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:
Saturday, October 21st
Sunday, October 22nd
If you’ll be there, please stop by and say “Hi!”
I’m having quite the year this year; my partner and I are attending (at least) five fandom conventions, both local and distant. To some that might not seem like that many, but to us, factoring the time, travel, and funds, it can become quite the undertaking. I’ve been much more about self-care over the last couple of years, and so I’ve begun to acknowledge that, even if I attend several conventions, it’s not in my emotional or physical best interest to be running a lot of events at all of them. So while I was in charge of several panels and a couple of big events at Anime Detour earlier this year, I decided to take it easy at my other local favorite convention, CONvergence.
CONvergence, or CON as many of us tend to call it, can be difficult to nail down in terms of theme. While I think its origins were within the realms of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it’s now more of a geek media convention with programming devoted to books, television, anime, video games, horror, science, and many other things that comprise a pretty substantial list. On any given day you could attend a discussion panel devoted to your favorite geeky show, watch a genre film in the movie room, listen to live music, check out any one of dozens of room parties, or spend your cash on geek swag in the merchandise, dealer, or artist alley areas. There’s a lot going on at this convention, and that’s kind of what makes it so much fun.
I didn’t attend CONvergence last year for a few reasons that could make up an entire other post. There was an incident involving some other attendees, and I just needed a break to regroup and consider whether being in that environment was going to be healthy. The fact that I was depressed the entire weekend last year made it clear to me that the convention still held a lot of draw and appeal, so it was kind of a no-brainer for me to go. That, and it’s one of the only times and places that I see some of my friends; though it might seem like I never want to leave the house or talk to anyone, that actually isn’t the case most of the time (just the way things end up – I’m kind of an introvert).
I had originally considered going into great detail about all of the events I attended, but I went to quite a few panels and could probably write a novel’s worth of words about several of them. Because of that I thought I might just give a highlight reel of the good things I saw and did, and maybe talk generally about some suggestions or critiques for future years.
Beyond the Magical Girl – This panel was a discussion of women’s roles in anime, and how they have expanded or changed throughout the time the panelists have been anime fans. I enjoyed hearing the panelists talk about what makes a woman a “strong” character in anime. I think it’s an important conversation to have, and something to consider especially since, culturally, that answer may be different between the US and Japan. My one (kind of big, now that I see what I have written) critique is that the panelists focused a lot on “kick-ass” women, meaning girls and women who are strong fighters with kind of a badass attitude. Personally I think the fact that we can name several of those characters means that we’re only really half-way there – these characters are physically strong, a definition that fits in well with a patriarchal definition of what having strength means. It’s kind of the same way I feel when people talk about how to be traditionally successful in business – be “assertive,” stick up for yourself, demand compensation, talk over people… that might have worked well 30 years ago, but we’re much smarter about the value of emotional intelligence nowadays, and that’s a realm that’s been traditionally classified as feminine (and therefore, in some people’s minds, of less value).
I think we should reframe our thinking regarding our definition of strong characters who reflect all manner of positive traits, whether that be physical strength, kindness, generosity, assertiveness, work ethic, or joyfulness. Have multiple women in a cast, don’t tokenize them, and give them some kind of agency, and you’re much of the way there. Otherwise, all you’re talking about are “strong female characters (tm)” and I’m sure you can tell what’s wrong with that.
New Anime – A yearly panel devoted to talking about anime suggestions from the past year (give or take a few seasons). I’m not really sure I’d qualify the panel itself as a highlight; there were some issues on the back end that I was privy to since my partner was one of the panelists, and there was some poor behavior at the panel by one of the other panelists, so there were some issues. But as this had been a panel I’d been involved with in the past, it did get me to realize that I have something to offer to the fandom community, that something being quality panels run well in an open and hopefully mostly non-judgmental environment. I think maybe next year I might try to sign on and do some anime-focused programming at CON; CONvergence is definitely not anime-focused (nor does it have to be) but I think there’s potential for outreach and I would like to be a part of that.
This Canon is Fired – This panel’s topic focused around what we think of as the “must-reads” of genre fiction, and how the traditional sci-fi/fantasy canon has historically excluded works by women and authors of color, diverse sexualities, and various other identities, or the works focus on protagonists who are straight, white, and simply don’t reflect the great variety of human diversity. This has been my problem with “traditional” literature classes also; while I had some teachers in high school and college who tried to reach outside this realm, if you take a literature 101 class oftentimes people insist on Dickens and Shakespeare to the exclusion of authors with diverse experience. The discussion was great in this panel, and I came away with a list of new books to check out (always a plus!).
Introduction to Hip-Hop as Literature – This was a really interesting panel, though perhaps not for intended reasons. About halfway through the panel, the panelists who were actual artists in hip-hop (an emcee and a DJ) came to the conclusion that whether hip-hop does or does not “qualify” as literature doesn’t really matter, and that sat pretty well with me. I think trying to qualify and grade something that exists as a response to majority culture by the standards of the majority culture is kind of a screwed-up thing to do, and doesn’t have any bearing on the actual quality of the work itself. In any case, there was some good discussion on hip-hop history after that, including some local history and clubs that had come and gone, and one panelist even debuted some new rhymes at the end of the panel. I was happy to see that the room, was packed; I’m glad that there’s interest in this kind of media within the CON community. I also took down some suggestions for artists to check out (some of whom I was already familiar with; feels good, man).
Pixar’s Story Writing Rules – This was just a great all-around panel; entertaining, well-run, with a lot of excellent perspectives. The focus was a set of twenty two rules that Pixar’s writers use when creating stories. The panelists were all authors of some flavor (novels, plays, etc.) and gave their perspectives on some of the more controversial or strange-sounding ones. We made friends with one of the writers and even bought her book afterwards. That’s one of the joys of conventions like this; it’s big enough that it attracts some cool professionals, but small enough that you can interact with those professionals if it happens to work out that way. Anyway, it’s hard to describe further just what was great about this panel beyond just the awesome discussion and subject matter. I usually don’t spend much time with the writing track at CON since I’m not a fiction writer (though some readers may argue that my opinions are largely based on fiction, because they don’t agree with what I have to say), so this was a nice surprise.
Twin Peaks – So I haven’t talked about it here since it’s a bit outside the purview of this blog, but I’ve been watching (and enjoying!) Twin Peaks: The Return since it started in late May. But those of you who’ve watched any/all of it to this point know that there’s a lot to take in, and a lot that’s probably kind of confusing if you, like me, haven’t watched the original series or film in quite a while, and who haven’t kept up on the supplementary material (though I’m currently reading The Secret History of Twin Peaks, so I’m working on filling in those gaps). I really just wanted to come to this panel and hear others’ thoughts on the show so far, and I found the discussion to be really helpful in wrapping my mind around it. I was getting a little bit loopy at that point from lack of sleep (the panel was Friday night after midnight, and I’d been at a panel at 9:30am that same day, so I was running on fumes) and I may have started to question the validity of standard narrative structures by the time we left, but that aside I felt like I was in a good place to go into the second half of the TV series, and that’s been the case.
Law in Science Fiction – My partner, who is a public defender and attorney, was a panelist on this one, which talked about various systems of law in genre fiction. As someone who is fascinated by our system of law but who doesn’t know that much about it, the discussion was great to listen to even at 9:30am the morning after deliriously attending the Twin Peaks panel. I thought was was kind of cool was that only two of the five panelists were actually lawyers, and others had various other connections to the topic (a parent in law enforcement for one, another was an author with some expertise in the fictional side of the subject, etc.) and the discussion was very interesting from those perspectives. The audience had some good questions, too.
Peele-ing Back ‘Get Out’ – This discussion was focused around the horror film Get Out, which is a must-see in my opinion even for people who aren’t horror fans (like myself). What makes the film great is that its horrors are daily and real for Black Americans (though twisted in the film to serve the obvious narrative). The panelists were great, the discussion was great, there were very few if any awkward and unwanted interjections from other White people (seriously, White people, stop trying to center discussions of POC experiences on yourself. This is from a very white person to all of you all). It was probably the one panel where I was so, so sad that the time slot was just an hour long, since I could have listened to the discussion for at least another hour or more. Please run this again in 2018!
Steven Universe as Queer Space Opera – This was the last panel I attended during the convention; by that point I was tired as hell and had to go home and nap. But if you aren’t watching Steven Universe, stop reading this blog post and go check it out on Hulu right now; you won’t regret it at all. The discussion was very lively, and focused on a lot of the things that make the show great, including its ability to tackle complicated relationship topics in a way that most media made for adults can’t even approach successfully. It’s a great animated series and deserves every bit of praise that it receives.
I’ve talked quite a bit about the things that were awesome at the con, but as with all events there were some things that maybe weren’t as successful. I filled out a feedback survey about the good and the bad already, before the feedback deadline passed; I thought it might be helpful to go into detail here as well, in case anyone might be reading.
Something I noticed, and this is probably true every year but I may have just noticed it more this year, is that there are some people who just do not have a handle on the “moderater” style of panel presentation. CON has kind of turned to this model over the past several years, where a designated panel moderator helps to direct the discussion, ostensibly to make sure everyone has an opportunity to speak and that no one in the audience takes too much of the time up. Essentially they’re there to maintain the quality of the presentation and keep everyone on track. This is fine; not my preferred style, but it works when you have a full set of panelists on a lot of the panels. I noticed this year, though, that some of the panelists in panels I attended took up a lot of the time talking about what they wanted to talk about regarding the subject at hand, rather than helping the other panelists talk about the subject.
Along the same lines, I started to notice a theme of “me, me, me” in some of the panels, when in fact I didn’t think some of the moderators were the best equipped to represent subject matter being discussed. There was one particularly egregious example in a panel I attended (which didn’t coincidentally, have a moderator I believe) of a White panelist centering a discussion of diversity and POC on herself and her experiences with some relatives who were POC. The situation could be described as something of a clusterfuck, to be honest; I left the panel feeling really angry, and I would imagine that the other panelists were probably frustrated as well, especially since the person was keen on interrupting anyone and everyone.
Personally, I’m not that big of a fan of talking over people, taking up a majority of the time (though in many of my panels I’m one of two or three panelists so it happens that I have to fill the time up sometimes), or trying to speak about other people’s experiences, since there’s no way to do that without making assumptions. This is probably not something that CON can screen for, since most of the panelists volunteer to be on the panels they’re assigned to and there’s no formal panel presentation training that I know of (that would be a huge chunk of time and resources and I don’t really feel like it falls on programming staff to tell people they should take turns and respect others). But it is something that I noticed, and it would be nice if people just knew not to grandstand or self-promote so much.
Some of the other stuff I had in mind was more regarding the use of space. I don’t mind that the dealer’s room and artist’s alley were in the Sheraton hotel across the street this year; it’s not a long walk and the Doubletree was running out of room to accomodate everything in their function space. Unfortunately the dealer’s room was broken up into three smaller spaces, and that didn’t serve the function well at all. The rooms felt cramped and, whether it was true or not, it felt like there were fewer shops this year than in past years. I ended up spending very little time there and didn’t spend any money (maybe not a bad thing, but I usually like to come away with some kind of souvenir and was sad sad that I did not).
Final Thoughts
Honestly, I had a great time at the convention this year. It sounds like last year was a great time, too; I’m always afraid that CONvergences are like Star Trek movies, where every-other one is crappy. That turned out not to be the case this year (but was the case two years ago, as I mentioned). I think CON staff really stepped things up as far as their policies are concerned, specifically their harrassment policyhttp://www.convergence-con.org/ and things related to that.
If you’re interested in attending CONvergence, check out their website; it’s taking place on July 5-8 in 2018.
Did you attend this year’s CONvergence convention? What were your thoughts? Feel free to let me know in the comments!
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.
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
PowerPoint Presentation
Handout
“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.
Don’t Judge an Anime by its Cover
List of Openings/Endings Used
Folder with Openings/Endings Used
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.
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.
Anime for Grown-ups
PowerPoint Presentation
Handout
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.
Visual Storytelling
PowerPoint Presentation
Handout
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.
Anime About Anime
PowerPoint Presentation
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.
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.
Shiny New Anime
PowerPoint Presentation
Handout
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.
What is Anime?
PowerPoint Presentation
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.
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!
Hi all. As some of you know, I run the AMV contest at my local anime convention, Anime Detour. I’m posting the list of finalists and the results here in order to have them in a public place (many popular AMV forums require registration to access the posts, which makes it difficult for those who are less interested/passionate about the fandom).
We had a ton of great submissions this year, and I had to narrow things down to about 1/3 of the total entries (not an easy job).
Hi everyone. This weekend I attended Anime Fusion 2016, a small anime convention local to the Twin Cities area. J.C. and I presented two panels at the convention – “Anime about Anime” and “Shiny New Anime.” The panel materials are presented below.
“Anime About Anime” was focused on anime series and OVA’s that actually talk about or focus on animation production. It presents a very high-level and non-specific look at how anime is made using clips from these anime. The majority of what we talked about can be found in the notes on the PowerPoint presentation. I believe that they should be viewable in PowerPoint Viewer and perhaps Open Office, though I have not tried that one. Apologies for some of the clips which contain some wack subtitles; In some cases I had to convert video from soft-subbed downloaded video, which is always iffy (if I had taken more time I would have ripped my own DVDs, but constructing the presentation took longer than expected). A special thanks to Washi’s Blog and Sakuga Blog, where I took a few of my extra examples.
“Shiny New Anime” is, of course, our recurring panel focusing on anime from the last year that we watched and liked. It doesn’t include every single thing that I watched, just things that we wanted to recommend and discuss. It is also not comprehensive, as there were some very popular things from the last year that just didn’t hit me right. Please don’t take this as a judgment on anyone’s tastes, just a judgment on the anime itself as seen through my eyes and experience as a fan and consumer, as well as a reality check on how much time I have to devote to watching anime each season 🙂
The PowerPoint presentation itself is very large (600mb or so) because it contains some very large videos. I may upload each clip separately if there is some interest. The accompanying handout is usually what people like to have on hand, so I’ve uploaded that as well. The markings next to show titles are indicative of either the series we have clips for (*) or those we really wanted to discuss (++) or intended to discuss if time allowed (-). One other thing worth mentioning is that this is an incremental update to the presentation of this panel we did at Anime Detour 2016 – basically an update of 6 months/2 anime seasons.
Please feel free to share these things around and use them how you like. If you plan to use them, in whole or in part, for a presentation you’re doing somewhere, just let me know. It is a lot of hard work to put this stuff together (I took the week off of work prior to the con in order to assemble it all and used a good majority of that time!), as well as to present it to an audience.
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.