Category Archives: convention

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.

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.