I’m writing this mainly in response to Sean O’Mara’s FanimeCon report on Otaku USA’s site.
Remember when you first got into anime fandom? Sure you do - everyone does. Perhaps you’re a younger fan who saw Ash and Pikachu facing off against Team Rocket on a daily basis, or perhaps you watched Robotech in the eighties. Me? I saw a re-broadcast of the oft forgotten 1980 dub of the Galaxy Express 999 movie. The dub was awful, the edits were deliberate… and this 12-year-old geek in training was eager to see more. When I was 16, I finally summoned the courage to head for my local Suncoast Movie Company store and tried asking the clerk if he knew of any other local anime fans or groups. “Yeah,” says the clerk, but before I even have a moment to get excited, he follows his answer with, “but you have to take a test to get in.” A test? What the fuck? “Yeah,” he says. “For starters, do you know who Osamu Tezuka is?” Sure I did, but the notion that I had to take a test to get into a social circle was not something I was about to do. Besides, I had SATs and ACTs to deal with, and that was all the testing I needed in my life at the time. Two years later, I would visit the local Sci-Fi con only to discover that some of the convention fanbase really didn’t want us there (in fact, they didn’t want many other groups there - which is why another con eventually stepped in and is currently running a better show than they ever did). There was an anime viewing room, but it was run out of a cabana party room. The message was clear: you can be geeky, but your geekery is different from our geekery. (Read the article)
Quite a lot needed to be done around here… a new format, a new banner, new… stuff. Lots of newness needed.
I was thinking of abandoning having a place to scribble, but lately as life has returned to normal for the first time in four years, I find myself with a little extra time. SO - might as well write.
More to come later. In the meantime, pardon the dust around here.
Dear California Students:
I noticed that a bunch of you are upset about the price of education skyrocketing. Yeah, I’m pissed about that too. We live in a weird country; one where our education system is often given the short end of the stick. I could list link after link that questions where our education dollars are going, but you already know things are bad, right? RIGHT? FUCK YEAH, things are bad! Let’s go do something about it! Let’s go join those protests!
Come on!
…what, you aren’t coming?
What’s that? You’re worried about failing? What your parents will say? Oh, you have a midterm to study for. I see…
Hmm… does anyone else see the problem here?
I’ve been listening to students at UC campuses complain about the cuts in funding for months now. Without exception, the story always goes like this:
Me: “Hey, things are looking bad, huh?”
Student: “Yeah, I heard someone in class saying they’ll need to take a second loan since their parents can’t afford the tuition increase.”
Me: “Wow. Did you see any protests?”
Student: “Yeah, down at the student union. A few hundred people, I think. I was scared to join though…”
Me: “Scared?”
Student: “I have midterms! If I don’t go to class, I get an automatic fail! My parents will kill me!”
Let’s think about this line of logic a bit, shall we? The people around me are suffering, things are bad, I feel bad… but oh my god, if I deviate from my normal routine, my parents will kill me! That would suck a whole lot more than my friends having to quit school because they can’t afford it and my TA having to work at Burger King when the funding for their department is cut!”
Yeah, things are bad. People are going to lose their jobs. But Daddy might get mad and I might fail “Philosophy of Human Existence”, so I’m not going to do anything.
Are we out of our minds? I’m not trying to demonize students (I was one until two years ago) - I know that they all mean well - but when did we become so self-centered? I’ve seen many people posting to their Facebook and Twitter (yeah, your 140 characters helps a ton) that they support the protests and hate the funding cuts, but their support ends there. There have been protests, sure, but they are only attended by a small percentage of the student population. I chuckled when I read this story about how many people participated in a protest at UC Davis. My favorite line:
as many as 150 students were at the building protesting the tuition increase
UC Davis has an enrollment of 31,426. That means less than .5% of the student body was at the protest. Do you really think that the UC Regents and Yudof are going to see that and say “OH MY GOD, a group smaller than the number of students at an O-Chem lecture is protesting! We’d better listen!” Uh, no. They aren’t. They are businessmen, they deal in numbers, and the numbers are pathetic. A protest needs to attract the kind of numbers that Picnic Day does if it’s going to really affect things.
I could go on with the sarcasm, but this is no laughing matter. Besides, most of you have probably figured out my point by now, so I’ll just say it.
If these protests are to REALLY succeed - to really have an impact - everyone has to participate. Everyone.
The guy programming all night to earn his CS degree in 3 years? Yeah, he needs to show up.
The girl agonizing over her Physics midterm after retaking the course twice? Yep, her too.
The Asian kid who’s studying for his BA in Pre-Pharmacy because of “asian guilt” put on him by his parents? He DEFINITELY needs to show up! He needs a break anyway. ^_^
I know that people are scared. I know that you’re worried that participating in some kind of “resistance” may affect your entire life. But you know what? All those people that participated in 1960s era campus demonstrations turned out fine. Some of them probably run the companies that you’re studying so hard to get into.
Please, please, please hear me out here. If you want me to come help, just ask, and I will in whatever way I can. The regents won’t listen to me since I’m not a student, but you are the reason they have jobs - they have to listen to you.
Things will get better. We just need to give the whole system a push - together.
-Evan
The Art of the Day is a selection of interesting, intriguing, or otherwise pretty pieces from around the web. Have any suggestions? Want your own art to be eligible? Let me know @ jariten at iddx dot net.
Is it the holiday? Lanny’s acrobat peers down to see.
Why yes, it is Christmas season. Hello Baby is here to remind us.
DeEtta’s take on the wreath. The artist says the color scheme is reminiscent of her Grandma’s house, but I don’t think my Grandma owns that much lavender.
Anthropomorphic series attempt of the day: TEA. ItaLuv, show us how it’s done. Oh, and if we could work in some gags about bubble tea, that would be swell.
Last up, there’s some kind of InitialD shit happening at misfile. Perhaps the next page will come loaded with a Eurobeat midi. RAGE YOUR DREAM.
Editor’s note: I’m testing out a new format for a new blog this week. That’s why there’s actual content here. I know, shocking!
The best part of waking up is Melon Bread and Milk Coffee. Let’s get right to it:
FYI: Lanny is also blogging from Japan! She’s on LiveJournal here - feel free to add/friend/follow her escapades there. 
My third time living in Japan has begun, and quite honestly, I never quite thought it would start out this way. I don’t mean that negatively, but damn, it’s weird where life takes you.
For starters, I now live in a much more expensive, crowded city - Tokyo. Comparing where I live now to where I used to live is like comparing Lincoln, Nebraska to Paris. The people, the prevailing attitudes, the price of everything… everything has a different flavor. The three other major differences are mostly personal; I’m here with Lanny now, working for a much smaller company, and living far more frugally than I was before. It’s a challenge, but it seems fitting - my Japanese skills have taken a hit in recent years, so it’ll be nice to work on improving those.
In addition, I’m hoping I can finally get around to updating this thing more - I’ve been in a bad habit of writing things that are either 1) so long I don’t finish them or 2) just plain dull. Here’s to finding a happy medium!
More to come!
Artist: Kirinji
Genre: Alt. rock
Video ratings: Silly (1/5) • Artsy (3/5) • Meaningful (0/5) • Eye-candy (4/5)
Synopsis: Out of all the videos I could have selected from my favorite band of all time (a title which I do not assign to Kirinji lightly!), I chose this one simply because it comes from an era where the group was in transition and decided to get a tad experimental. While Kirinji is best known for an almost folk rock sound, this track is more electronic in nature. It’s not territory that the band is uncomfortable with; I’m assuming it’s just something that they had more time to explore since their long time producer Keiichi Tomita (who the band still works with all the time) wasn’t handling the production of this album - the band was.
The lyrics of the song deal with a secret love, but you couldn’t tell from the video, which looks like a stage from Marble Madness (with the occasional inclusion of a dancing mime). It’s pretty fun to watch the two balls bounce through the video as the beat bumps in the background though, so just forget about any deeper meaning the lyrics might have and enjoy.
Artist: Peppertones
Genre: Alt. rock, pop
Video ratings: Silly (3/5) • Artsy (3/5) • Meaningful (0/5) • Eye-candy (0/5)
Synopsis: If there’s one thing that bugs me about Korean pop stars, it’s how fashionable the guys are. With their “bounce this quarter off my pecs, baby” looks and their funky dance moves, watching Korean MVs can drive normal guys like myself into fits of self image-related depression. That’s why the Peppertones are so freaking awesome. In this video, which is drowning in pseudo black and white images of modern Korea, we meet the duo known as the Peppertones when they show up in bright, loud, “I should be jogging in this shit” style clothes and bowl cuts. They set up some lawn chairs, don some awful looking shades, and chill.
YES.
The song ain’t bad either; the Peppertones have woven a very interesting path through their short career, with various female vocalists contributing to tracks and their albums shifting from alt rock to electronica-influenced beats on instrumental tracks. It’s cool stuff; quite relaxing in a spastic sort of way. This track seems to capture their flavor nicely.
Added bonus: the album this track comes from, New Standard, also features a track called “We are Mad about Flumerides.” If that doesn’t define cool, I don’t know what does.
This is probably gonna get ranty, so let’s get to it:
The Good: The programming schedule had very few major shifts over the weekend, and the fans were pretty hospitable. The city returned the favor, welcoming the extra boost of business that the con brought into town.
The Bad: I still think there should be breaks between panels, but apparently I’m challenging tradition on that one, so we have to stick with the fire code challenging, line violating back-to-back structure that this convention seems to live by. Of more concern are…
The numbers: The poor economy has hit this con, and most vendors and artists confirmed that yes, they are making less money than in years past. Others remarked on the smaller size of the booths and the decidedly scaled-down promotional efforts of some of the bigger companies. Will the trend continue at other conventions? We shall see.
Wrap: When I first started attending cons (Anime Iowa 1997 was my first, for those keeping score), I was told of the dichotomy between “fan” cons and “corporate” cons. A “corporate” con, as I was told, was a convention where the needs of the sponsors were set before the fans because the convention relied on their sponsorship dollars. While it is certain that cons like Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, and Wondercon are corporate in this way, having attended these cons has reminded me that these events were still founded by fans and are, for the most part, staffed by them. In this day and age, fans are increasingly fickle with their hard earned cash, which makes the whole “100% fan supported” convention model difficult to implement on a large scale. Furthermore, having corporate sponsorship of a fan-originated event creates the kind of atmosphere that a show like this needs. You get the feeling that the sponsors are coming to the “fan’s turf,” so to speak.
Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed Wondercon. The balance between the fan-centric mood of a smaller con and the need for advertising dollars felt right. We need these kinds of conventions, especially since Reed Exhibitions and their “let’s just spend a ton of money to make sure every big name comes to our con, that way the fans can’t ignore us” business methodology has shown us just what a “corporate con” can entail (and how much it can suck). Despite the tough economic times, things never felt artificial, events ran late into the night, and the public was encouraged to attend late-night events at other locations that were reasonably priced (as opposed to the ludicrously overpriced “post-convention dinner” at New York Anime Festival).
Although tough times seemed to affect morale in many places of the convention, the feeling at the end of the event was the same: mutual appreciation that was expressed by the attendees and exhibitors alike. As the PA system announced the closing of the event hall, applause could be heard from every table and corner of the Moscone Center. Although I was a little apprehensive about my first comic convention experience at first, in the end, I was more than happy to applaud the convention with everyone else.
The good: The word from PIxar’s Up panel is good: fans sound pretty happy with what Pixar has planned for the summer. Hopefully this means we won’t be seeing something on the level of, say, Cars 2. Elsewhere, the convention stayed extremely busy on its second day as fans packed the exhibit hall floor and filled panel rooms to capacity. Despite this - and this is quite frankly the most impressive thing about this show - I never saw a line for food that stretched to insane lengths (which I have seen and experienced at every other major con I’ve been to… ever). Whoever made this happen deserves a handsome raise and a lifetime of free massages. Good ones.
The bad: The lines for some events, autograph signings, and the like were not only poorly marked, they often stretched into other areas and blocked tables in the small press comics area. Boo, hiss.
Running tally of costumes: 4 remote control R2D2s, 1 very impressive Bumblebee Transformer (who drew a team of photographers wherever he wandered), 1 old-school cylon, 2 Katamari “cousins,” Watchmen everywhere, 1 Sailor Moon, and enough Storm Troopers to invade and occupy a small nation.
Props: To all the friends I saw, all the cool people I chatted with, and to Lincy Chan, who gave me an interview for next week’s The Gallery. Damn, artists are swell people.
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