Worry vs. Donuts

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.

I was reminded of these experiences again today, when I happened across Sean O’Mara’s report from Fanime Con over at Otaku USA. Citing non-anime cosplayers and a lack of anime related guests, he argues that Anime Conventions in this country aren’t really for anime anymore - they are for nerds and fans of Japanese Culture in general. Quite honestly, I don’t completely disagree with him. Hell, I lamented the lack of attention paid to Guests of Honor at last year’s Otakon, and every time someone passes me in a con hallway screaming about how they lost the game, I weep a little bit inside. However, I certainly disagree with the glaring mistakes in his article, of which my personal favorites are:

• “Hiroyuki Yamaga is the only guest directly related to the production of Japanese animation” - Uh, Carl Horn has worked with a few anime productions. Besides, since when have manga artists not been cool enough to be Guests of Honor at an anime con? Singers, voice actors, and manga artists have been guests of honor at anime cons ever since cons started.
• “a number of costumers dressed as German and Japanese soldiers” - Hetalia cosplayers, dude. Do your homework.

Conventions, by nature, are for convening. Sure, you have Guests of Honor and other events, but let’s be honest - the real draw to conventions is the social aspect of the whole thing. People who are into nerdy stuff have always relished the chance to gather in a place for a weekend, make friends, and have a blast. The people who come to anime cons feel most comfortable doing that at cons, and thus, you get those same fans bringing the aspects of nerd culture and Japanese pop culture that they like along with them. The end result is an Anime Convention that also has programming and fan gatherings for fans of fringe interests - visual-kei, J-pop, goth-loli fashion, video games, ball jointed dolls… you get the idea. Yes, anime isn’t the sole focus of these conventions anymore, but what are organizers supposed to do - impose draconian on fans and tell them that they can’t practice their kind of geekery before? I’ve seen that kind of thing attempted countless times, and every single time it has failed (see: example I used in the intro). Anime fandom does not exist in a bubble, and the older generation doesn’t get to dictate what the younger generation will be like.

The notion that Anime fandom is alone in this debate over whether the “theme” of a convention is accurate or not is silly. Anyone who has been to San Diego Comic Con in the past ten years knows that the event is about far more than comics. Hollywood uses the event to trot out new films, game studios show up to promote new titles… hell, the convention hosted a huge panel for Glee last year, and will do so again this year. Despite that, the convention goes on, and everyone still has fun. Even Japan’s biggest manga convention - Comiket - has a sizable section devoted to fan novels and doujinshi about popular musicians, stars, and stuff like Harry Potter. If change is okay at other venues, why is it so bad at an Anime Con?

Anime Cons can still claim that their biggest events center around their namesake - Anime. Ask yourself: which events at anime conventions are the most well attended? The answer: The Masquerade (which are still 90% anime-inspired costumes), the Anime Music Video contest, and the guest of honor panels. These events have a long tradition in the history of anime conventions, and they continue on in the same mold as their predecessors. Sure, there are more panels for non-anime stuff, but let’s be honest - stuff like video game rooms and other programming that isn’t strictly anime has always existed. There’s just more of it now, and anime programming still makes up the majority of programming at practically all anime conventions you could name. In fact, one of the features of cons that has seen the most explosive growth in the last ten years - Artist’s Alley - is a reflection of the way fan cons are run in Japan: as giant doujinshi sales.

The charge that anime cons aren’t anime cons also ignores the gigantic shift in demographics that has taken place in anime fandom. Whereas anime cons were once the stomping ground of older anime fans who were almost universally male, cons are now attended by throngs of high school (and younger)-age kids of every race and background, and there are just as many women around as there are men. Whenever there’s an influx of new, younger fans, assuming that they’ll be exactly like you is pretty foolish. It reminds me of the male fanbase of anime that complained that there “weren’t enough chicks” at anime cons in the late 1990s that ended up complaining about “all the crazy yaoi fangirls” just a few years later. For the record, otaku-boy, you’re a nerd. Beggars can’t be choosers, and if you actually put as much effort into getting to know younger fans instead of just making fun of them on the internet, you might actually understand them a little better. Novel idea, I know.

As I - and anyone who has ever volunteered at a convention - can tell you, conventions are a reflection of the people running them. The saddest thing about the complaints of older, “jaded” fans is that so few of them actually put effort into helping out. When I ran programming at AnimeIowa, it was inevitable that some of the convention feedback forms would include a complaint about “all the yaoi panels” or something like that. If you want to talk about your favorite works, or how anime fandom used to be, then volunteer. People like Carl Horn still attend cons and hold panels about anime and the history of anime in the US, and people still show up to hear them speak. The bottom line: if you and your friends don’t volunteer to host a Star Blazers panel, some random young fan is going to register and offer to run a panel that THEY like. This has always been the way conventions have run. The majority of the experienced fans at anime cons have realized that the waves of change are washing upon their beaches, and many of them have responded in a way that reflects how they wish they could have been treated when they were the “outsiders” a mere 10-20 years ago. They know that, in the end, everyone who claims the mantle of “geek” deserves a seat at the table. Why? Because there’s one thing that we share that is universal: a passion for something that drives us to go to great lengths to support and enrich it.

In closing, I want to state again that I’m not hating on old school fans. Most of the old school fans I know have been awesome, still attend cons, still run panels about the anime they love - and still get a decent audience when they speak (Mike Toole, anyone?). They may not like every change that has taken place in anime fandom, but they realize that it is the “nature of the beast” for the times to change - and for them to become the people that the next generation (a.k.a. them 10-20 years ago) look up to. Despite all that has changed in anime fandom, the one thing that hasn’t is this: if you don’t like the way your fandom looks, you do a lot more to fix it when you volunteer to help than you could ever do by ranting online from behind your metaphorical stacks of old fifth-gen VHS fansubs. If you don’t like the path your fandom is walking on, you have to be the one who helps lead it in the right direction.

Evan Miller is a writer and translator who has volunteered as staff at anime conventions for thirteen years. He is currently in his fifth year working in the anime industry, and he still enjoys cons. You probably guessed that already though, right?