AnimeNEXT 2012

Venturing out into the sunlight? Planning on meeting up with other cel addicts? Post convention or gathering info here.
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sensei
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AnimeNEXT 2012

Post by sensei »

Off to AnimeNEXT (Somerset NJ) to do my panels on "What bronies can learn from otaku (or maybe vice versa)" and on "Father-daughter romance themes in manga/anime" (that's an expansion of one I did at the Children's Literature meeting last summer). No cel/sketch panels as such but I'm collaborating with two others on an "Anime under the radar" panel, where I'll be talking about really interesting series that I encountered by randomly looking through YHJ or Mandarake or Anime Museum and said "Whoa baby! What's that??"

So sadly I won't be bringing any cels (or, probably, taking any back, as even Curt brings only posters to this smaller con). But I'd be happy to have any Betarians present in the audience.

Father-Daughter Romance: Friday 4PM (Panel 3, Bridgewater)
Anime Under the Radar: Saturday 9 PM (Panel 4, Princeton)
Bronies and Otaku: (Saturday 10 PM Panel 1, Ballroom East [da big time!])

I never knew that the words otaku and brony were in fact linguistically identical in history as well as meaning. They both signify "We are family." [Otaku is a special second-person pronoun literally translated "thou-of-my-house."]

My thanks to all of the A-B "house" who gave me suggestions and encouragement. I'll put up a report on my return.
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Quacker
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Re: AnimeNEXT 2012

Post by Quacker »

Best of luck with your Panels Sensei!

May your audiences by captivated by your topics & come away with more ever useful tokens of knowledge.
My Cel Gallery can be found here:

http://celsphoenix.rubberslug.com/gallery/home.asp

A growing collection of Escaflowne, Evangelion, FMP, Fate/Stay Night plus other cels that are among my Favourites. No cheap & nasty stuff here.
Come, check out the cutesy female & Mecha madness!!
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sensei
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Re: AnimeNEXT 2012

Post by sensei »

Heh. Things went pretty well with the father/daughter panel (good turnout, respectful hearing) and OK with the "Anime under the Radar" (smaller turnout, understandable as it was omitted from the program and appeared only as a mysterious black hole on the Saturday night schedule.) Wireless wouldn't work in the rooms, but I got the clip of "The Golden Bird" and 2 others to load from YouTube in the lobby, then played them in the room. Well worth a viewing -- you'll understand why this 1980s Madhouse feature is considered a "lost masterpiece" even though, unexpectedly, a complete dubbed version (in Greek) has recently surfaced.

The Brony panel was quite the party, though. About 300 people showed, 1/3 bronies (many in cosplay) and 2/3 otaku (ditto). As it ran from 10 to 11 PM Saturday night, people were already pretty convivial. The in-jokes and graphic memes got big laughs, as I'd expected, and the more intellectual parts got a (fairly) respectful hearing. (There was always a buzz in the room, and quite a bit of texting, tweeting, and people taking cell phone photos, but I was used to that from teaching freshman comp. classes at Penn State.) Nicely, though, you could tell that the crowd got behind me, and the more rhetorical bits (fairness for cyborgs, end bigotry vs. fantasy-based intellectual activity) got cheered in celestial style (though with a molestial undertone).

I got rather sharply quizzed at the end by the bronies. The questions were innocent enough: which is your favorite character? which kind of pony do you see yourself as? what would your cutie mark be? and, most slyly, what drew you to start observing brony culture? But each one of them, I could see, was a kind of membership test. Did I know who the characters were? Did I understand the three estates? Heck, did I know what the basic conventions of cutie marks were? What was my agenda, really? (the POS issue, which I'd faced in 2000-01 when I was infiltrating CCS bulletin boards). Actually I had more trouble with the question from the otaku asking if MLP/FiM would qualify as moe.

My Liz and our good friend Dylan Ferrara (recent English Ph.D. from SUNY New Paltz and long-time fellow otaku) helped greatly in keeping communication with the crowd easy. With my hearing disability (and no mikes on the floor) it was hard for me to get the gist of the questions. But they could relay things to me and generally help with the mikes on the podium, which were also iffy.

The event ended with a mega-group-hug, a nice touch that I wish could be adopted at academic conferences.

Otherwise: the big series this year for cosplayers and presenters seemed to be Black Butler and Madoka Magica (though people were grousing over how the US licencer of the latter was marketing it 4 episodes at a time for about what other firms were charging for an entire season). Pokeman and Sailor Moon were hanging in there, as was Kingdom Hearts. There were lots and lots of girls in pink maids costumes, and enough giant plywood weapons to make the dealer's room a challenge. CCS and MKR didn't seem to be much in presence, but there were Tsubasa cosplayers. I was especially happy to see Princess Tutu getting more respect than before, both in cosplay and in appreciative comments from panelists.

Now living through the usual day of numb brain-dead jitters, the inevitable result of the work my brain has to do to get information through my hearing aids in noisy enviroments, followed by a high-tension NASCAR-style dash down the New Jersey Turnpike to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. But Love and Tolerance between and among otaku and bronies seem to have been upheld in an enjoyable way.
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