitute for real-world fan interaction. At an anime convention, you really get to see fans expressing themselves however they can through their physical presence. Now keep in mind that I did not say you could experience an accurate anime fandom. Only a portion of the fandom ever attends cons, and there’s a very silent majority out there, but at the same time you probably couldn’t experience that silent majority anyway unless you actually knocked on their door and told them to come out.

All points after that are more or less related to the above three, or are things like “totally wicked concerts” or “seeing people run panels as best they can.” It really all boils down to the fact that people are able to gather under a single banner of passion for anime and manga, damn the differences.

This Has Nothing to Do with Nissan

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So after  submitting my entry for NYAF’s mascot competition, I’ve been looking around at the other entries. Regardless of age, talent, creativity, whatever, I can really feel that everybody who submitted a design put effort into their creations.

I don’t think anybody plagiarized or stole from anyone else (though there’s a few questionable designs copyright-wise), so I find it interesting to see what recurring themes there are among the entries. I mean, there’s only so many things you can positively associate with New York, and I’m certainly not the only one who decided to approach it from the subway angle. What I find particularly interesting though is the large number of entries that somehow incorporated the Manhattan Skyline into their mascots, especially in the clothes. The reason I find it interesting is that it had not occurred to me at all to associate New York with the skyline.

I’m a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn and Queens, and have spent much of my years in Manhattan, be it for school or to be with friends. With that in mind, I have to wonder if maybe growing up in NYC I’ve simply gotten too used to the number of tall buildings around. It’s easy to forget that there are places that aren’t like this, or that this feature of NYC would stand out in people’s minds.

As someone who grew up in New York, as someone who used the subway daily for years on end, I felt a more tangible connection to the underground than to the skies above, and it was something I could embrace and appreciate more, hence Chika’s design and the vague hints at her personality I gave in her information.

Second place for interesting recurring themes was taxis, which I also did not associate with NYC for similar reason to the skylines, but I’ve been told by certain people that NYC is apparently the only place you can just wave down a taxi. You learn something every day!

My NYAF Mascot Submission

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So my entry for New York Anime Festival’s Mascot Design competition is over at the contest site now. You can view my entry here. I uploaded the image twice because I felt that the first upload’s resolution wasn’t high enough (they actually expand a smaller image so the enlarged image looks terrible). Then I found out you can edit your entry and just reupload.

Whoops!

The way the contest works, 10 finalists will be picked from the existing pool of images and then those will be voted on. Once the finalists are picked, you’ll have to go to the Sakura Matsuri in New York City from May 2nd-May3rd.  I won’t tell any of you to vote for me unless you really think my design deserves it. If you see something better, go for it.

Once all the entries are in, theOtaku.om, Del Rey Manga, and the New York Anime Festival will be selecting ten finalists that will be put on display at the New York Anime Festival booth at Sakura Matsuri (May 2nd-3rd at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, NY — http://www.bbg.org/exp/cherries/sakura.html). Sakura Matsuri attendees will vote for their favorite, with the character receiving the most votes being crowned NYAF’s 2009 mascot. On May 7th, the winner will be revealed!

And if you’re unable to see it somehow, the profile I’ve designed for my character is below. No, her name is not an Ogiue reference, it’s short for “Chikatetsu,” the Japanese word for subway.

Name: Chika
Favorite Anime: Kino’s Journey
Favorite Manga: Honey and Clover

Chika is a girl who loves experiencing variety, something which anime, manga, and New York all have in abundance. You can often find her head buried in manga as she rides the subway around the city.

If there’s one thing that connects all of the anime and manga fans in the city, it’s the use of the New York City’s public transportation to visit the various stores which allow fans to maintain their hobbies and even meet each other and foster friendships. Chika’s outfit symbolizes New York City subways and the opportunities they represent.

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.