Anime Boston 2009 Day 2
Day 2 was the big Saturday or whatever.
As a note on con attendance pattern, one thing that I thought which sets two types of con goers apart are those “casual” goers and those who are much more serious, like new-con buddy Jabel who flew up from FL, is which and how many days they’re at the con. I guess if I lived in Florida I’d jump at the chances to go to places like San Jose or Boston just because it would be hella less hot up north…
But yes, con attendance for “mid-size” cons balloons on Saturday. I think this is true for almost all cons out there except AX and Otakon. Why? Because there are a lot more people from those cons who go all three day and for AX and Otakon, while they do have more people going on the proper weekend dates, the influx doesn’t outnumber the all-weekend attendees so much.
Going to a con all three days doesn’t mean anything in itself. But if you were going to Boston from FL for a con, you are likely to go to it all three days. Even if you lived nearby and wanted to go to AB for all three days because cons R SRSBZNS and you got a room in the party block, you would go all three days. See what I’m getting at?
With that in mind, Saturday had a lot of people. A couple bloggers I recognize visited the con for the day and according got their money’s worth in Kalafina fandom and luls. The Kajiura encores are definitely special…especially since I missed them ;_; Nonetheless there were consolation prizes as I got my AquaAge soundtrack autographed! Not her best, but by far my favorite.
Lesse–Funi panel. I wrote a long list of crap but most of it can be found on ANN now. It’s just “moe economics” and some dub actors. Ironically actually the only main dub actor for Eva I liked was Misato’s Allison Keith. I’m fine with this! In retrospect, it’s also kind of amusing that the Japanese had to struggle with getting the same dub actors for their Eva movies…
After that, it was delicious Thai food. I forgot to mention that we went to this seafood place for lunch, which is why we were NOT at the front during the concert. It was expensive but they had this lobster sale that…I should have taken advantage of. Kind of hitting myself for playing safe on delicious local cusines. Then again, $30 for two 1 1/4 pounders is not cheap for guys chipping away at hotel costs by loading it up with 8 people.
The rest of the evening was filled with random wandering, working on writing up crap, touring the artist alley–it was BIG–and generally killing time with a few con chasers as I dub them–people who run to cons for the guests like me. It’s also nice to find people who’d chat it up with strangers in the same lines you’re in. By that I mean ALL the lines you’re in.
I also spent the first hours at the dealer’s room on Saturday. After the AoDVD panel I went to show off the crappy loot I got at the dealer’s room (kransom was doing time with Hen da Ne, who will also take all your monies using Carnelian artwork), and found Media Blaster’s full lineup on sale (almost bought that Tweeny Witches box….). It’s a great graphical representation how much in volume that they are selling that is, well, porn. Their wares are lined up in a L shape. The top of the L is the usual anime stuff you’d see at, say, Funi’s booth. After about 30% down the verticle part of the L it turns into hentai. The horizontal part of the L is their live action lineup (which is probably also mostly porn, I didn’t investigate). I think Sirabella was there sitting, looking sort of tired. I didn’t have the courage to disrupt him.
Sat in on Daryl Surat (and sorry I forget who’s the other panelist–Christian Daly) panel on moe and it being “the spectre of evil” or some such. It was pretty good of a panel coming from someone who has given the whole moe issue some thought. It presents a warm argument about the problem of moe, as narrowly defined. I think however a lot of people who are resistent to the idea defines moe a little differently than they do. There’s also a question (or questions?) of motives that requires further research to fill out. The overall presentation is based on the Takashi Murakami’s book of essays “Little Boys.”
I think the random guys I crashed with at the con also spent a lot more time on Saturday getting to know each other and we chatted about all kinds of stuff. Good times.
Lastly, I spent some time in the game room. Nothing really special besides that they have two of them. I’d say it’s almost underwhelming actually, but who am I to say anything about console gaming…
Besides Kalafina’s show, there’s not a lot of very memorable stuff. Be sure to also read DS’s report for more lols details involving me!
OK, I think that’s a wrap. Next up should be the conclusion/final con report/uploading a lot of pics.
So if he went with the Little Boys argument, was it based mainly on that like “Stunted, immature cultural mindset is stunted and immature” thing?
Also, a couple months ago there was an article in Otaku USA with Surat, WAH, Macias, Tomohiro Machiyama, and a woman who I forget talking about moe, and basically everyone but WAH seemed to echo a mindset kind of like that.
Stunted and immature? Just because they like cute things?? NO WAY!!!
Point of clarification: that wasn’t really my panel. It was Christian Daly’s. I was just walking up to get my laptop and bag which I’d left on-stage during the previous panel and ended up sitting on that one, too. I thought I did fine considering I had zero preparation time or notes.
As I noted a few times during the panel, I’m not exactly a fan of Murakami (”the Kanye West of Japan”). I much prefer the writings of Tomohiro Machiyama / Hiroki Azuma / Yoshiki Takahashi on the subject, though the essays in Little Boy (which were written by several people) and the authors I noted above do all more or less mesh with one another. Go figure.
The problem with the whole moe argument in America is that the people arguing about it aren’t doing so from an agreed-upon definitions set. You know how much angry correspondence I get from people saying “I’m an otaku and I love moe, but I’m not a freaking psycho” that I have to respond with “no, you’re NOT an otaku, and therefore this isn’t directed at you”? Entirely too much.
With moe being such a Japanese concept, we had no choice but to spend the majority of the panel time talking about “otaku” in the Japanese sense more than “moe.” You absolutely cannot use the commonly accepted American usage of “otaku” in this case. At the end of the day, the reason for this madness was not “4chan catchphrase” or “just because they like cute things.” It’s a perfect storm of chaos that came about after multiple generational iterations.
PS: I didn’t “diss” Ed Chavez or WAH, so stop speaking VICIOUS LIES about me on Twitter, sir! My usage of “most dangerous” is like how MD Geist is “most dangerous.”
PPS: I think those moe writeups for that OUSA piece were submitted around the time Issue 3 was being done, but it didn’t actually print until the April 2009 because it took us that long to actually find someone willing to be “strongly for.” If you think they were all “strongly against” except for WAH, you’re mistaken: I’m “strongly against,” Clarissa was “neutral,” and WAH was “strongly for.” Also “strongly for being TOO MUCH OF A FRAIDY CAT TO USE HIS REAL NAME.” Granted, all the Japanese contributors were “strongly against” as well, but that’s not really grounds to call “bias!”
Thanks for setting the record straight Daryl. Heh. Heh.
@Daryl
I actually wanted to be credited under my real name but I guess no one got the memo. It’s better that way anyways–I enjoy being employed at places like summer camps (and in not a creepy way, yeesh)