Category Archives: convention

Non-fans, get out

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This is a somewhat personal rant that expands upon something I mentioned in my New York Anime Festival review, something that I’ve seen rear itself in multiple situations that I’ve encountered, and one that I feel I need to speak about.

At conventions one can see all varieties of fans, young and old, old and new, from all parts of the world and with different degrees and types of fandom along with sub-fandoms within fandoms. And it is at a convention that one can meet others and possibly become friends (or maybe more), meeting on the common ground of having passion for a particular subject. You can even end up having brief flings or one night stands at a convention and there’s nothing wrong with that. But to use the trappings of fandom, to pretend to be a fan for your own personal gain is something I cannot stand.

I am also not defining anime fan by number of shows watched, manga read, fanfics written, or what-have-you. I am defining fandom as I have in the past as having a passion for something, and even then I am not saying you need a sufficient amount of passion to qualify as a fan. Being a fan is a very personal thing. For that matter, I’m even fine with people who went to Akihabara after Densha Otoko came out, people who just wanted to see what was going on, who were maybe curious as to see what the fuss was all about. The breaking point comes from wanting to simply LOOK like an otaku without beginning to understand what being an otaku is all about.

This is not exclusive to conventions. I meet with a group for Japanese conversation, and there are people who go there not for Japanese conversation but simply to pick up women. The boggling thing about this is that there are plenty of places where people can meet and date and what-not, so why interfere with the task at hand?

The classic example of this situation is the guy who pretends to be Christian and goes to church to, again, pick up women. This is not what a church is for. Maybe your walk with God is strong, or your faith in Christianity is weak, but what you shouldn’t be is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Even if you’re someone who thinks Christianity is stupid and you go to a church just to question people’s beliefs, this is still adhering to yourself and not pretending to be something you’re not.

Through fandom of any sort, be it anime, sci-fi, fantasy, knitting, cooking, football, baseball, pro wrestling, eating contests, I could go on, one can get to know people. It can be a starting point for those uncomfortable with talking to strangers. It can be a source of friends and enemies all the same, but what I want to see is people who act like fans because they are fans, because they genuinely have an interest, big or small, in something. So when I say “Non-fans, get out,” what I mean is that if you go somewhere, and you have an ulterior motive so strong it can hardly be considered “ulterior,” then you need to reconsider whether or not you should be there in the first place.

The Ogiue Fan Defense Mechanism

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When I go to a convention or any place with lots of anime merchandise, I hold close to my chest one important policy: Ogiue First.

The immediate reason behind this is to prioritize Ogiue merchandise over everything else, as it should be. The secondary effect of the Ogiue First policy is that it prevents me from going crazy buying merchandise and going way over whatever my intended budget was. In a sense, I am using to my advantage the fact that Ogiue is not a character who gets much merchandise of her.

Ogiue is not only a source of obsession but also a source of self-control.

But I’m still buying that Revoltech Souther when it comes out.

Cause, Effect, Necessity? Sci-Fi Fandom and Early Anime Fandom

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Anime World Order recently posted an interview with what are the self-proclaimed “old farts” of anime, and they rightly deserve the title. Hearing them speak, and thinking back to an earlier comment by others in previous shows, such as Joey Snackpants and Neil Nadelman, I had to wonder just how much this has affected the flow of anime fandom in the United States. Though I personally have found some issue with those sci-fi fans who lament the status of anime today because it is not “sci-fi enough,” I cannot help but feel that their influence is hard to deny.

I am certainly not old enough to have experienced any of that early anime fandom, but in listening to those that had been around there is one message repeats constantly: to be an anime fan required obsession. This was before the internet was established, before google and youtube and digital fansubs and wikipedia, so to find any sort of information required the ability to search and research and to find collaborators so as to increase one’s chances of obtaining anime and anime-related paraphernalia. I imagine that either you had to be somewhat extroverted or at least have an obsession so strong it overcame your fear of other people to accomplish this task. And what better place to find those with powerful obsessions than in an already-established fanbase?

For that matter, who better to pursue this difficult-to-obtain treasure from the isles of Japan than those who already had spent time discussing and analyzing technology in their favorite shows, writing fanzines to pursue and exchange ideas? With this many people with the ability to obsess grouped together, and more importantly able to obsess over fictional works on television and comics, two forms of media long thought juvenile or at least unintellectual, it might be no wonder that American anime fandom in its infancy sprang forth from sci-fi fandom.

Of course anime fandom today is also largely the result of arguably bigger influences in the years after. Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and Pokemon came on TV early in the morning and introduced both boys and girls to a serial story where actions in a previous episode are not reset in the next. They targeted a much wider audience than older anime had ever hoped to, and rather than having their native origins obfuscated where introduced as something from Japan. Still, I believe even this part of anime fandom is influenced by those sci-fi fans of yesterday. Slash, derived from the pairing of “Kirk/Spock,” may have allowed its foreign cousin Yaoi to get accustomed to traveling on western soil. Sci-fi conventions may have given pointers to the anime fandom when it became large enough on how to congregate with like-minded (enough) individuals. In that sense, perhaps the actions of sci-fi fans in the 70s and 80s became a template for today’s anime fandom, who have shaped it to their own experiences and will some day become the old guard to influence others.

Save the NYAF, BALDIIIIIIOS

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The second New York Anime Festival ran for this past weekend, oddly three months earlier when compared to last year. NYAF is a professionally-run con, and it shows in a number of ways for better and worse.

Perhaps because NYAF is so young as a convention, there were rarely any issues with lines in order to pick up badges. Both this year and last, I arrived on Friday and obtained a badge with minimal wait, though there was a bit of a hassle due to some poor wording on the website in regards to on-site registration. After that, a friend and I wandered around checking out the dealer’s room which comprises the majority of the convention. After buying a shirt from Sub, we decided that there was nothing much left to do at the con Friday and decided to turn our attentions outwards and towards karaoke.

Somewhat sadly, karaoke was probably the highlight of the con, though that might have to do with the fact that this was no ordinary karaoke get-together but an ultra-manly (and occasionally girly) tour de force spanning the history of anime. After I started things off with the Rose of Versailles OP, Sub followed with a powerful rendition of Holy Lonely Light. We then sang songs from Baldios, Gold Lightan, Hokuto no Ken, Zambot 3, Hajime no Ippo, Southern Cross, Macross, Dragon Ball Z, Overman King Gainer, Albegas, Gaogaigar, Pokemon, Pretty Cure, Soul Taker, and others I think I forgot. We ended, fittingly, with the ending theme to Golion, titled “Gonin de Hitotsu” or “Five as One.” In total, two hours were spent there.

Saturday was naturally much busier than Friday, though I found that there wasn’t all that much to do, or at least not much that interested me. After watching the Top o Nerae movie I went to the anime blogging panel curious as to what they had to say. It was overall good advice, though one thing I want to point to any anime bloggers out there, current, future, and potential, is that anime’s history is 1800 40 years old and if there’s nothing in the new seasons you like you can always look backwards. Other than that, there was nothing particularly important, though in skipping out on the Masquerade I found out I missed the chance to hear Tanaka Rie sing on-stage. If only I had hated myself enough to actually go as I had planned. I also bought a sketchbook at the con and decided to put it and my new black copic to use.

Ogimus Prime

An Anime Con Attendee

Taniguchi Goro

Taison Sanders, the Girl with Fried Chicken Wings

GET IT?

The Ultimate Yaoi Bishounen (with Optimus Prime Arms)

Sunday I woke up early to get the ticket for the Tanaka Rie signing but found out 90 minutes early was still not early enough. I attended the Rie panel, and she was a class act, even accepting gifts. Like all voice actor panels, there were the clowns who tried to speak to Rie in Japanese despite not being able to. Word of advice: DON’T DO THIS. You just waste time and make things difficult for the rest of the audience. The panel does not consist of just you and the voice actor. Now that I think about it, this never happens with the non-voice-actor guests. Go to hell, the lot of you.

A friend of mine had a VIP pass and thus a ticket for the Rie signing, but was unable to find the merchandise he wanted signed. I gave him my Gundam SEED pencil board, and when he returned we hesitated as to who should have it, like two women in front of Solomon, or three kids with a Radioactive Man #1. After much difficulty, I handed over the pencil board as he is a far bigger Lacus fan compared to me. If this were Shindou Naomi and a Cagalli pencil board, things would have been different.

I met the Reverse Thieves at their panel, which was meant to be an introduction of obscure anime to fans. Now not everything on their list was super obscure, but one has to remember that the con-going crowd is not that up-to-date with everything. I mean, Hayate no Gotoku was on their list, and rightfully so. They also mentioned Rose of Versailles, which makes them A-OK.

One major problem with NYAF is that it contained many of the undesirable elements that have been excised from other cons. I speak mainly of yaoi paddles, hug me signs, and the kind of behavior that results from them. There are reasons these things have been banned from other cons, chief among them being that they promote idiocy. Now I have nothing against people liking yaoi, or even advertising the fact that they like yaoi or just showing that yes, they are anime fans. But I don’t see that. I see people using anime, yaoi, naruto, whatever, as an excuse to disregard others and act like jackasses. Guys purposely kissing each other to get a reaction from a crowd, people carrying hug me signs, what I am opposed to is not the actions but the real reasons behind those actions, which generally amount to wanting immediate attention.

The supposed “Anonymous” at NYAF were the same, in that they understood the letter but not the spirit of being “Anonymous.” Anonymous does not Caramell Dansen. This goes double for that guy who was walking around in a Guy Fawkes mask playing Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. When you walk around blasting it and announcing yourself from many feet away, it is NOT a Rickroll. It defeats the purpose OF a Rickroll, which is to be a SURPRISE. You are no more a surprise than a stereotypical asian man lost in the forest tasked with searching for materials useful for survival.

That said, I didn’t think the con was absolutely dominated by this sort of thing. Will I go next year? Well, as with every con I go to (which isn’t many), I’ll have to see who’s there first.

Oh, and the weirdest thing I did at the con was that I stood RIGHT in front of a Cirno cosplayer for a few seconds.

The Post-Con Pre-Con-Report Report

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As I let my thumbs recover from being abused by the backs of pushpins, something hits me. The irony of going to an anime con these days is that you end up watching less anime than if you hadn’t gone. Back home, I must now catch up at a time when finales are coming in left and right not unlike a fierce Dempsey Roll.

Anime is dead. Long live anime.

I hope you’ll all join me for the most exciting part of Friday at NYAF

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Making fun of the Cosplay Summit Competition via Pictochat.

Looking for a place to eat during NYAF weekend?

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If you’re in town for the New York Anime Festival, and you have a desire to try some authentic and tasty Japanese food at a reasonable price that is relatively close to the Jacob Javits Center, I would highly recommend Go Go Curry.

Originally a chain of restaurants from Japan, Go Go Curry serves large portions of Japanese-style curry. Last year, it opened its first store abroad right here in New York City.  Located on the 38th St in Manhattan on the corner of 8th Ave (the Javits Center is at 34th St and 11th Ave), if you haven’t tried Go Go Curry before, I really recommend that you do, especially those of you who like characters who like curry, as this will give you a clearer understanding of their beloved cuisine. Also their mascot is a gorilla named Gorry. Their other mascot is Hideki Matsui of the NY Yankees.

Go Go Curry’s curry is a little different from the norm, with a strong and robust flavor. It’s also made with pork all the time, so avoid it if you cannot eat pork or meat in general.

If you’re looking for something a little more upscale, but not necessarily Japanese, on that same block is a place called Djerdan Burek, which serves Balkan food.

The Best Reason to Go to New York Anime Festival that isn’t Tanaka Rie

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Pierre Bernard will be a guest. Bring your Bubblegum Crisis DVDs and posters, ladies and gentlemen.

And the worst reason?

I’LL SHAKUGAN YOUR SHANA. I’LL MASTER YOUR MOSQUITON. I’LL TELL NO JOKES WHATSOEVER.

Ugh.

Flaw Magnification at Conventions

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A week after Otakon, about a month away from New York Anime Fest, and knowing my friends are going to PAX at the end of this month, I have conventions, or more specifically congoers, on my mind.

I support fans doing what they want with what they love. One might call it one of the pillars of the concept of fandom itself. However, even I find myself being at times bothered by some of the behavior at anime conventions, even things that I normally would not be too bothered by outside of a con. It bothered me as being hypocritical, and it still might be, but I knew something was different about each situation. I mean, a lot of things are different about a con, but the main one is that it’s a lot of similar people in one area.

When you have one person who loves being the center of attention, it’s a perfectly okay personality trait, especially when you have people who can reciprocate. However, when you have 100 of those attention-craving individuals, and ten times that many people reciprocating and giving them attention at the drop of a hat, it magnifies the negative facets. It’s like inbreeding, where the more it happens the more concentrated the disadvantageous genetics become (no Koi Kaze jokes, please). And because so many people ARE vying for attention, their individuality tends to get lost in the mix, making them faceless, making them “attention whores.”

Being the center of attention is just an example, and not any sort of focal point for criticism. And it doesn’t just apply to personality traits but also tangible ones as well. When everyone who is not in a costume is wearing a t-shirt (myself included), you start to notice that fact.

Once you get to know someone individually, this sort of thing almost always stops mattering, but it is in this initial stage, this first sighting, that these judgments are formed, for better or worse. Moreover, many geeks, nerds, dorks, and otaku are bad at making first impressions in the first place, so this doesn’t make it any easier.

And though I say this is “at Conventions,” I know that this is less about cons in particular and more about human behavior and the interaction between individuals and masses. This is just to put it all in a context which is meaningful to me so that I can think about it more readily.

Otakon 2008 Artist’s Alley-ooplah

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I’ve heard recently that there was some kind of scheme going on at Otakon’s Artist’s Alley this year, where one or two artists bought around 14 tables and put their friends at each table to sell their artwork. Otakon is apparently looking for ways to prevent this incident, provided it actually happened.

I couldn’t find any reliable sources stating that this actually occurred, but it makes sense given the content of the artist’s alley this year, awesome Vegeta’s aside. As I went through the alley, I kept seeing this one specific, airbrushed style used on largel Shounen Jump characters. At first I wanted to make the joke that, huh, these asian girls sure do draw alike (and also draw like asian girls), but after the fourth and fifth artist’s table with the exact same style I started to get concerned. While I was there, I just thought it was an incidence where a bunch of artists really liked another artist and so they aped that style. I’ve seen one artist copying another’s style before, so it wasn’t too farfetch’d.

At best, this was just coincidence, and all that needs to happen is for a bunch of girls to try and find their own style, not just copy what they think looks good.

At worst, these people took away valuable artist’s alley tables that could have been better-used by those more deserving, regardless of the quality of the artwork itself. After all, the artist’s alley isn’t really about selling huge amounts, though I won’t fault you if you do make some hefty sacks of change. Well, provided it wasn’t done by completely eliminating someone else’s opportunity to show their art at a convention.

Looking back, it is pretty unusual that artist’s alley tables sold out so quickly this year, and this may go a long way in explaining it, provided it happened.

Anyone got any reliable sources I can use to verify this whole incident?