Hi again, all. Below are my panel materials From Anime Fusion 2017. Feel free to utilize these how you want; if you use them as part of another presentation, please credit me.
I hope everyone who attended the con had a great time. And, as always, I’m thankful to those who continue to support us by attending our panels and providing their feedback and friendship! Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I look forward to seeing everyone next year!
Hi Everyone! I wanted to let my readers know that I will be attending Anime Fusion, an anime convention in the Twin Cities area, This October 20th through the 22nd. I’ll also be hosting/presenting a couple of panels. Below is my schedule:
Me in my natural habitat, wearing lolita fashion at an anime convention while drinking bubble tea.
It dawned on me recently that I’ve been writing and blogging about anime off and on for about ten years. In those ten years, the landscape of anime fandom has changed dramatically.
Back in Spring 2007, I was still posting my thoughts about anime on Livejournal(!). That season was huge for new anime – over 60 new anime series, including classics that people still enjoy today like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Lucky Star, and Big Windup!. There were also several sleeper hits and some lesser-known series that were great, but may not have been quite so influential, like Toward the Terra, The Skull Man, Bokurano, and Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. It was even the season during which my favorite anime, Dennou Coil, was first broadcast. If you want to read more about great anime from this year, you can check out The Fandom Post’s “10 Years Later” retrospective article series. As much as I’d personally love to talk in detail about all of my favorite anime series from that year, that’s not really what this post is about.
As I mentioned before, our ways of engaging with anime and anime fandom have changed quite a bit in the last ten years. In 2007, watching anime week-to-week was a lot less user-friendly or intuitive. Simulcast streams didn’t exist; keeping up with weekly broadcasts meant either living in Japan and watching them on television (not a possible reality for most of us), or finding a less scrupulous way of obtaining them via bittorrent, generally with some turnaround time built-in since unofficial translators needed to get the raw first. It was a pain in the ass to gain a comprehensive view of the anime coming out every quarter, just because the information wasn’t centralized and neither was the distribution. When I started my “S1E1” project (thanks forever to Boris for the catchy title), I did it because I wanted to keep up with the anime fandom, (selfishly) wanted to help keep my friends in the anime fandom, and had a strong desire to keep writing creatively about the fandom into which I was putting a lot of my energy. I decided to be that person who put in the leg work of checking out all the available anime shows and who had the “inside scoop” on what was worthwhile.
For a long time I think I filled that void. The Anime News Network seasonal preview guides have been around for a long time, but they didn’t always cover every season, so I felt that I was of some use there. Most anime discussion also seemed to take place in forums, too, so I wanted a different platform where I could share my thoughts. I started with a more typical website first (thanks again, Boris) and then ended up with the blog format that was a closer precursor to what I’m doing nowadays. I wasn’t a great writer then – I had one dude who liked to pick on me for my propensity to use the word “crap” to describe zero-effort junk shows, which was lazy (but kind of funny, let’s be honest with ourselves), but I was enthusiastic, and did my best to cover every anime that I could find. I gained a modest but friendly following of readers – many people I knew in person, but others who just happened to stop by and say “hi.” I interacted with cool people in the anime fandom over Twitter once Twitter became a “thing.” It was pretty awesome and I loved doing it.
It was a few years ago that many things started to change and I kind of lost my place. I started encountering a lot of personal setbacks in my “real life” that had little to do with anime and my fandom journey, but in reality were probably more intertwined than I knew at the time. I had also started getting harassed via the comments on the website. I remember one specific time very vividly – I had set up the commenting system to send an email to me from which I could approve or delete it as a moderator. I got a little bit giddy whenever I got a comment – people were reading and responding! One night while I was out at a restaurant with a group of friends, I got an email notification for a comment in the queue for approval. When I went to read it, the person writing it had used some of the most vile language I’ve read to tell me that I was wrong about an anime that they liked and that I deserved to die. I dropped my phone on the table, stunned, and then cried in the bathroom afterwards. I was getting called the “C” and “B” words fairly frequently, too. I’ll admit it; I’m a people-pleaser in my heart and ignoring the trolls wasn’t something I could do. That, plus the fact that someone I was close to at the time criticized the way I was doing things in the first place, spelled the death knell of my “career” in amateur anime blogging, at least for the time being.
In the couple of years between when the previous incarnation of this blog died out and when I came back online, the anime fandom landscape had become a very different place. With very few exceptions, new anime series are available same-day with subtitles legally and easily, at least in the United States. Crunchyroll and Funimation were definitely around a few years ago, but now they, and other services from Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix, are ubiquitous. Tons of websites, from ANN to Kotaku to The Fandom Post, do their own variations on seasonal preview guides and have multiple writers weighing in on new shows. Feminism is no longer a unique topic of discussion, either; a while back I felt like I was a lonely outlier when I talked about fanservice in anime and a few others on twitter weighed-in. Now Anime Feminist does all that and more, from many different perspectives. In any case, I’ve taken this to mean that there’s really no longer a hole to fill in the anime fandom; where once I was one of a few people going it alone, taking my dumb vanity project and somehow making it work out, now anime fandom is slowly becoming mainstream, and most people know exactly where to find out about the new anime that they might like and how they can watch it.
It’s become more than apparent that I, working alone, cannot possibly be timely with my anime first impressions in the way that websites with multiple writers can (unless I take the first week or so of every new season off from my day job, which isn’t happening). Though it might not be readily obvious from the quality of my writing I can be kind of a perfectionist, at least as far as being able to get my true thoughts and feelings across in my reviews and previews. I will not be able to match the speed and consistency of a big website that has 8 or 9 writers pouring their energy into watching and reviewing new anime. I can’t do weekly episode recaps of the shows I watch, because I watch enough that I end up only getting to some them near the end of the season and then bingeing them before I have to speak about anime at my next convention. I have had to come to terms with the fact that I am not a superwoman, and I’m not going to consider quitting my day job (which I enjoy and find fulfilling anyway).
Why talk about all this? Well, since I took over control of the S1E1 domain name and finally reestablished the blog, I’ve been writing about anime in fits and starts without much consistency. With each new season of anime, I’ve tried to be more accountable, pledging (if only to myself) that I’ll get to each new show quickly and cover all of them within a certain amount of time. And each time I’ve failed to attain that goal and fallen back into a writing depression that lasts for a season or two. I even served a stint writing for The Fandom Post, which I thought would make me accountable to something greater than myself and perhaps counteract my depression and anxiety about writing – obviously I couldn’t make that work at the time, either. It sucks, but I think that the problem is more that I’ve been trying to meet a goal that’s not realistic for me and I’ve been setting myself up to fail time and time again. Failure is a great motivator for some, but to me repeated failures have almost always morphed into ugly reasons to quit. And really, my time is so, so precious – I still go to a weekly anime club. I like to go out with my family and partner. I like to spend time gaming and dressing in lolita fashion. I have more work responsibilities now and my work days tend to be longer. My life is very full, and it’s a happy life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. But that means that there are just some things that aren’t going to get immediate attention, and first episode reviews seem to be one of those things.
I’ve made it my more realistic goal going forward to cover all the shows of the season to the best of my ability, no matter how long that takes. I realize that this will mean that, by the time I’m writing about some anime, it might be a little bit late in the season. There will already be several other opinions out there for people to find and read days and weeks before mine are available. I’m deciding right now that that’s okay. Because I’m just one person, and the amount of anime writing I’ve done over the past ten years, and the speaking I’ve done in person about anime, and the conventions I’ve attended, surpass what many people have the ability and drive to do, and I am so lucky to have even been able to try. And I’m going to be proud of my accomplishments rather than ashamed of my perceived failures. And who knows? Maybe just getting the writing done will help me improve someday. I’m sure the next ten years worth of anime will carry with it so many things worth exploring – and writing about!
Hi all. It’s now been a couple of weeks since Anime Detour 2017, and I figured it was about time for me to post all of my goodies for everyone to look at (not my physical goodies, baka, my panel materials!). Below are panel materials from panels that I (Jessi) and/or J.C. presented throughout the course of the convention, along with a description and some thoughts and reactions. I release these free of charge (obviously) but ask that, if you re-appropriate these materials in some way, please give us a shout-out and perhaps link back to this webpage. Many of these contain clips from copyrighted anime series, used for the purposes of education or criticism. We do not own them, but they are presented because we appreciate them! Info on where to purchase them or watch them online legally is included where applicable. If any of the links have expired, just leave a comment and I can update them.
If anyone has any photos of us that they are willing to share, let me know! We are terrible at taking photos or getting them taken of us at conventions because we’re so busy, so being able to capture those memories with the help of others is always a necessity.
Friday, April 7th
Prior to my arrival at the convention (it’s a long story, but the short of it is that I could not arrive to the convention hotel until later on Friday evening), J.C. and our friend Helen ran an annual quiz-game of J.C.’s invention called Anime by Numbers which apparently went over extremely well! It’s a trivia game that works much better than any anime trivia I’ve seen, for one very good reason – to play, one does not really have to have seen any of the series in question. Scoring points relies on being closest to the numerical answer to the questions, and even people very familiar with the shows will have a hard time remembering the exact numbers (I should know, I’ve helped to write some of the questions, and I’ve only been able to do so by re-watching and counting things very closely in several anime series). J.C. wrote the game program himself and added in a timer this year, which kept things moving. It sounds like he also had some good teams with great participation. I wish someone had gotten some video of it since I couldn’t be there, but alas!
“Manga for Grown-Ups” is a yearly recommendation panel that I give in order to highlight available manga that might appeal to older or more experienced fans. As I mention before both of my “Grown-Ups” panels, this isn’t meant to somehow make a quality judgment about manga I deem for “grown-ups” and manga for a wider audience, but I do think it’s worthwhile to point out pieces of media that might appeal to fans who don’t have as much of an interest in series that focus on the exploits of middle-and-high-school students in a more basic fashion. Personally, I have pretty wide tastes, but I also know that, once you start to creep into your late 20’s it can become more difficult to relate to the anime fandom at large and many of the popular series unless you have something keeping you in the loop, so that’s kind of the point I try to make.
This year I think all the manga I featured are available in physical form, with a couple of titles also available in some sort of online form (Crunchyroll or Comixology being the main ones). I’m going to have to check out Crunchyroll’s new paid manga distribution service (currently in beta I think – I got an update to the Android app a few weeks before the convention and only just noticed that it was there) since there might be something on there that’s not available otherwise.
This is a yearly game we do which serves to poke fun at the fact that many opening or ending animations attached to anime series don’t make sense or are deceptive in some way. We try to get people to think creatively because the point isn’t to “guess” what the show is actually about – it’s to come up with something hilarious and give everyone a good laugh.
We had a great year this year, since we were able to utilize a program that J.C. had written to randomize the entries and clean things up again (much better than me pulling numbers out of a hat and clicking on videos in a Windows folder!). I also got rid of some of the old random manga that was clogging up my shelves, so win-win.
Saturday, April 8th
I run the AMV Contest for the convention, so much of the morning was taken up with those activities. We had a great set of entries this year! A list of finalists and winners is available in my previous post if you’re curious. Local AMV Editor SliceofLife uploaded a video she recorded of the Sunday awards ceremony to her YouTube channel, if you’re interested in hearing J.C. talk and present awards (the mic wasn’t working, and I didn’t want to strain my voice too much, so I let him be loud!).
The Cosplay/Masquerade was also on Saturday, but we weren’t around for it. I haven’t attended the Cosplay competition in many years, probably since I stopped being a greenroom volunteer however many years ago. We tried to catch some of it on the hotel’s closed-circuit TV feed, but that wasn’t working, and neither was the live stream… so we ended up getting dinner instead. Luckily I’ve seen most of the costumes in photo form online at this point, thanks to the great photographers at the con.
This panel is much like “Manga for Grown-Ups,” though it naturally focuses on the anime side. Once again, it’s not a quality judgment in and of itself, just something to help keep older anime fans in the loop and in the fandom. I do this panel annually and normally like to include some older stuff, but there was a lot of great anime from the past year or so that really fit the bill so I didn’t have to reach too far back into the archives. I think next year will probably swing back towards older anime though; so much of it is getting picked back up by companies like Rightstuf and Discotek that there are tons of options out there!
I got to meet a lot of great fans as a result of this panel; people even stopped me in the hallway to talk, which is something that I haven’t experienced much in the past. I no longer have a strong online footprint due to many factors, so it was really nice to feel like I was part of a strong local fandom group again.
This was very much J.C.’s baby, but as tends to be the case when one of us is more the “show-runner,” I served as color commentator while he provided the meaty bulk of the presentation. This was inspired somewhat by the “Every Frame a Painting” focused on director Edgar Wright’s visual comedy; our idea being that anime often does a great job of conveying ideas, moods, and story through visual means rather than just script and dialog, especially since animation in general is a medium that is so reliant on care being put into the visual presentation since it’s created from scratch. There are lots of good examples in there of anime you’ve probably seen and heard of, as well as some you might not be as familiar with (but that we both really like).
I think probably one of my favorite parts of the panel talks about background/setting; I find that it’s often one of the markers of a quality anime when there’s care put into establishing the setting, whether that be your typical high school setting or something a little more fantastic. Some anime are recognizable immediately from their background artwork.
In helping out a bit with this panel, it got me wanting to take a crack at the subject myself sometime. Whether or not that actually happens is up in the air, since I’m a terrible procrastinator and have trouble following-through.
This is a panel we presented at Anime Fusion 2016. I wanted to try to make a few edits since we ran slightly over our time at that convention, but I ran out of time leading up to Anime Detour and couldn’t make the cuts that I wanted to make. And then we ended up going even longer and I didn’t even get to play all my videos. Oh well. Usually I’m better at time management, but there was just too much we wanted to say and not enough time to say it.
Anyway, this panel (unofficially known as the “Shirobako fan panel”) focused on anime that tells the story of how anime itself is created, and what we can learn about the industry from that. We go into more detail about the anime creation process (at least in a general sense; there’s a lot of variation and obviously I don’t work in the animation industry so can’t speak from my own experience). I would have liked to also have added something about Girlish Number, which is a newer anime from the past season about voice acting with some peripheral and very cynical ideas about the anime industry, but like I said I ran very short on time. So if this subject is of interest to you… go check out Girlish Number as well! Sakuga Blog is also a great resource about the animation aspect itself; I’ve learned a lot about the animation process and specific animators more recently from that website.
Sunday, April 9th
For whatever reason, Sunday always feels most busy of the three days of the convention. Maybe because it’s the shortest and our biggest panel (Shiny New Anime) is usually on that day. Maybe it’s because I’m already tired by that point and usually schedule myself up to the final time slot. Either way, though I’m happy when it’s over with, I’m also sad that it’s done, if you understand what I’m saying.
This is the panel I’ve been a part of the longest (with a rotating set of co-panelists), and is usually the biggest panel that we do as well. It’s interesting to me, because there are several other “recommendation” style panels at the convention focused on newer anime, and even newer anime that’s not entirely mainstream (though with Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, Amazon… it feels like almost all anime is mainstream nowadays!). I don’t feel like we are filling in some sort of niche any longer or telling people something that they don’t already know, but people are very kind and supportive anyway and I feel privileged that so many people like to come to this one!
Last year was a great year for new anime, as this list attests (there were even enough great shows that there were some I know I didn’t get to in time for the convention – look for those at Anime Fusion later this year). Most years are pretty good for anime, and there’s always at least something out there each season worth watching. But this past year had a ton of great shows for fans of almost all anime genres.
We got more joke comments about this one than any other panel we presented, I think. And for good reason – why put a panel called “What is Anime?” on the schedule for an anime convention at all, let alone on Sunday afternoon of an anime convention? I know it sounds silly. The panel itself actually grew out of a discussion that J.C. and I had been having one day following some stupid internet drama revolving around an anime-inspired music video. The idea of what actually qualifies as “anime” has grown and changed throughout my time as an anime fan, and been debated over and over again as Western artists become more openly-influenced by the visual aesthetics and storytelling styles prevalent in Japanese animation. So this panel was kind of a discussion about that, with the goal being to try and open people’s minds a bit or at least get them not to worry so much about it. I used to be very much on the conservative side of the “anime” definition, but now that anime has been around in the world’s consciousness for a while and there’s so much intermingling between animators (at least the big-name famous ones), it seems pointless to be so strict (though I’m still not to the point of thinking it doesn’t matter at all, since without at least a few vague guidelines, why bother making a distinction at all?).
The point is really that it’s a more complicated question than one might think at first, and though our audience was pretty small, I think we ended up with a pretty decent discussion. Take that, haters!
We, along with Dave (Anime Detour head of Programming), ended the con with a small (but surprisingly well-attended for the time of day) panel focused entirely on the anime series Erased. I liked the show quite a bit before that, but participating in the discussion about it and hearing others reflect on the various things that they enjoyed or didn’t enjoy about it made me appreciate just how successful the show was at so many things. We’re currently re-watching it in anime club, and even I was sort of surprised by how suspenseful the show remained despite the fact that I already knew all the big twists and turns the story was going to take. When I originally bought it I grumbled about the high price of the Blu-ray sets ($90 a pop for 6 episodes each, ugh), but even though I still think that it’s too expensive I don’t feel bad about it, since there’s clearly some re-watch value.
Closing Thoughts
I went into the convention this year with a terrible attitude, mostly because my prep time was truncated and I felt like I just wasn’t 100% going into the convention. J.C. and I are likely looking at starting a family in the near future (something I never thought I would want to do, but sometimes time and circumstances change one’s outlook on those things), and while I won’t let that completely take me away from the convention activities that I enjoy doing, I do realistically realize that I won’t be able to put my full self into it for a while after babby is formed. So that thought was on my mind as the convention loomed on the horizon and I also felt like my career was robbing me of my precious time (not worth going into it in detail because it’s not the job’s fault, but I knew a year ahead of time that I wouldn’t be able to take time off for the con and that ended up sucking).
I have to say though, for as crabby as I was when I showed up to the hotel on Friday evening (and I was really crabby), I had just an incredible weekend. All mishaps were minor, all successes were greater than expected, and I for once felt that I was on my game and knew what I was doing, at least in the moment. I have a terrible case of impostor syndrome, partly just because that’s how I am, but partly because I’ve encountered rudeness online and in person that have made me question my ability to talk competently about anime. Even though I love anime more than just about any other fandom I’ve ever been a part of! But people were so kind, encouraging, and open all weekend, and it really reminded me why I love conventions and Anime Detour in particular. I don’t really believe in luck as an active force in the universe, but I do consider myself incredibly lucky to have been able to know so many of the people I have in my life, because it’s through them that I’ve gotten to be the type of fan I am now (seriously – if my friends hadn’t invited me to help out on Anime Detour staff like 10 years ago, I probably never would have done so many panels and all the things that have come with that). I’m glad I get a wonderful yearly reminder of those influences (also a reminder of how I should try harder to stay in contact with people, since otherwise I turn into a homebody who never leaves the house!).
I’m looking forward to the new location for the con next year. I know a lot of people are a little apprehensive, and it’s a big change – from the suburbs to downtown Minneapolis, it’ll be a big cultural shift – but I’m positive the con will continue to be the great event it’s been for the many years I’ve been an attendee and staff member. Here’s looking towards 2018!
You’ll get used to this screen after the thirteenth time you’ve restarted the game.
I’m by no means a hard core gamer, so it should come as no surprise that I had no idea “Pokémon GO” even existed until the day it was released upon the face of the country as a free app for Android and iOS last week. As with most fandoms, I expect to perpetually be playing catch-up with this one. In fact, a lot of my friends are already forming gym alliances and evolving their pokémon, and I’ve just barely cracked level 4 and only have some very basic pokémon to work with. I unfortunately can’t play all day because of where I work, and I have a lot of other stuff going on (like this website!) so I can’t really go all-in except for a couple of hours on the weekend. I suppose my point is, there are definitely people out there much more well equipped than I am to write thoughtful, weighty think pieces about this gaming phenomenon. But I wanted to throw in my two cents anyway, because the very existence of this game and its almost instantaneous popularity have inspired me to do a lot of thinking.
Some of you might be aware of this, but my favorite anime, Dennou Coil, is finally available on disc in the United States (at least, the first part is; the second isn’t due to be released until late September of this year). If you’re not familiar with the show, a lot of people have jokingly called it “Google Glass: the Anime” because of its central sci-fi tech element – augmented reality glasses. The anime isn’t so much about the glasses as technology as it is about the elements of human nature that the use of the glasses eventually reveals in the characters, but I wouldn’t expect first-timers with the show to know that yet (a lot of emotional truth-bombs don’t get dropped until the second half of the series, via the expansion and then resolution of several story lines). To summarize without spoiling the finer details, the way the juvenile characters utilize their glasses is somewhat off-label, and through their explorations they come face-to-face with certain elements of human nature that seem obvious in retrospect, but revelatory at the time. When they form emotional connections towards simulated beings that only exist as part of the AR world around them, to the point that they grieve when those entities no longer exist, we suddenly realize that our own tendency as geek consumers to form deep connections to fictional characters and worlds and to then experience a sense of loss when those things come to an end is eerily similar and indicates the same thing – reality doesn’t necessarily correlate with tangibility, nor emotional verisimilitude with weight or mass.
I got a little bit flowery there (it’s difficult not to when you’re talking about your most favorite thing in the world!), so thanks for bearing with me. What I’m leading towards is that this anime series came out almost ten years ago (next May will mark its tenth anniversary), and was set in an undefined but clearly near-future setting which has still not entirely come into being. Yet, it has coincidentally made its US debut at a time when I can finally say I feel that we might be right on the cusp of taking steps to make the world of the anime into some sort of reality. This new Pokemon iteration is probably the first signal to me that we are making the approach.
The map view provides a good overview of the local area.
Virtual reality and its sister technologies seem to be all the rage these days. After beginning as a Kickstarter project in 2012, the Oculus Rift VR headset was released to the public earlier this year, and they’ve partnered with Samsung to create add-on technology for the current series of Samsung Galaxy devices. Whereas earlier attempts at VR were strictly for stationary use, now you can literally carry a VR device around town in your pocket (well… the headset maybe not so much, but at least the phone/tablet portion!). The Oculus and its related devices are set to be used for specially-developed films, TV series, and games, among other applications which are probably not even out of the idea stage just yet.
To me, though, VR is still a mysterious and, frankly, intimidating form of technology that feels very unapproachable. It requires a huge commitment – proprietary add-ons or standalone VR units, for example – and of course assumes that, once you start using it, you won’t get migraines or end up with motion-sickness (likely consequences for neurologically-sensitive folks like me). You’re also basically chained to your location – if you went walking around the neighborhood wearing your Oculus, you’d end up tripping over your own feet or wandering out into traffic (and I’m only half-joking), since what you’re seeing has nothing to do with the real world around you. Augmented-reality technology, though, is more of a step up than a giant leap forward, as far as simulated action goes. What you’re seeing is the real world, enhanced with additional imagery that’s helpful or playful or serves some other functional purpose. There’s something inherently more friendly and inviting about it, since it takes something familiar and embellishes it a little bit.
“Pokémon GO” definitely is not the first video game or gaming experience to take advantage of advancing AR technology – several previous games for both common mobile devices and hand-held game consoles have incorporated the technology (whether via trading cards or similar collectible objects, or in other ways) to enhance a core gaming experience. The game that keeps coming up in conversation is “Ingress” (which I had only really heard about in the past week, but which is a few years old) which is considered sort of an AR MMO type experience with large teams that triangulate sections of territory. As is often the case, though, the early-adopters of the mechanic paved the way for an iteration that utilizes the same core gaming mechanic, but touches on particular nerve in such a way that it becomes extremely popular and turns into the face of the technology itself.
I don’t really need to say this aloud, but I think it bears mentioning anyway; people freaking love Pokémon. It’s been that way since my friends and I were playing Pokémon Red and Blue in high school, and with each new generation it seems like the fandom continues to grow and expand. The Pokémon series has always invited players to join forces in one way or another, since one of the primary attributes of the game is that neither version will give you access to all the pokémon of that generation. Sure, you could be a shut-in, buy two handheld consoles, both versions of the game, and trade pokémon with yourself, but the spirit of the mechanic essentially requires you to find a friend (or friends) and bargain with one-other to complete your pokédexes. This mechanic invites players to go outside themselves and interact with others, but there’s definitely a limit; if your friends are playing the game, it’s not really necessary to reach outside your core social group and meet others to get your money’s worth. What’s interesting about “Pokémon GO” is that the essence of the game is intact but the mechanics thoroughly encourage a different way of playing.
Twinsies!
On Saturday my boyfriend and I decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood at dusk. It was my first opportunity to really give “Pokémon GO” a fair play through, since until then I’d either been busy or in a location that made playing the game impossible (it can’t be played effectively while riding in a car, for example). I noticed that a local strip mall had a couple of Poké-stops and so we walked a couple of blocks to get there. One stop led to another stop, and suddenly we were headed down a winding path into a large local park. We’d lived in the neighborhood two months already, and yet this was the first time we’d taken the time to wander over and enjoy walking along the small lake there. There was something particularly magical about this evening; the warm, musky summer air, the light fading from the clear sky, the sparkling lights reflecting on the water’s surface… and the groups of two or three people that we began to notice, their faces glowing with the light from their smartphones, chatting, and laughing, and interacting with their environment. Aside from a few individuals here and there, it appeared that the majority of the people out that night were there to enjoy some of their first experiences with “Pokémon GO” A few people yelled out “gotta catch ’em all!” as we walked by, and we all shared a good laugh about it. It was amazing to me to look around and just be able to sense that almost everyone around me was there for the same reason; as someone who doesn’t leave the house all that often, it felt brand new and fresh, like I was a part of an experience much bigger than what was displayed on my smart phone screen.
I think it’s worth mentioning that, aside from the gaming aspect of the experience, there are some tangible real-world benefits to logging in. Like I mentioned, I’ve lived in my apartment for two months already, and Saturday was really the first time I’d gotten out to walk around and explore our new neighborhood (well, the first time while not in a moving vehicle, anyway). Sure, I was drawn onward by the promise of gaining some extra items (and I was amused to find that the Starbucks near me is considered important enough to serve as a Pokéstop!) but I didn’t set out with any particular goal in mind and wasn’t taking a walk in order to “burn calories” or anything like that. Instead, it was carried back to my childhood, staying up late during Summer vacation and meeting up with kids in the neighborhood to play capture the flag in the fog of night. There’s something incredibly nostalgic about taking advantage of that freedom we have as adults, something we may or may not have had as children, and walking just to see what’s over the next hill or across the next bridge. Meeting up with random people is something that seems so difficult now that we have homes to manage and jobs to do, and yet this became effortless while we were walking around for that hour or so. The experience is like being able to share a secret with a million other people at once, to be part of a group that isn’t based on many of the things that keep us separated from one-another in other contexts.
Shellder enjoys watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
What brings me back to Dennou Coil is that the anime and this game both demonstrate our ability as human beings to indulge in that shared magical act of transforming something that’s nothing more than a straightforward game or tool into something that furthers our connections with one another. The world of the show may be overlaid with imagery that doesn’t exist without the aid of the show’s technology, but to the characters, that upper layer may as well be part of the real thing. Dennou Coil teaches us that the realities forged in our hearts, the feelings we have towards people and things both solid and in the worlds of our imaginations, are real and worthwhile. They matter.
I’ve seen a lot of pooh-pooing on Facebook by people who aren’t interested in Pokémon, and while I respect their right to be non-participants in this fandom (just as I would hope anyone else would respect my fandom choices), it also makes me kind of sad that they’re missing out on that feeling of participation that I’ve experienced. Looking around and just knowing that the group of teenage boys walking down my parents’ street, or the two young women in front of Penzey’s in Uptown, were all participating in an activity I’ve quickly grown to really enjoy is a terrific feeling. I believe that technology should serve to enhance our lives, and while games are often said to waste time rather than contribute to anything of import, something that provides the opportunity to high-five a fellow pokémon trainer and heck, even just get out of the house and enjoy the real world for a little while, is providing a wonderful service.
I try not to get very personal here since I don’t intend this blog to be a “diary,” but in this case I feel like this situation might resonate with others in some way, since it’s related to things a lot of us go out of our way to experience – fandom conventions and interpersonal relationships. I also thought it might be good for my own well-being to talk through it and work it out a little bit before I bring it to a formal therapy session. So feel free to skip this one if you’re just here for the anime and lolita fashion. I promise I’m not insulted <3
This past weekend was CONvergence in Minneapolis, a large local fandom and media convention that lasts for four days around Independence Day every year. I started attending this convention around ten years ago when some friends of mine wanted to enter the masquerade and needed some warm bodies for the rather huge (and funny) production (I hesitate to say “skit” since there was singing and items planted in the audience… and it was quite involved). I had so much fun that year that I came back for the next, then the next… I’ve always been a fan of quality over quantity, and thus only attend a few conventions a year. CONvergence has always been on my list.
Some things happened last year at the convention that spoiled what was otherwise a really awesome weekend. I’ll spare everyone the fine details, because that’s not the point (and it’s easy enough to search out what happened, there was some internet press about it). The short answer is that someone made a joke, it wasn’t funny, it hurt some people, there was a big blow-up online about it, and suddenly I (and, several others, from what I gathered) ceased to feel safe around my fellow CON attendees. The feeling descended like a black cloud and spoiled what was otherwise a fun weekend where I had a lot of other positive experiences. I (and others) felt that the response from the convention wasn’t swift or decisive enough, the people associated with the “event” weren’t apologetic even after several people had voiced their hurt (note: if your comedy is hurting sexual assault survivors or otherwise “punching downward,” you’re doing it wrong), and the whole ordeal left a really bad taste in my mouth. I decided it was time for a break and didn’t register for the 2016 convention, and there were a few other close friends who made the same decision.
The subject would come up again every couple of months; one friend of mine had put a lot of hard work into getting people to fill out feedback surveys and get the concerns heard by the convention committee in an attempt to either get a substantive response or to have them beef up their staff training and response to future issues of the same nature (which it sounds like they eventually did – kudos to the con on that point and in general I’m complimentary towards steps they’ve taken since even if it wasn’t as quick as I would have liked). I voiced my opinion online a couple of times, primarily on Facebook though I did fill out a very extensive feedback survey as well. Some people were supportive, some people tried to CON-splain to me about why I was being “unreasonable” (and I utilize quotes because there’s always someone who pops in to tell me that my legitimate feelings that I’m feeling for reasons that I explain pretty completely aren’t legitimate for this, that, and the other reason because they didn’t feel the same way and also I don’t understand the full situation or how conventions work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even though I have staffed another similarly-sized local convention for ten years. But whatever!). The point is that I felt pretty secure in taking a year off and letting things fall where they were going to fall. It was nice to feel a little bit of solidarity from my friends since I always worry that I’m overly-sensitive. I’d never ask anyone outright to give up their convention experience just for my sake, but I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one feeling my feelings.
Last week (a couple of days before the convention), I attended an event with several friends and learned that, sometime within the last couple of months, they had decided to attend the con. I’m not going to pick apart who originally said they were or weren’t going and who had planned to go all along because it’s not important and I’m honestly not sure. I’m also not criticizing anyone’s choice to go and have a great time, because that’s not something that I would want anyone to feel bad about. But after trying to hide my surprise and voicing an admittedly kind of pathetic offer of free “limo service” to any off-site restaurants so that people wouldn’t need give up their parking spots (the food options immediately around the con hotel are kind of crappy and my sweetie and I live in an apartment very close by), I kind of spent the rest of the evening off in my own brain somewhere. The next couple of days found me very angry, then for about a day-and-a-half I became profoundly depressed (the type of depression where about all I did for a day was lay on the couch in a daze and not do anything of use besides drop the occasional tear out of my eyes). It wasn’t really that I wanted to go (and in fact I still didn’t and truthfully couldn’t – I couldn’t afford or justify the $120 at-the-door price of admission for the weekend, and I didn’t have the ability to take any time off from work). It was more that, in that moment I was reminded of what it feels like to be excluded and forgotten. To not be part of the “in” crowd.
I think as geeks we can get so insular that we forget that people are people, no matter what group they’re in. I’m very introverted and (though I risk retribution for even alluding to this) I spent quite a while having my friendships and activity choices subtly policed, manipulated, and controlled. Eventually I sort of lost the drive to leave the house and spend time with people, even to maintain friendships. And it’s really unreasonable to expect people to remember, let alone go out of their way to contact, someone who hasn’t done a very good job of making themselves present or upholding their end of a friendship. I literally don’t know how to friend, sometimes.
I was also reminded that my problems are just that – my problems. Whatever problem I had with the convention is mine to deal with, and it would be silly to expect others to react as dramatically to something that is based so much around my own feelings and history.
In any case, I realized after a while that it wasn’t jealousy or a desire to be at that hotel for that convention that was getting me down so much (though I did read through the programming guide and there were a lot of things I’m sad I missed, and I really lived vicariously through all the photographs that were and still are being posted online), it was more just knowing that I was outside looking in all along, and I should have known better. It’s kind of the same way with my friends from high school – I see them visiting one-another and interacting and I know a lot of them keep up their relationships and friendships with one-another, and all I feel like I can do is ask “how in the world do people achieve that?” It’s such a huge mystery to me, because I always just feel like I’m creeping on other people, looking through the window at them as they live their lives. I think I’m a nice person and I can kind of bribe people with food, but I’m sort of confounded by that next level and how to get there.
The one other thing that hurts my heart, which is one hundred percent my own fault, is that in choosing not to attend the convention in the manner that I did, I made my boyfriend feel obligated to sit it out with me. Last year was his first CONvergence, and he had an awesome time. And then I took that away. I’m the type who would have told him to go without me if I were more aware, but I just assumed that he felt the same way I did without asking and that was wrong to do. I feel profoundly guilty because of that.
I think ultimately the shock of feeling totally justified in what I was doing and then suddenly being faced with a huge pile of conflicting evidence just shook me down to my center, and I no longer know where I stand. I have no idea what I’m going to do for next year. My heart aches for what I’ve missed but I think in all my outspokenness I may have simply just made myself unwelcome. I still have fears about the type of people who would say the types of things that were said in the big Facebook blow-up of 2015 (it boiled down to a strong lack of empathy towards survivors and those triggered by slut-shaming and sexual assault references). I don’t trust the people around me that I don’t know, because they could very easily belittle me and my experiences, or at least that’s the conclusion I came to. I don’t know. I’m feeling very lost and I don’t know what to do about it.
I do want to mention (and end on more positive note) that a couple of people did reach out to me directly over the weekend; that in itself made me feel a little bit warmer and less isolated. I am always very thankful and amazed that there are people who are still willing to make the first move; it kept me from wallowing any deeper, at least.
I don’t think there’s a conclusion here; I don’t know that any person other than myself can say anything to help this. I don’t know if it’s an apology I’m looking for, because I don’t think I’m really owed one, exactly. I’ve always said that the best con drama is the con drama you’re not involved in, and those words are echoing for me right now. I wish the comedian who did the thing at the con last year had just not done the thing, because then none of this would have happened. I wish she’d taken more responsibility after the fact; that would have gone a long way to help, too. I wish people in general were more sensitive to those who have had rough experiences. But I also really wish that I could convey my feelings a bit better, so that maybe more people could understand the kind of emotional hell that I put myself through when these things happen. I try to keep that kind of stuff off the internet because it’s always so personal and it’s easier to let people assume that there’s nothing wrong than to try and explain why something is wrong in a way that they would care about. I feel like talking about it too frequently or at too much length makes it easier for people to just ignore. I don’t know what prompted me to come out and say anything this time, except that maybe the wound is still fresh (and honestly… every mention of how this year’s CON was BEST CON EVER reopens the wound every time I see it. Not that I would have gone! But it feels like rubbing salt in the wound).
Anyway, I thank anyone who at least tried to read some of this, I’m sure it makes very little sense and ended up being kind of a chore, but it feels sort of good to air it out. I don’t know that I’m looking for any advice either; I’ve had people on Facebook say some stuff they thought was helpful (“I’m not going to CON either because of [insert other mundane reason]” or “I didn’t think there was a big enough issue to keep from going” which is all fine but doesn’t amount to much when your heart is hurting) and I think I’d rather just come to my own conclusion and maybe work up towards trying to approach some other people about it. Thanks again.
Obligatory disclaimer – this is a review of items I purchased with my own hard-earned money. I did not receive incentive or compensation from the company to write this review (not that anyone would honestly consider that a possibility, but still…)
I’ve somehow amassed quite a few violin-related Lolita Fashion items over the last couple of years. Two Innocent World violin dresses, a couple of violin-themed bags… one would probably think that I have some experience playing the violin. The joke’s on you all, I’ve never even touched a violin. I would have no idea what to even do with it. But I find violin motifs strangely appealing for some reason. At some point in the past, I noticed that Bodyline was planning to release a pair of boots with a violin-inspired design (it was the winner in one of their clothing design contests). I thought that sounded pretty awesome, but as the days went by and the boots didn’t show up on their website, I kind of forgot about it.
Because I often get a lot of my basics from Bodyline (especially shoes… I have large feet and just can’t cram them into brand shoes no matter how hard I might wish to do so), I generally poke around the website every couple of months to see if anything new has been added. Lo and behold… violin boots! And they weren’t expensive! I tossed them into my cart and a couple of days later, they arrived at my doorstep.
The boots come in several different colorways, the majority of which seem to skew more towards classic lolita styling. I purchased the “brw-dbrw” (or “Brown and Dark Brown” as translated from Bodyline’s color language) since I thought those would be most likely to match with other items in my wardrobe. I do also like the wine colorway, though, and if I had more items to match I might have gone for that one instead.
They’re available in sizes up to 260, which is what Bodyline calls 26cm (which is more standard that mm in Japan, at least judging by what I’ve seen while online shopping) and which roughly equates to a US women’s size 10 and a UK size 42. Some shoes on Bodyline’s site go up to size 270, but not these, unfortunately.
The price listed for these boots is $39.99, which doesn’t include shipping, so keep that in mind – EMS Shipping cost $13.80 at the time I purchased the boots. If you prefer to utilize Bodyline’s airmail option it will likely be cheaper, but then you’ll be poised to wait at least a month and I didn’t feel like doing that, partly because I’m wary of the postal system as it is (a dress of mine got lost in the mail one time, it was a huge bummer). As it stood, I got the boots in less than a week, not taking into account the amount of time it took me to be able to make it to my apartment’s office hours to pick it up (I understand why they’d want to be open regular business hours like any other regular business, but since I work those same hours and also have a bus commute it doesn’t work out very well for me a lot of the time.
The package arrived inside of the standard gray shipping plastic. The boots were shipped in their shoebox, which had gotten a little bit mooshed up in transit (not unexpected, it had a long way to travel). Sometimes Taobao shopping services will offer to ship your shoes sans the shoe box to save a little bit on shipping costs, but Bodyline doesn’t have this option, so just be aware that you’ll end up with a shoe box that’s probably going to be pretty useless by the time it gets to you. The boots arrived with plenty of packaging inside the foot portion to keep from getting mangled. They were in good condition when I opened them up, with no wrinkles, smudges, scuffs, scrapes or flaws.
The color in the stock photograph seems to be pretty accurate for these boots; the primary portion of the details are a nice warm tan color, while the accent color is a deeper coffee brown. The violin details are printed on the body of the boot, and there are few visible printing flaws (at least until you get up very, very close, and I think they fall within the realm of acceptability). The material is a faux-leather like Bodyline’s other shoes, and definitely has a distinctly plastic-y feeling and smell to it. It’s also not particularly thick, but this gives leg portion some needed flexibility. There are some very cute scallop details along the length of the laces and around the toe of the boot, as well as along the top. The lace holes have eyelets/grommets and the boot laces included are long enough to allow for some loosening if the wearer has thicker calves. There is a size zipper for easy on/off.
One thing to note (and this is true of all Bodyline shoes that I own), is that the sole of the shoe has about zero cushioning or support, so if you’re like me with feet that tend to get sore pretty quickly and which need some arch support, you’ll have to invest in some decent insoles. Aside from that, the heel is at a really nice height and feels sturdy. I don’t wear heeled shoes very often, so I prefer the type of wider heels that these boots have – they keep me from feeling like I could topple over at any moment.
The toe box is roomy like a lot of Bodyline shoes (and lolita shoes in general). I own a pair of their heeled oxfords (model number S272, they don’t appear to sell them anymore) and those have kind of a pinch-y toe (they’ve gained the nickname “those stupid shoes” because I wore them to a con where I ended up having to walk a whole lot and my feet were in bad shape in short order), but these strike a good balance between the elegance of a less-boxy toe area and keeping enough room in there so my toes don’t get mangled.
I put these boots on straight out of the box without making any adjustments to the tightness of the lacing, but there are a few centimeters of give if you’re larger than I am. In the photos below I’m wearing crew socks but nothing that goes too far past my ankle. If I were wearing tights or some of the OTK’s that I have, I might have to play around with the fit a little bit. Oh, and I totally didn’t just put on some frilly Innocent World shorts for the pictures, there’s totally a full coord going on up above my waist (spoiler: I was wearing an old T-shirt. Fight me). Also, we’ll pretend that those are patterns in the carpet, and not little fuzzy gifts from my very shedding long haired cat that haven’t yet been vacuumed.
The Verdict: I really like these boots, and definitely think they’re worth the very nominal price they’re charging. I’d been looking around for a pair of taller lolita boots, and these I think will make a really great addition to my wardrobe.
Edited to Add: Attitude Lolita has a video unboxing/review of these up at her channel. Check it out for some more information on the boots (she ordered the gray ones).
Also known as, “why do I overextend myself every year?”
Anyway, as some of you know, I’m both a staffer and a panelist at Anime Detour, an anime convention in the Twin Cities area. Every year I run just a ton (in my opinion) of panels and events throughout the weekend. In case anyone reading this happens to be going, I thought I’d list off where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing over the three days of the con so you can come and say “hi” if you want to. Here’s where you can find me:
Friday
5:00 – 6:00pm – “Manga for Grown-Ups” in Plaza 3
8:00 – 9:00pm – “Myths of the Japanese Wolf” in Atrium 3
9:30 – 10:30pm – “Anime By Numbers Trivia Game” in Plaza 2
11:00 – 12:00am – “Unlicensed Gems” in Atrium 4
Saturday
9:00 – 10:00am – “AMV Contest Showcase” in Plaza 4
12:00 – 1:00pm – “AMV Contest” in Main Programming
1:30 – 2:30pm – “Anime for Grown-Ups” in Plaza 2
6:00 – 7:00pm – “J.C.’s Anime Jeopardy” in Edina Room
9:00 – 10:00pm – “Beyond Moe – Surpassing Character Tropes” in Edina Room
10:30 – 11:30pm – “Don’t Judge and Anime by its Cover” in Atrium 4
Sunday
9:00 – 11:30am – “Cel Painting” in Plaza 3 (assuming I can get out of bed that early – it only really requires me to be present and then help with cleanup)
12:00 – 1:00pm – “Shiny New Anime” in Edina Room
3:00 – 4:00pm – “AMV Contest Awards” in Plaza 4
Assuming I can find time to eat, sleep, and use the restroom in there somewhere, I’m planning to at least attend the 3 MN Rufflebutts (the local lolita fashion community) events/panels, but we’ll see how that goes (the schedule looks really daunting now that I’ve listed everything, but several of the panels are games or things that otherwise don’t require a whole lot of input from me, so it’s not as bad as it seems). I can always nap during the AMV contest since it’ll be dark in the room and I’ve seen it all the way through several times already.
Oh, did I mention that I’ll be arriving at the hotel some time around midnight Thursday because of a work trip? Yeah…
Anyway, I hope this sort of explains why I haven’t been around much over the past several weeks.
So I thought I’d update on my “diet” since it’s been a really long time. I’ve been reticent to talk about it too much in “real life” because I don’t want to inadvertently say something that might be triggering to someone or to sound like I’m body-shaming people. So just take this as something I wanted to do for myself any only applicable to me and my life.
Several months ago I realized I was eating an awful lot of candy and junk, constantly, all day at work. I was depressed for a very long time for reasons that I won’t go into, and it was manifesting itself through overeating on sugar and soda and all that stuff that your dentist doesn’t want you having. I decided in May or June that I wanted to stop doing that, and so I cut out candy and soda without a whole lot of trouble. I was never really craving it, I was just eating it out of habit and not thinking about it. It’s amazing some of the things that we do when we put our brains on auto pilot.
Somewhere in that time frame a friend of mine also recommended Gary Taubes’ book “Why We Get Fat (and What to Do About It)” which essentially talks about our human physiology and why a lot of official dietary recommendations for our health are based on shaky science and don’t match up with how our bodies process food and convert it to energy (the biggest revelation for me was that consuming dietary fat does not mean your digestive system converts it into fat on your body, which goes against a lot of what we’re taught). I recommend checking it out if you’re interested in that sort of thing. In any case, that helped me consciously and purposefully start making some other dietary changes.
Another thing that helped was discovering the /r/keto subreddit. Reddit is mostly a shit hole and /r/keto can definitely be a huge circlejerk too on occasion but it was there I got a lot of solid advice on the benefits of cutting out other carbohydrates and how doing so doesn’t F your brain up like so many people wrongly believe. Since about July-ish my goal has been to keep to about 20 grams of carbohydrates a day (or less) in order for my body to start burning fat (dietary fat and its own fat stores) instead of seeking out the “easy” energy that carbs provide. Mostly I stick to this, occasionally I go over, but now that my body is “fat adapted” I find that going over a little doesn’t really have any negative effects. According to the subreddit, this diet is apparently good for both Type 2 diabetics or pre-diabetics, and women with PCOS, and was originally developed to treat children with epilepsy.
There were a couple of weeks in there that sucked royally at first. I didn’t go about implementing the lifestyle in a systematic way and wasn’t getting enough salt or other electrolytes (one thing about keto is that your body stops holding onto water, so you’re peeing all day all the time and the salt that your body needs gets flushed right out with it). Once I figured out what was going on, I started feeling a lot better and didn’t feel like I was literally going to fall asleep all day long.
The biggest benefits I’ve noticed have actually been the clarity of mind I have and improvements in my mood. I actually wake up in the morning and feel ready to go, have an easier time thinking through things and making decisions, and find it a lot easier to write which is always something I wanted to work on but I could never find the magic way to fix my cloudy brain. I dealt with pretty significant anxiety for a long time and I’ve found that I have fewer bad moments. Now something that would normally have been really triggering to my anxiety or depression feels more minor (the problem is still there and I still go to professional therapy every couple of weeks, but things are a lot better and I worry about myself a lot less. I’m also not in a place where I feel like I need to take medicine to help with symptoms, which is a road a personally don’t want to go down).
One other major benefit is appetite suppression. My body has basically stopped riding the never-ending insulin roller coaster, so my appetite isn’t falsely triggered all day. I stopped eating breakfast in the morning (and no, it’s not “the most important meal of the day,”). Prior to this breakfast had always made me feel nauseated, but I ate it out of obligation. Now I know better. I do a 16/8 intermittent fast (eating your day’s calories within an 8 hour period and fasting the remaining time) and actually today I didn’t eat anything until about 4pm because I just forgot to (then I ate a double helping of dinner, haha). Eating more fat helps with satiety, so this happens to a lot of people and it’s okay.
Some obstacles I’ve encountered mainly revolve around eating with others. I’m a good cook and make most of my own food (I’m very lucky to have the funds and access to fresh meat and veggies, as well as the time available to cook them in creative and appetizing ways). When out with others, though, I sometimes feel obligated to indulge somewhat, primarily because I don’t want people to start asking questions or thinking that I’ve suddenly become a super picky eater or am faking a food allergy. I feel bad if someone has made something when I’m over – I will usually eat a little even though now food with a lot of carbs tends to give me a headache and screw up my sleep schedule. I’m bad about asking for things at restaurants – a bun-less burger is always a good option on keto, but I’m afraid of offending people so that’s something I really need to work on. It’s hard when food gets ordered in at work for special events, too – I generally can’t eat it (pizza, chinese, italian are big favorites there). It can be kind of a bummer since food defines so many of our social situations and I sometimes feel like these restrictions I’ve imposed on myself aren’t considered legit enough.
So what do I eat? I think people don’t realize that cutting carbs still leaves you with a ton of options. Fatty meats, cheese, and veggies comprise the majority of my diet. These were always my faves anyway (luckily I was never big on dessert to begin with!). I don’t eat most fruit (I know, some of your are like DAI SHOKKU but the fruits that we’ve bred are basically sugar bombs and you can get those vitamins elsewhere). Anyway, here are a few things that I like to eat:
Meats: Chicken (mostly legs and wings, I’ve never like breasts), steak, bacon, pork chops (bone-in and tenderloin), ground meat, sausage, fish (any kind, basically, including canned sardines and tuna as well as fresh fish), eggs (this is a big one – I love eggs a lot and you can cook them so many ways!), preserved meats (prosciutto, salami, etc.)
Dairy: Cheese of almost any kind (I’m a cheese fiend), butter (Kerrygold is my favorite), heavy cream (at the outset I would have coffee with heavy cream in the morning, now I don’t need/want it anymore), sour cream, creme fraiche (I can’t say that without hearing Randy Marsh, lol), occasionally full-fat plain yogurt (what we call “yogurt” is generally sugared-up big time so I don’t normally eat it)
Vegetables: Cruciferous veggies (brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, etc.), cauliflower, asparagus, avocado (technically a fruit but I consider it a culinary vegetable), zucchini, peppers (hot or mild), onions (sparingly, they actually contain some sugar even though you wouldn’t immediately think that), fennel, root veggies (also somewhat sparingly as they are rather starchy), spinach or other greens, green beans
Fruits: Mostly berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries) – they are lowest on the carb scale. Coconut (very fibrous and fatty and delicious)
Snacks: Pork chicharrones (pork rinds) – I know it sounds gross but these are basically made of meat gelatin and serve as a great sub for potato chips, jerky (EPIC uncured bacon bar is my favorite – zero carbs!), Quest protein bars (occasionally if I haven’t prepped enough food for the week I’ll have one of these), Almonds (delicious and full of fiber, vitamins and potassium) and some other nuts, very dark chocolate (85% cacao – Trader Joe’s is my favorite one) or chocolate sweetened with stevia/erythritol, chia seed pudding (made with chia seeds, coconut milk, unsweeted cocoa or matcha)
Beverages: Water, iced tea, sparkling essence water (La Croix), Coke Zero (occasionally, I try to not develop a taste for soda but sometimes I just want some caffeine and I’m not near a coffee supply), coffee (plain or with some almond milk or heavy cream), protein shakes, almond milk, coconut milk
Condiments: Mustard (dijon or the really grainy kind are my favorites), mayonnaise (have always loved it), soy sauce, ranch or blue cheese dressing (full fat), Sriracha or other hot sauces (I like spicy food), vinegar, olive oil, coconut oil. I know Heinz makes a low sugar ketchup but I haven’t tried it yet since I’m not that big on ketchup in the first place.
What don’t I eat? I know most people are more concerned about restrictions, and I think many people would feel too restricted on this type of lifestyle. So here are some things that I don’t really eat anymore:
Flour products, like bread and cake: I will occasionally make exceptions, but it has to be really high quality bread/cake/pastry/whatever. Life’s too short for crappy cake! Some of my exceptions have been chocolate mousse cake on my birthday (my boyfriend and I shared it at a fancy restaurant) and some good fresh bread at a fancy steak house for my friend’s birthday. I’ve made some keto-compliant substitutes that are good, like keto cheddar biscuits made with coconut flour. I don’t make a habit of bread or pastries, though. And I don’t eat pizza. I’ll eat the toppings off of the pizza, but not the dough. They do sell a sprouted wheat bread at Trader Joe’s sometimes that’s okay, I keep a loaf in the freezer in case I need a replacement hot dog bun or something.
Fruit: people really give me the side-eye on this one! Now that my taste buds have adjusted, I just find most fruit to be way too sweet. And like I said, our fruit has been bred to be really sweet and there are other ways to get those vitamins. I do still eat berries, and technically avocado and tomato are fruits, and I’ll eat those. Juices are right out also, since they’re like having fruit without the minor benefit of fiber.
Certain Vegetables: Carrots (although I’m flexible on this), root veggies (also flexible), corn (not flexible, it’s all sugar basically). I’ve started to come around on some vegetables since I feel like the carbohydrates in most of them aren’t doing me a lot of harm since there’s a lot of fiber and I haven’t noticed vegetables interfering with the benefits of my way of eating.
Legumes: legumes are full of starch and they really give me stomach issues now. Hummus is a no-go but baba ghanoush is okay. I’ll occasionally have peanuts but not often.
Sweeteners: Sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave syrup are all out (although on occasion I’ll use a little honey when making some Korean food in the flavoring paste, but it’s like a teaspoon for a whole pan of stuff). I do use liquid stevia and erythritol, which do not cause an insulin spike for me (erythritol is considered the best for this).
Candy: Obviously. I don’t even eat sugar free candy because some people get a major case of the ass blasts from it and I’m not going to even give it a chance. What kind of sucks about not eating is that many people give candy as gifts, especially around the holidays; I got a very nice gift bag from my job and it was almost entirely candy, so I ended up giving it away.
Alcohol: Technically certain alcohols (like hard liquors) aren’t a big deal for keto, but I’m not a big drinker anyway and I prefer beer and wine which are carb-filled (the good ones, anyway). I have had maybe two beers since starting, and a couple glasses of wine and a little liquor over the past 6 months, but nothing dramatic.
Really, there aren’t that many restrictions, but the ones there are are big ones for a lot of people, so it can be kind of daunting to start off.
Some other things I wanted to add are that I tried tracking my calories and stuff for about a week using the My Fitness Pal app on my phone. It actually started giving me anxiety problems, so I stopped and have technically been doing “lazy keto” for the majority of the time. It hasn’t been a hindrance though I know correctly estimating portion sizes and calories can be an issue for some.
I’ve spent all this time justifying my lifestyle, so I’m finally going to talk about one of the other benefits – easy weight loss. One of the other reasons I started looking to change my eating habits is because I’m into lolita fashion and I was starting to not fit into some of the really expensive Japanese clothes I had bought. This was really getting me down and I didn’t want to have to sell all the pretty things in my closet. This problem has happily been addressed at this point. Here are some of my stats:
Starting weight: 183(?) lbs/83kg – I didn’t take an official starting weight, so I’m estimating. My first weigh-in had me at 18olbs/81.6kg exactly.
Current weight: ~145lbs/65.77kg (I weighed in at 143 this morning but that was before I ate/drank anything)
Goal weight: Not sure? I’ve always told myself I’d re-assess when I reached 14olbs and see how I feel. Other than that I don’t have a goal weight.
Starting BMI: ~29.5
Current BMI: ~23.5
I don’t believe in BMI as an accurate measure of anything, really, but I wanted to get into the “Normal” range from “overweight” so my doctor would stop bugging me about it. I don’t think weight is a strong indicator of health for the most part, and doctors tend to attribute any medical problem a fat person has to their weight, which is a total load of bullshit.
Beginning bust measurement: 38inches/96cm
Current bust measurement: 35.5inches/90cm
Beginning waist measurement: 30.7inches/78cm
Current waist measurement: 27.6inches/70cm
I don’t have other measurements because they don’t matter as far as lolita fashion goes for the most part. Needless to say, the items I bought when I was pushing the top of the measurements (96cm bust is basically not fitting right in the Innocent World dresses I have and I’m sure I was a bit higher than those measurements at my largest) fit really well now. I can zip them all up without fighting with them! I’m very happy about that. The downside is that most of my normal clothes don’t fit me anymore, and I’ve run out of notches on my belt.
I also wanted to mention that I don’t exercise. I work in a very sedentary position in my office and I don’t go out of my way fit in extra activity. This goes against a lot of advice that’s given – my thought is that exercise just makes me hungry and when I’m hungry I eat more. Exercise also doesn’t burn many calories at all, and I don’t have an hour every day to spend on the treadmill for little benefit. I do occasionally do some bodyweight resistance training, but not on a consistent basis.
Again, I want to stress that weight does not equal value in a person and I believe all bodies are beautiful and worthy. It’s been difficult for me to reconcile that opinion with ones I have toward myself; they’ve not always been very positive and that’s definitely something I’ve had to work on. I wanted to lose the weight, change my eating habits, and most importantly just feel better and have more energy and drive, because for me this signaled taking control away from my anxiety and depression and nourishing myself in a healthy way. This is the way I’ve been able to do that for myself.
