Animazement 2009: Wait, What?

I said there'd be another post this week, and here it is. There'll probably be at least another shorter one next week too, in addition to the usual one.

This time, I talk about what's exhausted me this weekend! (Exciting, no? Relevant, no? What do you mean, "no?")

So Animazement '09 was this weekend. Technically still is, but nothing much tends to happen on the Sunday, and I only went for one day this year. This after I intended for last year to be my final year in attendance, after having attended all 11 years since the convention began back in 1998. And thus, now I've technically attended all 12 years, though I was only there for about 6ish hours today as opposed to the whole weekend. None of my friends came this year, after all, two of the usual three I hang out with there off in Japan, and the third being at home with family.

I attended the convention as a normal paying attendee from 1998 through 2002, then after I started writing for Anime Dream back in 2002, I started getting press passes, attending for free and doing media work (Reporting the news, interviewing guests, transcribing guest panels, writing up con reports, etc.) between 2003 and 2008. Some years produced more content than others, depending on the schedule and how much access the press got to guests. (When I first started reporting, they were able to give members of the anime press access to a few guests at a time for interviews and a sort of round table discussion in a small closed room, in which I had the good fortune to sit and talk with quite a few industry celebrities. (The likes of whom the vast majority of Americans have never heard of and could care less about - but as a nerd in this sort of subculture, it was a pretty powerful experience.) Since then, the press pretty much lost any real direct time with these people and just had to try to get questions in during guest panels, competing with the regular attendees. That's about it.) I plan to do more press coverage of cons in the future - probably some more Animazements at some point, and ideally some others, not having attended any of the numerous others across the country yet. But this time, I attended as a VIP panelist.

So now I've basically attended as everything but an invited guest, with a collection of passes from over the years ranging from normal attendance through press work through a VIP pass now. My mother - a local textile artist specializing in the tie-dye-like Japanese fiber art "Shibori" - attended to run a Shibori panel and invited me along to be her assistant, helping to move all the equipment and film some of the panel for the local Artists in Schools program she's participating in.

When we first arrived earlier in the morning, I was still pretty wide awake despite not having slept since the previous day. (I'd opted to oversleep then anyway, as so to better prepare for staying up all night and going to the convention.) One of the reasons I'd decided to attend this year was curiosity about the convention's new setting - this year, it moved to the Raleigh Convention Center. The closest to home it's been, and the biggest location by far. (I can't remember if I'd been there before, frankly.) We spent an hour or so getting our bearings and learning the layout of all the rooms. Gradually planning a potential future novel - one I'm pretty sure may materialize further down the line - set within the subculture, I wanted to get a feel for the place. It was a little tiring getting around with all the staircases to climb and descend - but all things considered, given the highly concentrated nerdiness of the attendees, that kind of exercise was undoubtedly needed by most in attendance. As usual, the convention was loaded with people cosplaying ("Costume Play," essentially dressing up as characters from anime and video games with typically homemade costumes. Sort of the appeal of Halloween without having to wait for a single day in the year to dress up and pretend to be someone else.), some of whom were fairly scantily clad, and some of whom couldn't exactly pull that off.

After unloading the car with everything needed for the panel, we had to wait quite a while outside our scheduled room, since the preceding Origami panel ended up going on for about 10-15 minutes overtime - things being off schedule are something of a con standard. While we waited, some guy started hovering around us babbling about various con matters - I couldn't decide if there was something off about him or if he was just trying to get in a little face time in realizing that we were panelists, and therefore "more important" than regular attendees. After all, again, pretty much everybody wants to be noticed by somebody at these things, whether they're looking for attention from panelists - even in the less attended cultural panels, though Animazement has more cultural panels than any anime convention on the east coast, which is certainly something good - or even momentary acknowledgment of their existence by one celebrity or another at the guest panels. (And three of the guests - two elderly industry figures I've talked with before and a shamisen player - ended up cancelling their appearances at the last minute this year due to swine flu concerns.)

In this fixation on being noticed and acknowledged that the con-going geeks have, you'd almost think that this sort of event would conceptually be an ideal nerd mating ground of some sorts, if not for how awkward everybody is.

While we waited, some other guy with dyed spiked hair ended up approaching us and specifically asking me if I'd been on American Idol. Of course, I haven't - I don't even sing. I have a pretty terrible singing voice, though I'd like to get back into music again someday. Oddly enough, this isn't the first time I'd been mistaken for someone on American Idol, as when I was getting a hepatitis vaccination that I was overdue for at my university's student health center a few years ago in preparation for a study abroad trip to Japan that fell through, a nurse working there somehow mistook me for Bo Bice of all people. I usually grow my hair out, yes, and I often let myself get a little scruffy, but I couldn't really see the resemblance. Not exactly keen on "southern rock" myself, anyway - I'm more of an indie pop rock/shoegaze kinda guy. Suffice to say, this guy kind of weirded me out too, and before we headed in to start the panel, he basically forced a similarly confused friend who had no idea what was going on to take his picture standing next to me, since he kept going on about how he was convinced that I was famous. When I told his friend I had no idea what was going on, he said he was just as clueless. Naturally, I made a disturbed face. For such a short amount of time spent there, that was one of the strangest encounters I've had at an anime con yet - and those things are havens for the strange to begin with. I'm kind of inclined to think he was trying to pull some kind of nonsensical prank that didn't really go anywhere, but I didn't get that sense at any point, and I'm usually good at intuiting these things. I'm not sure if it's good to have a face that stands out or not, in the grand scheme of things - if I have to be remotely famous for anything, I'd rather it just be my writing, and at this point, I'm nothing but extremely obscure at best in that regard.

After getting into the room late, we ended up taking another 10-15 minutes to set up. Out of the thousand-plus attendees, only around 20 showed up for the panel: a mix of college age students, older attendees/parents, and a very few high school kids. About the sort of mix you'd expect of the tiny minority of anime con-goers actually interested in cultural (As opposed to simply pop cultural) and arts-and-crafts type events. Despite some setbacks, the panel was a success, overall - everyone got to dye a piece of fabric with their own design and take them home with them to wash. In the end, it seemed to be a successful, universally enjoyed panel. As it drew to a close, I got to enjoy being mistaken by one of the older women in attendance for someone high school aged (Probably another reason why women don't tend to acknowledge my existence much to begin with - when I bother to shave, I basically shave off a good 8-9 years and look like a kid.), shocking both her and a college student there when I pointed out that I'd been finished with school (Even after five years of college) for well over a year now. It turned out that said college student was finishing up the same Asian-focused International Studies degree I had at my alma mater, UNC-Charlotte, so she and I spent a little bit talking about the Japanese program and some of the International Studies professors there, with a mix of anecdotes and gripes.

We only had about an hour or so to do the panel, and after setting up, I spent the whole time sitting on a table behind the attendees filming a good bit of the panel, killing my arms trying to keep the lightweight camera steady and killing my back in there being nowhere to sit down with any kind of support for my back, after standing up for hours on end. (A typical problem when attending the convention in each of its past locations as well, back in the North Raleigh Hilton from '98 through 2000 and the Imperial Sheraton Hotel out in Durham from 2001 through 2008. Too much standing up, never enough places to sit down with good back support - you always end up stiff and sore after a long weekend at these cons.)

We cleaned up after the panel and hit the Dealer's Room for about an hour and a half - I picked up an import copy of Taiko no Tatsujin DS, an excellent and innovative touchscreen taiko drum-based music game, Japanese music games being amongst the easiest to get into for the non-fluent with limited knowledge required to fully enjoy the gameplay - most of which amounted to waiting around while my mother talked to various people. She ran into one of her old students from her Japanese classes she's taught over the years at a local high school who recently returned from Japan - when she and I were introduced, we didn't have much to talk about, since were strangers, of course, though we'd gone to the same high school - and saw one or two others. Then she ended up caught up in conversation with a Japanese import dealer selling kimonos, masks, koi no bori-like bags, and other little interesting things, and made a connection that could eventually lead to their selling her work as well, since they were interested in her shibori panel but had been unable to attend. So out of all that, I also got the experience of hanging out with a vendor in the dealer's room behind their table for probably about an hour while they discussed kimonos, importing, shibori, and more.

When we finally headed out around 3 PM when all was said and done, my mother bought me an ice cream cone from a street vendor parked outside, the con being an absolutely ideal place to set up outside this weekend, in thanks for my patience. She had an important morning and afternoon both as a local artist and teacher, and while I didn't do a tremendous amount - not nearly as much as I would have if I were hanging out with friends as usual - it was nice to be there to witness all that and help her out with the panel. I like to think of it as a "good son" day, something to ideally make up for what a pain in the ass I know I was to my parents back in my adolescence. At least as an adult, I've figured out the importance of having a good relationship with one's parents, so things have generally been much better since those days, even if I'm still technically a freeloader with no idea when I'm finally going to be able to leave the nest, so to speak. (Though I'd hope that iPhone game and novel publishing might potentially lead to some kind of demand for my writing - assuming people actually end up enjoying what I write - that could open some doors to making a little money and getting out of the south.)

After returning home, I took a nap for a few hours and had a late dinner. What little I saw of and participated in of the con this year still amounted to some new and different perspectives on things. If my friends weren't so scattered, I would've loved to have attended with them, and I definitely hope to go back and attend as press again in the future to do some more coverage and make good memories with friends there again. (I didn't even get to go to Anime Hell this year, for the first time in probably something like 8 years, and I've always loved that event in all the weird international and retro commercials, cartoons, and so forth that they manage to dig up on the internet.) It's nice to see the con continuing to grow in a new, bigger location, and I wish all of them running it the best of luck with continuing it. I've got no idea if I'll be going again next year after I hadn't even planned to attend this year, but I suppose only time and various other factors will tell. Either way, the convention's played an important part of my nerdy youth, and even though I'm not quite as much of an otaku as I used to be - not that I can deny still being one with my ever-growing huge game collection and the fact that I still watch and write about anime, the subculture, and industry, so I guess you can technically say I've "matured" some as an otaku, anyway - I want to see more conventions all over the east coast and country as time continues to move forward, and ideally see my friends at more of them if I can. As we continue to scatter around the world, special planned weekend events like this may increasingly become our only means of seeing each other in person every once in a blue moon, after all.

Ending Eras in Geekdom

Yes, it was one of the content-lightest months here yet, I know. Not that I know how many of you are paying all that much attention to that, but then, hits don't matter. If they did, I probably wouldn't bother writing at all. It's all about chance - possibility - rather than obsessing over cultivating some base. At least, that's what I think. Giving people things to read that might be worth reading to stumble upon whenever, rather than trying to either validate yourself by getting a reader base who thinks you have something even slightly worthwhile to say or "MAKE MONEY ON YOUR BLOG!!!!111112" as one sees on blogging forums far too often. Everybody knows there's no real money to be made on the internet anyway. It's all a sham. Time to pack your bags and go home.

Anyway, my lack of inspiration when it comes to writing here as of late has channeled more into other matters anyway. I've got more than half of my novel 100% complete now - roughly up to 85-90% altogether counting the rest of the non-linear parts written - so good progress has been made in finishing the novel this summer and beginning the agent hunt once it's finished. (In addition to, obviously, finding some schools with creative writing grad programs with January admissions to try to get some applications out for then. I really don't want to be stuck at home next year.)

I've also been busy with that whole "real life" thing that people sometimes get caught up in and focus on over internet-related affairs. (Real life more important than the internet? Blasphemy!) I just spent this past Memorial Day weekend hanging out with friends at a hotel in Durham, attending the ever-geeky yearly Animazement convention. It's a local Japanese animation and comic (Anime and Manga) convention that's been held yearly since it originally started in March 1998. I've attended all 11 years, from the very beginning. I was 13 (Nearly 14) when the con started, and I'm 24 now that I've attended what will likely be my last one for a good long time.

I attended as a normal guest the first 5 years, and as a member of the press for the latter 6, having been working at Anime Dream for quite a few years now as a resident staff writer/reviewer and much-beloved slacker. (Every website needs their Gomer Pyle, you know.) Due to issues of transportation timing and less than ideal guest scheduling (I usually had a panel I could count on in the past with one major guest to record the audio from to add to my coverage. There weren't any this year, and the big guest, Kotono Mitsuishi, didn't stick around long, unfortunately.), I don't have a ton to write about in regards to my coverage, though I'll be getting a report up on the site sometime soon.

Aside from the guests, the biggest event to cover has always been the saturday night Cosplay (Costume Play - essentially when anime fans (Or "otaku," to use the correct vernacular.) dress up as anime and video game characters they like. Not unlike Trekkies dressing up like Klingons or Romulans or Starfleet officers. The kind of wonderful appeal by which you can just say "why only dress up on Halloween?" and enjoy pretending to be a character for fun. Of course, I've never cosplayed myself. I'm more of an observer, like I am everywhere else.) competition, and I've never attended that. I don't have a camera, so there wouldn't be much point. And it tends to amount to a big, noisy line crossing much of the hotel, both inside and out, while the cosplayers and otaku wait to get seating for the event. To me, being around that many people at once can be a very claustrophobic-feeling experience. I feel smothered when I'm around too many people at once, and overwhelmed. And it takes a good amount out of me simply to be around as many people as I am all weekend at the convention. Being an introvert, I'm drained by social interaction and exhausted by crowds, after all. Being alone energizes me.

I spent saturday with friends, and attended the major evening events on friday. The anime music video contest first, which is an extremely geeky event in and of itself - otaku edit together music videos out of clips of shows, games, etc. that they like with particular themes and various pieces of music to create their own music videos. AMVs have been a popular hobby - both in creating and watching them - amongst otaku on the internet for years now, especially since broadband internet access became mainstream, allowing far more easily for larger file transfers and movie streaming. (As we've seen in the mass success of YouTube and similar sites.) Astonishingly, the event wasn't choked with painful AMVs focused around ultra-mainstream games and anime (Death Note aside, anyway.). It was nice, not having to sit through anything Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts, Naruto, or Bleach-themed. Squaresoft angst wore thin ten years ago, and taking fighting shows way too seriously was pretty much played out by the time Dragon Ball Z stopped being as popular here - and that's essentially what Naruto and Bleach are, anyway, new incarnations of Dragon Ball Z style endless fighting.

Friday night was capped off with the definitive event that sets Animazement apart from all other conventions, as far as I'm concerned - Anime Hell. Anime Hell is an event that doesn't require a fondness of anime to enjoy. Several of the con staff spend each year tracking down the weirdest and funniest - often unintentionally - things they can find on the internet, then compile them into a two hour show projected on huge screens for the audience to enjoy - like the AMVs - while making comments along the way to transition from one video to the next. And they do go out of the way to find some of the genuinely strangest things you'll ever see. (As a warning, not all of these links are work safe.) I'm going to miss Anime Hell especially. I'm sure I'll be attending other cons in the future, but none of them will be the same without Hell.

Saturday largely amounted to hanging out some more and watching a few fansubs (Essentially the main way otaku get their anime these days - seeing as nobody seems to be too keen on actually buying DVDs and supporting the official translation companies and market here in North America anymore - legal semi-grey-area releases of episodes (Mostly through Bit Torrent) ripped directly from original Japanese television broadcasts or DVDs with subtitles applied by essential "For Fans, By Fans" translation groups.) there, including the first five episodes of the strange, dark, and enjoyable Soul Eater and the second Sgt. Frog/Keroro Gunsou movie. After all that and purchases made in the dealers room, we ended up going out to Pizza Hut for dinner, then watched my Paprika (An excellent work of Japanese animated cinema by Satoshi Kon, worth seeing even if you're not into anime itself. The three directors working in Japanese animation really worth noting in cinema beyond appeal to anime fans are Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Oshii. Their works are all worth checking out if you're a cinema fan in general.) DVD before going our own ways for the night.

We spent a little more time around the dealers room on sunday, when the con ended, and took in its ambiance for just a bit longer before hitting a local Ragazzi's Italian restaurant for lunch. Then we parted ways for the last time for a long time, unless we manage to at least hang out for one more day later this summer as we hope to at some point.

Animazement has been a lot of things to me. When I was younger, it was a big part of my initiation into otaku culture and enjoyment of Japanese animation and comics. I got into them back in the mid-'90s or so, but didn't know many others with an interest in them. (Let alone video games.) It was overwhelming first attending the con when it was held in the North Raleigh Hilton for its first three years. It was a small hotel without a great deal of space for the convention, looking back. But at that age, I felt even smaller, and was overwhelmed by all that there was to see and do there. Those first two years really stood for getting into the geek culture as I spent a lot more time there each year, and not feeling so bad for being the awkward geek I was growing up (And I can admit it, I'm an awkward geek even now. I'll undoubtedly be dying an awkward geek one day as well.). Then I spent the convention with my first girlfriend back in 2000 at age 16, the first time she and I had met in real life. (And retrospectively, again - yes, internet relationships are every bit as terrible as you'd think. That one ended disastrously, though I hope wherever she is in the world now, she's doing well and happy. And also that I never hear from her again, personally, haha.) That was exhilarating and some of the most fun I'd ever had back then. It was a real experience just being with someone who seemed to actually like me in a romantic sense, and be attracted to me. (Though in the end, that wasn't true, and I haven't so much as kissed anyone since her. I'll be crossing the eight-year mark this July.) I spent the 2001 and 2002 conventions alone again, the relationship having ended by then. At first, it was a depressing reminder of the rather traumatic way things concluded. But eventually, I got over it. (The con's moving to the Imperial Sheraton in Durham in 2001 and having stayed there ever since no doubt helped. A much bigger hotel with even more to see and do.) I'd just finished my first year of college by Animazement 2003, and had friends that I hung out with some by then. And by 2004, I had a usual group - courtesy of a good friend's friends - to spend the con hanging out with when I wasn't doing press work at guest panels. Even with the friend who I usually hung out with wasn't around, having been in Japan during the con in 2007, I was still welcomed by his friends, and we had a lot of fun even though we generally never saw each other or kept in touch otherwise. (Oh, the fun of living in a city in North Carolina where none of your other friends from college do.) This year's convention was the last big one we'd all be attending. Two of them are off to Japan to teach English for an indeterminate amount of time later this summer. If I don't see them again later this summer briefly as we're seeing if we can manage, I likely won't see them again for years. As for the rest of my friends from college, we basically all lost touch by the time we started graduating. Socially, I'm practically back to square one now, in taking a very different path with my life than the others, writing novels and looking into a grad school in New England, rather than traveling across Asia and teaching English.

In the 11 years of the con, I went from a young teenager still learning who I was and passionate about anime, eager to get into otaku culture, to a jaded, cynical adult who's been damaged by experiences with love (Of course, who hasn't?) and not quite as fixated on the hobby, appreciating quality shows and comics and keeping more objective in looking at series for what they are - not their hype. I went from a kid about to finish jr. high school who felt very young amongst all the teenagers and college aged attendees to a college graduate in his mid-twenties who feels very old in observing all the crowds of teenagers that fill the hotel's halls. But it's hard not to feel a bit like a kid again, surrounded by all that energy and passion for such an ultra-geeky hobby. Even as I get older, so long as I have friends to attend these conventions with as we'll be arranging to hit others together years down the line, I'll never be too old for this kind of thing, I feel. (Hey, if the middle-aged guys with their own sets of Klingon ridges don't feel ashamed, why should I? The world can always use more geeks - more passion for a goofy, fun hobby like this, so long as you don't get obsessed as some otaku do.)

It's just good fun, in the end, attending conventions like this. I know I'll be feeling a bit lonely though, when Memorial Day weekend 2009 comes up - wherever I am, whoever I'm with, whatever I'm doing (Hopefully not stuck here, probably with no one (One'd hope I'd make some new friends in grad school, at least. I'm not going to hold my breath about my novel helping me to actually get into a relationship, what with the feelings I'm expressing through it, by then, though. I'll be lucky if Project 27 Days is published and on shelves by May 2009. Though I'd kill for it to be.), and probably just geeking it up over the weekend alone in my apartment, at best.) - I know I won't be able to stop thinking about what I'm missing at the con, friends, Anime Hell, and all. Hell, looking back, that con's been such a big part of my life, as the busiest and most unusual weekend of every year - such a big part of growing up in its own way - it's hard not to feel a little lonely now. Especially in having drifted as far apart as I have from my friends. I spent my jr. high and high school years largely being alone and being fairly friendless most of the time, utterly socially isolated save for conversations at school. (Go figure that one of the friends I did make back then would be the one I'd end up still in love with after all this time.) It wasn't really until after college now that I get to learn the pain of having had a number of friends in real life for once whose company I really enjoyed, then losing them while those I am in touch with end up on the other side of the globe. But such is life. It revolves around nobody. We've all gotta cut our own way through the brush and see what we can find, while hoping we don't run ourselves off a cliff. Life can be a sad, lonely experience, after all. No doubt a more selfish part of why people cling to each other so much when they fall in love - they fear losing each other, their source of stability, comfort, and loving support. Everyone needs those things in life. Personally, I've never had them in any relationship. But we can't exactly control our own luck, as I know well, likely heading towards my most epic failure in love yet with Project 27 Days. Knowing this, I still continue on. After all, even if it leads to nothing, as is most likely, what matters is the attempt. The same goes for continuing to seek love throughout my life - as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the real meanings of existence, loving, as sappy and out of character as that sounds for me - even if I end up nothing short of alone and miserable for the rest of my days. Cynical as I am about it and everything else, I've learned that you can't just quit or outright reject feelings of love.

Animazement's also inspired me in its own way. I have a novel loosely based on my con-going experiences in fairly early planning, which I'll no doubt write fully down the line. Probably my 4th or 5th novel (If not 6th), after I've successfully established myself as a writer (However long that takes.). I'm not expecting it to be a huge hit, after all, given that it's set within a pretty strange non-mainstream subculture. But I figure it's about time someone took a crack at it. And I'm trying to give the plot enough depth and overall dimensionality that it'd be enjoyable to people not in the subculture anyway.