The Darrin Communication Center, in which Genericon was held, is split into two sections. While the two are connected by a walkway, this is not readily apparent for those unacquainted to The Renselear Polytechnic Institute (RPI). The left wing (if you are facing the entrance) contained the panel and screening rooms. It also held the gaming tables and the Dungeon&Dragons players in it’s basement. In the right wing was both the 24-hour gaming room and a lounge area where con-goers alternatively watched Spongebob episodes and tackled each other over a box of pocky dangling from the celling by a length of string. Not only did this divide separate the different events, but I found it also separated the two types of fans, the oldtaku and the conkids.

To me, Genericon displayed the gap between those who attend cons out of love for anime, and those who attend cons out of love for anime fans. The oldtaku and the conkids if you will. As Lawrence Eng was presenting his panel on the early history of Gainax, he was frequently interrupted by screaming girls doing the Caramelldansen in the hall. From Caramelldansen, it evolved into ChaCha Slide, then devolved into Cotton-Eye Joe, and finally transmuted into the stomping and clapping of We Will Rock You. The goth couple behind me at the panel never once raised their hands when Lawrence was asking who had seen this and that. When I talked to them later on, they admitted to me that they had never finished any anime series. Yet, based on some criteria that is unknown to me, they both described themselves as “Otaku”. Maybe it’s because they saw Spirited Away, the only thing both of them could agree on having seen. God knows that’s a pretty hardcore indie film. While on the way to the “It Came Out of Nowhere” panel, I passed by a crowd of girls goading a pair of Naruto and Sasuke cosplayers to make out. Desperate for attention, they gave in without much pressure. While standing in line at a vendor, I tried to ignore the girl who was crying because she had dropped her dollfie and it broke after having it fight another dollfie. Why you would battle $600+ hyper-fragile dolls is beyond me. Eight times people screamed out that they lost the game during the hour I watched the Cosplay chess match. That’s means some one remembered they were playing, forgot, than remembered again every seven and a half minutes. I don’t think you can even start playing in that span of time. To top it all off, while I was showing off my newly acquired Akira figure ( which I procured during the swap meet, for free) I encountered multiple people who admitted that they had no idea who Akira is. Now, I’m no elitist but…

Ultimately, other than passing each other in the hall, these two groups never mixed.

It’s not like conkids are anything new, or that Genericon had more than usual. Frankly, every convention I’ve ever been to has had some number of underage girls with Guy Fawkes masks, swinging yaoi paddles, blasting Never Gonna Give You Up, shopping for those god-awful ear-hats, and leading each other around on leashes (If it seems like I’m being particularly tough on girls, well you’re right, the eleven-to-fifteen year old female crowd tends to have the worst offenders), but never so much as at Genericon has the distinction between the two groups been so pronounced. On one side of the AMV screening you have guys quietly trying to identify each of the anime in the videos, on the other side you have hollering and dancing every time L is on screen and booing when he is not.

However, never so much as at Genericon has the distinction between the two groups been so pronounced due to the con’s layout. The analytical left side discussing merits of series, and the purely emotional right side reaching out for acceptance in the only place where they can find it.

When did cons stop being gatherings for people with similar interests and start being hangouts for kids to act out of their minds and out of control? Why is it now acceptable to be purposefully obnoxious? When did anime cons stop being about anime?

Maybe it was disgusting irony of fourteen year olds cosplaying Fate/Stay Night characters (Saber and Rin). Maybe it was the record number of parents giving everyone dirty looks because they have to chaperone their children. Maybe my heart is two sizes too small. All the same, it’s sad to see informative, empowering events being reduced to a hackneyed cliche because of invading scenesters who are only interested in acting like overgrown children. These conkids act like the stereotype of anime fans just because they are so depressingly dull that they need an image to give themselves personality. They love the idea of being a fan of something niche enough to be unusual, but not niche enough that they take any risk in their tastes.

Why do we put up with these people? We all know that historically, anime fandom is about as accepting as it gets. The unholy amounts of garbage on Fanfiction.net and Deviantart irrefutably prove this. But why? Why put up with these spastic hipsters who have nothing in common with us? Any improvement in our public image is dragged through sludge by those who use our interests as an excuse to act wild. I cannot stand by while these people try to turn anime fandom into nothing more than a fashion statement.

P.S. Snapped in an elevator at the con.

Edit: What other people are saying about this article. A lot of interesting opinions.
Naka-kon
Smash Boards
Figure.fm (I posted this one)
Orange Anime
@AnimeFansSuck
Propeller Anime Club
Lauren Rae Orsini (In the comments)

It’s a late winter afternoon, and I’m speaking with Mario Bueno over Skype and finishing the interview we started at Anifusion. In the quote, he is referring to wrapping up post-holiday cleaning, but I think it is relevant to his long career as a fan of the genre.

Mario Bueno’s had a busy week. Between moving, the holidays, and managing everyday life; Mario has a full plate. However, Mario is still producing episodes and making appearances at events in New York City. As of late, he has become even more prominent in the fan community. From guest status at the 2009 New York Anime Festival to co-hosting the recent AniFusion event, it’d be fair to say that Mario has become something of a figure in the New York City Anime fandom community.

Doujinopolis is a fan produced internet series that has the characters from various anime working and interacting inside the Image Anime store in New York City. It was originally created by Mario after a request from the store, that he produce a campaign to help promote them. The show is somewhat reminiscent of the ASOS Brigade videos that were released when the Haruhi license was first announced.

Of course, it cannot be denied that Doujinopolis has a very niche appeal. After all, only anime fans who have seen certain series will understand its humor or be able to identify the characters who appear on the show. And that’s just how Mario likes it. He tells me that trying to bring in a broad spectrum of fans, “[Would] be like selling a boutique product at Walmart”. “When it comes to fans, it’s quality over quantity,” he tells me;“I’d rather have a small fanbase that likes what I make than a huge group that’s bitching at me left, right, and center no matter what I do.” However, change is coming. Image Anime has been pushing for a new format so the show will have a broader appeal through the inception of original characters. This new style will allow the show to dodge some of the sticky legal issues that result from using copyrighted characters; while no one has complained yet, Image Anime would rather stay on the safe side.

While it’s obvious that Mario is very pleased with Doujinopolis as a creative project; how is it doing as a promotional tool? After all, it’s not hard to believe that when dealing with a store that has as narrow an appeal as Image Anime does, that anyone who is going to stop by the store already does. “A gentleman from London had come to the store. Apparently he had seen the show with his anime club in England, and since he was in the city, he decided to stop by.” Mario even been recognized as “that guy from that show” in plain clothes on the street.

Mario’s production group: Digital Era Entertainment, which he releases Doujinopolis under, is also expanding. The companies Youtube page and all of it’s upload views show that the group is growing. “Just like myself, I wasn’t going to limit Digital Era Entertainment to just one thing” says Mario. In this spirit, Digital Era Entertainment has not only served as the production company for the wide variety of videos that Mario has released, but also at one time was a news group. Working for Latest Issue Entertainment Mario conducted interviews and wrote reports. He’s also co-hosted programs for Anime News Network and even appeared on mainstream television shows like New Amsterdam and Law&Order. With such a variety of positions, I asked him what job he wants his business card to display when all is said and done. Apparently that was an issue when he had his cards made. “When I was working with the people who were designing the card, they told me all the things I wanted to put on it would never fit” Instead, his card currently has no occupation listed. As to what he wants it to finally say “It would be a toss up between actor and film-maker. Each of those really go to the core of what I’m about. Entertainment is what I’m all about, and each of those offers me a different means through which I can entertain.”

His personal Youtube page (separate from the one he uses to post Doujinopolis) is filled with videos of masquerade skits dating all the way back to the long defunct Big Apple Anime Fest. They range from karate demonstrations to dance numbers, but they all share a common passion. Despite the countless preparations, rehearsals, and the final shows in front of waves of choosy nerds, he is ultimately still an unpaid entertainer. He work for nothing more than the positive response of the crowd. Five years after the earliest skit on his page, he’s still doing his costumed song and dance, but now with the world as his stage.

(Promise preforming at AniFusion)

It’s a few hours before the AniFusion event, and I’m using the free time to visit the Image Anime store at 242 West 30th Street. From the exterior, the store would have been easy enough to pass right by without a second thought. A simple pane of glass with the name of the store painted on are all that mark it’s location. However, to those who know what they are looking for, this is all they need.

Inside, the store is immediately recognizable as the set of the webshow Doujinopolis. The counter in back where the first episode was hosted, the cellphone charms from when Lelouch was first introduced to the series, and MostFlogged, who plays Haruhi Suzumiya in the series. However, I quickly become acquainted with the sections of the store not highlighted in the series, especially the CD rack full of old Cobra and Lupin III soundtracks. I have an interview with Mario Bueno, set up in a few hours, and the first question I plan to ask him is why he agreed to create this series for Image Anime for free. However, after coming to this place, I think I’m beginning to understand.

Now I’m at the Forbidden City restaurant, standing in the midst of the throng of cosplayers and fans, all staring up as Uncle Yo and Mario Bueno read off letters to Santa from anime characters. Scott of Anime Almanac is here, and I believe at least one of the Reverse Thieves is as well. Aside from a few groan worthy sections, the pair are getting a good reaction from the crowd. From Promise’s performance to the “Surviving a Giant Robot Attack” presentation, the event moves along briskly. Before long, the winners of the Cosplay Contest are announced and the event is over. I decide that now is the time to conduct my interview, but I’m not the only one. A swarm of amateur reporters all swarm to the back of the restaurant, firing off questions to those who were involved with the event. I decide to use this time to learn more about the fans in attendance. I garner compliments on my Keiichi outift, I share my copy of The Otaku Encyclopedia, I have my wiffle bat stolen from me by a man who repeatedly yells his affinity for cookies (there’s always one of em), and learn that Umineko Ep. 5 is nearly translated. The whole spectrum of anime fans are in attendance, from Narutards to grumpy old Voltron fans. I never did finish my interview that night, as I was sidetracked when we all went our for Karaoke (Duet 35 on 53 West 35th street, 2nd floor), but I still learned a great deal about New York City Fandom, and also about what binds the Otaku community here in NYC together.

P.S. I did do the interviews a week later over Skype, they will be coming shortly.

I figure that they are as good a subject for a post as anything else.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Chiyo Mihama/Tsukasa Hiiragi/Yui Hirasawa/Matsuri Sakuragi/Mika Inamori/Yuno is a shy, polite, hardworking girl attending school with her friends. Most of the situations the group end up in are a result of the energetic Tomo Takino/Konata Izumi/Ritsu Tainaka/Miu Matsuoka/Kana Minami/Manami Amamiya and Mutsuki Uehara/Miyako, who’s goofy antics are complimented by straight-man character Koyomi “Yomi” Mizuhara/Kagami Hiiragi/Mio Akiyama/Chika Ito/Kana Minami/Mei Etoh/Sae. These girls are accompanied by Chiyo again/Miyuki Takara/Tsumugi Kotobuki/Ana Coppola/Haruka Minami/Momoha Odori/Hiro who serves as the most levelheaded member.

(Ten points to Gryffindor if you can name all series referenced here.)

You get the point I’m trying to make here? While the above isn’t a perfect comparison, and there are minor variations, the problem is that they are just that, minor. These slice of life series are staples of each season’s lineup, which straight-up baffles me because they are all the same bundle of rehashed characters and situations. I’ve developed some ideas as why they continue to come back season after season with such force, but that’s not the point of this post. I think it’s only fair that I review Hidamari Sketch itself.

Here goes: Between the unbalance of comic parts to dull sections, rehashed characters and scenarios, and a sheen of blandness, I found this series to be wildly forgettable and unable to hold my interest.

All slice of life shows have some little gimmick so as to feign that they are different from the rest. For K-on! it was music, for Strawberry Marshmellow it was the Onee-chan (Nobue), for Minami-ke it was that they were all sisters, and for Hidamari Sketch it’s art. Now I can’t deny that Hidamari Sketch is certainly more stylish than other slice of life shows.

However, often this style seems forced and pointless. For example, when the backgrounds are all large sections of solid color, can it really be said that it is for style’s sake, or is it just a way to cut down on production costs? Additionally, during one section of the show, the “camera” cuts away from Yuno four times in one sentence, just to a solid pink background with an X on it. It’s distracting and doesn’t offer anything to the show other than giving it’s fandom something to help them distinguish it from the rest of the SOL genre.

Of course, being a show about an art school, there are also art references made, but not in conversation, only in appearance. For example, this version of Monet’s Woman with a Parasol used during an eyecatch.

Thus the references don’t serve to educate you any further on the subject, or even serve as a conversation centerpiece, but just as an ah-ha moment to remind you that this show is about art, and is totally different from all the other SOL series out there.

Most episodes seem to follow a certain formula, in that they all consist of three sections. Action, girls sit around a table and reflect on action, Yuno takes a bath and reflects on both refection and action.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand in my anime, it’s polite conversation.

The only thing more boring than discussing the weather with someone is watching fictional characters discuss fictional weather. Personally, I’m a little confused to say the least over why this show feels that after you tell a joke, you have to have the characters sip tea and discuss the joke. Frankly, I think by the third episode you no longer need to tell me that X Situation is so something Y Character would do.

Here comes the totally cornball conclusion: Hidamari Sketch is Aoki Ume’s first work of any length, and I can understand borrowing some elements from other shows for your first work. However, I don’t think that anything of interest was added, thus making the show incomplete. I think that Hidamari Sketch is comparable to the incomplete sketch Yuno does in Ep. 10. Everyone seems to think that by lacking any character development or conflict that the show is “Light-hearted”, when in fact, it is just lacking. You could say that Hidamari Sketch is a just a sketch (You may groan now).

Overall, I feel like this series is akin to talking about art with someone who only knows what they’ve read out of a book. All the basics are there (Characters, plot, ect.) but there’s nothing particularly interesting, nothing is gained by watching it.

(Angelo on the left, Rob on the right)

Disorganization XIII’s is most famous for their Spoiler panels, the latest of which can be seen here.

I have just finished my interview with Uncle Yo, and it’s already time to meet with Disorganization XIII to conduct my next interview. As I approach Panel Room 2 where I am to meet the group, I see the group, about seven or eight members all dressed in matching Disorganization XIII tee-shirts, crowded around a single looming figure. As I introduce myself, I learn that this figure is Angelo, the president of Disorganization XIII. As we all proceed to the NYAF press room, I begin to learn a bit more about Angelo and Rob, who I am also interviewing. As we sit at the table, the rest of the members sit on the floor, looking just as curious about how the two are going to respond to the interview as I am. As I switch the microphone on, the interview begins…

Me: Disorganization XIII is very popular at conventions. Every panel I’ve seen you at has been crammed full, especially the Spoiler panels.

Disorganization XIII (Angelo): Thank you.

Me: Would you say that this fame carries over outside of conventions, or to put it another way, to what extent does Disorganization XIII exist outside the convention hall?

Angelo: There a good story about that. In my actual workplace (Angelo is employed at 30ninjas.com), at one point I’m wearing my Disorganization XIII tee-shirt, and this girl comes up to me and says “You’re that guy from Disorganization XIII!” so she recognized me, but she probably wouldn’t be able to peg who I was without the shirt and rosy velvet headband. So does the fame extend past conventions? Not in a huge way, but I have been recognized once or twice in shops and at the mall, but nobody is jumping to give me free limo service or blowjobs or anything…Is this supposed to be PG?

Me: Nah, you can say what you please.

Angelo: Ok, so it’s not like anyone’s all over me, some people here and there recognize me, but I kind of wish more did because I’m a glorywhore. What about you Rob?

Disorganization XIII (Rob): My day job is that I’m a teacher and a private tutor, and I would like to have one of my students recognize me, I’m perhaps glad that none of my bosses ever recognize me (From the panels). Getting on stage and swearing and ranting about anime for an hour, four weekends a year is maybe not the best advertisement for a sound pillar of learning.

Angelo: I’m actually lucky that I work for 30ninjas.com, check the site out. No, but in all seriousness I’m very glad that I work for really awesome people who dig my comedy and dig my sense of humor and that stuff, because I have the freedom of coming to a convention and saying what I want, when I want, and in the end there’s not a whole lot of political or bureaucratic snafu there because I can just say ‘I was at a convention, I was preforming’. But there are members of Disorganization XIII who specifically will never reference themselves by their real names because they are afraid that it might adversely affect them in the future. We understand that and we’re very supportive of these members as much as we may mock them for it. I think it’s a shame though, that it’s even a factor, that you have to be afraid of what you do when you come to a convention and have a good time and preform, because someone out there in a suit might say ‘We really disapprove of the fact that you made people laugh for five hours’.

Me: Five hours? That’s quite the panel.

Angelo: Well, did you hear what happened this convention?

Me: Are you talking about what just happened? (Manga Entertainment kicked DOXIII out of the presentation room before their panel was over, so they could set up their displays and equipment. The matter was later resolved with a long apology from the NYAF staff).

Rob: No no, yesterday we had a panel on RPG video games, and the panel before that was called ‘Why Anime’ and the panelist didn’t show up. So when we arrived early, just to check out the room, we realized that the panel wasn’t going on, so we stepped up and did it. Then right after that there was our panel, and then after that was something called, uh…

Both: ‘Hip-hop Hearts Anime’.

Rob: And those panelists didn’t show up either. So the six of us, the six pasty white of us, got up there and did the panel.

Angelo: We did it because there should never be an empty slot at a convention. We’ve done this before at AUSA and other conventions. I think it’s kind of despicable that people would sign up to do a panel, and then just bail and collect the free tickets. And you see these really sad faces in the panel room, going ‘Oh my god, I really wanted to see an interesting panel here, but no one’s showing up.’

Rob: It’s a huge let down, and it’s a betrayal of trust. My attitude is that the show must go on. And while panels are information most of the time, basically it’s a performance. And everyone is there to watch you preform, so if you just don’t show, if you say that it doesn’t matter, that goes against what live theater is. That personal engagement with the audience is just stepped on.

Angelo: The only reason that conventions even run is because of both fans and professionals who step up and say ‘We’re going to do this programming for you.’ Very successful cons like NYAF run on the volunteers and unpaid or low paid panelists. If you’re not willing to preform, then the con can’t happen.

Me: How does Disorganization XIII work, online or offline?

Angleo: We’ve been trying to get a successful website up forever. We have been failing at getting a successful website up forever. This totally goes against our happy-go-luck cute geeks image, but we are not the best with computers. I mean, we know some stuff, but when it comes to website management we just don’t know a whole lot. We’ve been through a lot of website revisions, a lot of retooling and smooshing together different ideas to try and get a website up. We have a new one up (http://disorganization-xiii.com) and we think it’s working…

Rob: But we’ve thought our site was working before.

Angelo: We’ve been ready to dropkick each other over some of this stuff before. As far as how do we work, we take it very seriously. We treat what we do like a theater production. We premier all of our stuff at NYAF, just because it’s the closest one, and it’s pretty big. The way our schedule is set up, NYAF is the beginning of the con year. So we go to NYAF, we show our stuff, then we actually cycle our stuff when we go to Otakon the next year, which is the last con of the year for us, so the two form a nice couple of bookends. Pretty much the two biggest cons on the east coast. In order to be ready for these cons, we start planning in March. We get together and throw around ideas. Granted, we’re throwing the ideas around in our living rooms, where half of us are drunk and the other half are playing some video game or are lounging on the gay cuddle bed. (Noticing my reaction) No, it’s just that Kirk and Casey, the two who’s apartment we use, don’t have a couch but they do have a bed in their living room, so we call it the gay cuddle bed. It’s our favorite piece of furniture. But anyway we start in March and admittedly most of our preparation is for Spoilers, our hour-long comedy presentation, which requires a lot of attention. It’s basically an hour long scripted comedy show with visuals and powerpoint. Rule of thumb, it’s usually about one slide per second, however we also have fast bits, like in this years Excel Saga section, Casey has 150 slides in 60 seconds. So we start by thinking of things that are funny, jokes about popular animes…

Rob: What are we going to spoil and make fun of.

Angelo: Right, we then split up the work and say ‘Have some beta scripts ready in a couple months.’ Then for the next few months we yell at each other and finally the beta scripts come in.

Rob: Eventually we’ve got the scripts and we go through those and figure out how long they are and how much time we have and we pick which ones are going to be in the show.

Angelo: And from there we have to make the Powerpoints. Which take a looong time.

Rob: Then in another couple months we go through these and put the best of the best into the show. And then from that point on it’s all rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal.

Angelo: Until we’re sick of it, and each other. While we’re doing this, we are also planning one or two other panels. Many of us are actually Alumni of Rutger’s University and we came from a dorm called Demarest Dormitory where you had to do this thing called ‘Sections’, where you had to lead an hour long discussion just to live in this dormitory and that was perfect training for this, because we had to come up with something that would get people interested and talking on a variety of subjects and we had to do this often many times a month. We then graduated and got into the con scene…

Rob: Not necessarily in that order.

Angelo: Right, but one of our first panels was a panel on Kingdom Hearts and it was all just a scam to get Rob to go to a convention.

Rob: I was a Sci-Fi fan and was going to Sci-Fi, literature, and gaming cons. And this friend of ours wanted to get me to go to an anime con. Since I was a cheap, poor college student, he figured that the best way to get me to do this would be for me to apply to get a free badge, so he said let’s do a panel. I had been playing the Kingdom Hearts series, and…

Angelo: Had?

Rob: Well, there’s no games out right now. At least not till the 29th. But anyway, I was speculating about it, because the creator of that game loves to inspire fan speculation. So my friend said ‘Let’s do a panel about it.’ and I agreed. So Angelo, this friend, and I got together and we did the Kingdom Hearts panel. To our complete surprise, despite being total unknowns, the line to the panel was all the way out of the room. The line of people who didn’t get in was bigger than the group of people who could get in. I mean, they even tried to stop us at the door for fire code. We had to tell them ‘No no no, we are the panel.’

Angelo: So this took us by surprise and we were like ‘We need to do something about this.’ So we got together, and we were thinking up names for ourselves and since our first panel was Kingdom Hearts, we’re like ‘Ok, we need something so people will remember as the guys from the Kingdom Hearts panel’ and it took us a while but we came up with Disorganization XIII from the antagonists from  Kingdom Hearts, Organization XIII. However, due to copyrights and all of that crap, we can’t actually have anything to do with it, so we can’t use any SquareSoft images, we don’t reference any SquareSoft games…

Rob: Outside the panels that is.

Angelo: Our icon is original, we don’t use the same fonts. It’s all about being original and separate from SquareSoft. That’s cool and everything, and it’s not like we’re making any money, other than free entrance to cons. We were sort of grandfathered in to the idea of discussion panels. And ever since then we’ve continued our discussion panels. We continued Kingdom Hearts until last year when there wasn’t new info. We went into fan fiction after a couple people did a fan fiction panel that was so abysmally horrible…

Rob: Just terrible. It was basically everything that’s ever been wrong with fan fiction panels.

Angelo: The panelists promoted their own work, which was very very bad.

Rob: They basically said that it’s ok for fan fiction not to be good because it’s fan fiction. And we were talking both during the panel and afterwards about how much we disagreed with everything that they were saying. And it’s so happens that the management of NYAF agreed that it was perhaps not the best panel in the world, and they asked us to do it instead., and we said ‘Great.’ So yeah, we started with Kingdom Hearts, and the Spoiler was born basically in a bull session right after a panel we went to at AUSA and someone gave away the ending to some game.

Angelo: I gave away the ending. And they said we don’t really want spoilers, and I’m like ‘I’ll try my hardest, but they don’t let you use you main character at the end of this game, and it’s really annoying.’ And they said ‘No Spoilers’, and I’m like ‘Well, I didn’t tell you how… She dies in the end.’ So everyone laughs and whatever. So we go out of this panel, and start this bull session, and we’re like ‘Really? How do they expect for there not to be spoilers? This just in, Aeris dies.’ and we started saying ‘Well, maybe we should do Spoilers: The Panel, a panel with nothing but spoilers.’ and we started talking about having stuff like huge lists of what characters are dead, what characters are actually god, what characters are actually girls, so on and so forth. And it sort of evolved from there into this sort of self-styled mocking humor. Every year now we have our discussion panels, the ones that work like Fan Fiction, we try a new panel, this year we tried The Disorganization XIII RPG Panel: Now With Chairs, and we have Spoiler. Spoiler takes up most of the time, and we try to have one to three or four heavy discussion sessions about the panel.

Rob: Prior experience has shown that if we try to do a panel where all the panelists haven’t gotten together and talked about it at least one time, that it will go poorly. Actually, in our first Spoiler one of our cast members who was in Maryland at the time wasn’t able to come to our rehearsals and he sort of rehearsed on his own but it turned out that being separate, he didn’t get enough rehearsal in, and he choked hard.

Angelo: Very very hard. In front of the whole New York Anime Festival. We had to fast forward through his bits, which was a shame, but hilarious. So it’s really all about practice. You gotta practice, practice, practice, and there are some people out there who we even know who wait until the last few weeks before their panel, and like we said we start in March. It dominates our lives to the extent that we are crying in little heaps in the corner.

Rob: To get back to your original question, because you did actually ask a question at some point, we generally do our creative work in person. There’s been talk of Skype and so on, but we definitely wouldn’t want to move away from the group discussions. If we did prepare on the internet, we would definitely use some kind of medium where we would all be talking to each other, as opposed to two at a time instant message conversations or e-mail or anything like that. Those methods have worked out poorly before.

Angelo: Every member has to be a part of it, and the best way to do that is face-to-face.

Me: Have you ever tried to express a message through your panels?

Angelo: Stop writing bad fan fiction.

Rob: The main panel for that would be Fan Fiction. The Fan Fiction panel is almost fan activism. We have a real goal with this panel of improving fan fiction, so there’s a lot of messages and one of them is ‘Have pride in your creative work and put effort into it, and always try to improve.’ But there’s always rougher issues that come up, every time we do the fan fiction panel, slash and yaoi come up.

Me: Or male pregnancy.

Angelo: Oh, so you were there this year?

Me: I was not actually.

Angelo: Well, it came up. Yeah, fan fiction is where we mainly try to put across this message that it’s not ok to suck at writing. You have to try to get better, you have to break this convention of ‘It’s ok, it’s just fan fiction.’ and really try to do something different and new and good with your writing.

Rob: And actually, fan fiction crosses over into some bigger ideas. Like the slash and shonen-ai communities, they are actually a resource and a very liberating thing for their fandoms. It’s very good and powerful that there is this resource that they have and that there’s this place that they can go. But there’s so many people who are writing slash badly and for bad reasons, the stereotypical reason being because they are fourteen year old girls who think it’s hot, that is not helping the community. In fact what that does is it associates gay characters with this really terrible over-sexualized, cliché, self-serving writing and that hurts us. It makes people attack the slash community and try to damage this thing that originally was very good thing and a resource. I try to get across ‘Write slash, write gay love stories, write gay characters, but please do it for the right reasons.’

Angelo: I myself try to use our other panels to say ‘It’s ok to be a geek.’ We were interviewed last year by Channel 8 news and they asked ‘Why are you doing this, how does this all tie together’ and for me it’s trying to say ‘It’s ok to like this stuff.’ Obviously, all of us here like this stuff, but when you leave there’s all these stereotypes of the anime geek, and here we are taking many months out of our lives doing this very professionally, working our butts off to do panels, to do performances. So we’ve gotten offers from other conventions, we’ve been paid at conventions before, we call ourselves professional fans, because we love what we’re doing because we are defending the fandom, we’re making sure the fandom continues. And part of that is getting these people to know that you can be a grown-up professional geek. You can chase your dreams and actually make a difference by being a geek. That’s a very powerful message when it comes down to it, because a lot of these people separate themselves from the fandom, like they say ‘I like this stuff but I will distance myself as far as possible if I am confronted with this by anyone who isn’t also part of the fandom.’ and we’re trying to say ‘No, it’s actually ok.’ Everybody is making a big deal over something that’s actually quite small.

Rob: And in our informational discussion panels, we introduce ourselves and talk about our geeky jobs. I am, among other jobs, a game writer and game designer. And Angelo is a writer and a reviewer for 30ninjas.com…

Angelo: Check that site out!

Rob: Which reviews anime and action movies and video games and all that stuff. So part of the message that we’re trying to get across is that it’s not just for kids. You can be an adult and still have this be a huge part of your life if that’s what you wanna do. As kids or as ‘Weekend Fans’, it’s ok to be a consumer, but if you want to be a grown-up and part of the fandom, there’s all this producing, creative fandom that you have to take part in. And there is money in it, not massive money, but there is money in it. And we really love doing that kind of thing. And we don’t make a big deal out of it usually, but part of what we want to say is that this is out here, you don’t have to stop being a fan in order to grow up.

Angelo: When it comes to money, none of us are any of the big professional cosplayers, none of us are in bands or do concerts, but when we go to Mokucon, they’ll pitch us thirty to fifty bucks, some conventions will give us discounts on rooms, some have talked about giving us free rooms, most if not all will give us free entrance, and most if not all will give us LOTS of free entrance. We have a lot of members, most of those members are doing panels, and this sometimes amounts up to twelve, fifteen, twenty or more free passes to a convention, and a lot of convention staff have a siren that goes off in their heads saying ‘Hey, maybe these guys are trying to swindle us.’ but then we show up and we do the panels that other people don’t do, and we really dedicate ourselves to it, and they see it’s worth every single free pass. Basically, we haven’t found a way to make this our whole lives, we all have day jobs, except for those of us who are unemployed right now which is unfortunate. We all do our best to make ends meet, but this is a passion we have, and when you have a passion you’re serious about, you get perks, and perks are awesome.

Rob: This year we got free shoes.

Angelo: Yeah, we got free shoes, I’m actually wearing mine right now. Onmyodo Shoes gave us some free shoes. They were like ‘Hey, you guys are from DOXIII, you’re awesome, have some shoes.’ And we’ve gotten a lot of other free things, and we’d like to say that you can make a full time living off of this, but we haven’t yet found a way. We have sort of a fun and decent rivalry with Uncle Yo. He premiered the same year we premiered, so he’s our favorite person to make fun of because he tells dirty limericks and has really corny bits. We like to say that we’re like Uncle Yo, but we have talent. Now I’m sure he’s an awesome guy, and we would love to comedy battle him sometime, but Uncle Yo is one guy. He’s very successful and we commend him about that, like he goes out and plays actual gigs…

Rob: Actual gig.

Angelo: Well yeah, but he gets actual money and he’s very widely known. We are not one person, we are about thirty people, we are a group that is specifically made of reliable people who have done panels, gone to conventions, but aren’t well recognized. So I don’t think we’re going to be seeing, at least not anytime soon, maybe someday, the level of success that you see of Uncle Yo or some other people.

Rob: I think we could match Uncle Yo.

Angelo: I’m trying to be polite here, but you really want to say that we are funnier than Uncle Yo…

Rob: Aside from other things, he’s not actually doing that much better than us. He’s doing pretty well, and congratulations to him, but…

Angelo: You’re just looking to start a fight, aren’t you?

Rob: I just wouldn’t say that he’s that far ahead.

Angelo: Either way, Uncle Yo is probably a great guy, and we’ve seen some of his stuff before, and I’m totally covering for my partner here who’s putting his foot in his mouth, but we have a lot of people we need to look out for. We have a whole society that’s filled with mostly old veterans like us, and the newbies, the people that have really good panel ideas but who need to get noticed, and we’re there to help. First and foremost, we are dedicated to making sure that they can be seen, they can be heard, and that we find a way to get their voice across. Small story, we were invited to DROM to do a presentation on the Eureka 7 premier, but a lot of stuff got messed up in the middle, and they wanted us to do things in ways that we weren’t cool with.

Rob: There was a lot of miscommunication.

Angelo: Lot of miscommunication. Once again, they’re awesome people, but it didn’t work out for us. In the end though, we were happier for it because we don’t want to rush something, we don’t want to present something that isn’t our very best.

Me: May I ask specifically what was wrong?

Angelo: Timing things, we would all have to take days off from our day jobs that we couldn’t afford, they wanted us to prerecord our bit, which is more work and less funny.

Rob: They also told us to keep it PG-13, and we really were ok with that, but it’s also a little difficult. We were dubious about that, but we were willing to do it.

Angelo: We only want the best for our fans, and we won’t accept a gig or opportunity if we cannot give it our very best. It was coming up right before NYAF, and it was very short notice, and it was just something we couldn’t do. So in the end, you will find us where ever there is anime to be had, there is geekery to be had. We will bring the funny, we will bring the intelligence, but we will never do anything half-assed.

Me: Do you ever think that there will be a point where DOXIII will be too unwieldy or it will just be impossible to get everyone together, and you’ll be unable to attend conventions?

Angelo: I have done a lot of thinking about this, being the president and being the guy who is elected to worry. There are points, and I’m just being real with all of our fans out there, where the work gets difficult, and a lot of us consider quitting.

Rob: And there have been people who’s involvement had to come way down due to other parts of their lives intervening.

Angelo: I don’t think anything is sustainable forever.

Rob: All good things do come to an end. It’s just a fact of life.

Angelo: Professional actors fall out of popularity, professional comedians fall out of popularity, everything dies out eventually. Long story short, yes, at some point either all of us won’t have the time or even if we have the time, maybe we’ll have moved on, maybe have moved away from the area, maybe ownership will have to trade hands. If at all possible, I’d like to see this go on for a good long time, constantly cycling in new talent, especially when the old talent has to move on with their own lives. So in that aspect, I think Disorganization XIII is going to be here for a very long time, and I’m hoping in ten or twenty years you’ll still be seeing us coming to conventions.

Rob: Just speaking for myself, I just love doing this.

Angelo: Me too.

Rob: My personal plan is to keep doing Disorganization XIII until it’s either physically impossible, or we start getting booed off the stage.

Angelo: I feel the exact same way. I will continue doing this until someone yanks me down with that hook you see in Vaudeville shows and says ‘It’s over.’ We will continue doing this for as long as we possibly can. We’ll always be bringing new people in, and one day it might die, but let’s hope that that day is far off.

Me: Finally, has DOXIII considered expanding into other mediums?

Angelo: We actually are expanding into other media. I don’t know if you know this, but New York Comic Con and New York Anime Festival are running at the same time next year, so one get’s you into the other. That means that when we’re playing the NYAF, we are also playing the NYCC. For some of our stuff like Spoilers, that’s easy. I mean, we already make fun of movies and comic books. Fan Fiction, also easy. Some of our other panels, maybe not so much. RPGs is really going to be kept more towards gaming and anime conventions.

Rob: That panel would only work at a con that has a strong video game component. There are quite a lot of Sci-Fi cons like that, and I have contacts in Sci-Fi fandom, so I’m starting to talk to them about breaking in to that, and again, Spoiler carries over very well, Fan Fiction carries over very well. Producing more than one Spoiler a year would be very rough, but producing a couple extra discussion panels? We could do that, we would love to do that. But to answer your question of what media do we produce, rather than what media do we talk about, we are rebooting our website right now, and the plan is to have more written and video content.

Angelo: And there are people coming up to us, at conventions saying ‘We want you to be on our podcast.’ So we are expanding, we’re going into other mediums, we’re going into other conventions, and we just try to make this a geek thing. It’s going to be a little slow expanding, because we started in anime, but you can’t get rid of us, because if it’s geeky, we will be there, and we will bring the chaos with us.

I originally posted this on Japanator, but I figured that it’d be fair for me to post it on my own site as well.

The Best Thing Ever: Toonami

“Bang.” Tom V’s final word as Toonami signed off for the final time. At this point, Toonami was only a shadow of its former self; offering little more then a single airing of Naruto each week. No more Midnight Run, no more Deep Space Bass, no more online games to introduce new line ups, no video game reviews, nothing that gave Toonami the magic it used to have remained. This was a time where one could catch an episode of Rurouni Kenshin in between any flavor of Gundam and Tenchi In Tokyo (Which always seemed to be aimed at a different demographic than us who stayed up past their bedtimes to watch these shows, wrapped up in a sleeping bag at friend’s house.) These late-night shows presented a world of animation that was; pardon the cliché, completely foreign. Perhaps that’s why the block had such a loyal following, because it revealed to its viewership styles of animation completely alien to those of us who had previously only been exposed to the same cartoons our parents had watched. Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo: shows that had started decades ago and yet were still running. Oh sure, Nick ran it’s own cartoon schedule, but it did not do so with the same panache with which Toonami presented it’s lineup. Besides, Nickelodeon fans tended to bring their lunches to school in brown bags, and sat in the front of the bus. Us Toonami fans were fascinated with the intricacies of Japanese Culture. We got up at ungodly hours on Saturday to catch Card Captors (though we would never admit it). We logged on to Toonami Reactor to watch Record of Lodoss Wars and Interstella 5555. We locked ourselves in our rooms for the premier of Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Whenever Tom and S.A.R.A. were under attack, we were at the ready on our parent’s computers, playing our way through the belly of the Absolution to combat the alien menace. We even managed to catch Midnight Run on the weekends every so often. But before long, shows like Outlaw Star and Ronin Warriors was replaced by Code Lyoko and Rave Master, and knockoff blocks like Meguzi appeared. Toonami’s hours were repeatedly shortened, and only shown on certain days of the week. With such a dedicated following, what could have happened? To put it plainly, the magic simply wore off. As Toonami’s audience grew up, these foreign cartoons failed to inspire the same sense of wonder that they once did. The kids who once were awed by IGPX (The original, of course) now moved to MTV and the adult world for their fill of the strange and exotic. While Toonami was great, it simply couldn’t have lasted. Without the mystique that once defined Toonami, a generation looking to distance itself from Pokemon and all the childish things it once enjoyed in an attempt to appear more mature began to regard Toonami as nothing more than yet another cartoon block on television.

It’s strange looking on the Wikipedia page and realizing that my memories of watching Blue Submarine #6 and G-Force are almost a decade old now. I still have my old VHS copies of Gundam 0083, outmoded twice-over now. What now? Today there is no comparable programming block on television (the closest is Adult Swim, and they’ve been replacing all anime with in-house crap), and it’s unlikely that any other will both surface, and survive. The survivability is key, as there have been other attempts at a new Toonami on other channels, but none lasted for very long.

I say that Toonami was the best section of television there ever was, because it appealed to my favorite emotion, child-like wonder. Today as I search Youtube for clips of Tom, I have to settle for Wonder’s brother: Nostalgia. Regardless, even if Toonami were to come back, it wouldn’t be the same. I would now understand the strange culture after which the shows are modeled, I probably wouldn’t even be done with my work for the day when the start airing at 7 o’ clock. Toonami can’t come back, at least not for me. So while I salute Toonami for bringing something to television that is exceedingly rare in the medium, and I understand it’s influence on my tastes today, I also acknowledge that it was a once in a lifetime experience, at what was once lost cannot be returned.

Of course, I also saw this display, but sadly, I doubt these horrid things will ever go away:

Coincidentally, I recently received my copy of the second Haruhi Suzumiya novel, the Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya. While I haven’t completed the novel yet, I can tell you a few things about the book itself. It simply enough, with a basic color scheme and a logo that doesn’t call attention to itself, which is far preferable to the garish cover Yen Press decided to slap on the upcoming Spice and Wolf novel. Of course, one problem with the logo is that when glanced at, it’s simple enough to mistake the book as being titled “The Sigh”.

Of course, more important than the book itself, is what it implies. Seeing a light novel displayed prominently in a major book store is quite a shock for one such as myself who can remember the days when you would find the manga intermixed with Garfield comics, and a volume of Ranma 1/2 would cost you 15 dollars a pop. It certainly shows a dramatic change in attitudes towards the otaku geek market.

In fact currently one can pick up such titles as Welcome to the NHK, Ballad of a Shinigami, and other light novels of note from any major bookstore, with more titles such as Spice & Wolf on the way.

I’ve even amassed something of a collection myself.

While it’s obvious how mega-titles such as the Melancholy of Haruhi would be licensed, why have smaller titles such as Ballad of a Shinigami been picked up? It’s hard to imagine that light novels that don’t have established fanbase that comes from other mediums such as manga and anime are in high enough demand that any real profit can be turned off of them.

Of course, light novels do make sense as the next step for state-side manga publishing companies. Publishing books offers an sense of legitimacy that these companies are no doubt seeking. Instead of being just a “comic book publisher” (As some might view them), with light novels they are able to maintain their hardcore cred with the dedicated fandom, while still being able to expand their services, and potentially attract others to work with them.

In addition to that, light novels are also a yet unexplored cheap medium, which allows comapnies to sweep up major titles for, I imagine, relatively cheap prices. Plus with DVD sales lower than ever, but manga sales still going strong, it makes sense for these companies to move further away from expensive mediums like anime, and move towards cheaper mediums.

I suppose time will show whether light novels have the tenacity to stick around in the American market.

Have you bought any light novels? If so, which ones?

(Photo from Edwick on Flickr, Sheehan is on the right)

I’d like to use this interview to cover the corporate aspect of Anime Conventions.

Adam Sheehan is the Senior Events Manager at Funimation, or in other words, his business is cons. I start our interview by asking him, exactly what Funimations goal is at conventions.

Will: First, I just wanted to ask you about the economics of coming to conventions. While (Funimation) does sell DVDs at it’s stand, I can’t imagine that you actually move enough volume that it turns a significant profit…

Adam: It’s growing more and more each year. Sales have gone up from minuscule little “Let’s see how this works, just to get ourselves out there.”, to more and more becoming half the reason we come here. Our budget, for the last three or four years running now, we’ve made more money than we’ve spent on conventions, and it just keeps growing more and more. Actually, we’ve actually already hit the sales numbers we wanted to hit for the year two shows ago, so we are way ahead of the game. People are buying like crazy. So for us, cons are half promotion and half sales. As much as we’re selling the newest copy of Nabari no Ou, we’re also here promoting Soul Eater, which doesn’t even have a street date yet. We have a whole budget just for cons, and I’m dedicated just to conventions, and we have a whole staff for conventions. Economically wise, we’re very conservative on what we’re going to spend, we try to see if we can get a sponsorship, or save some money on a booth space, or instead of buying an ad, we say (To NYAF) that we’ll give you some bag-stuffers in exchange for ad space, so there are always ways to be smart about it. However, we definitely have enough backing from the company, they know you have to spend money to make money.

W: I’m actually somewhat surprised. I had always assumed the point of conventions for companies like Funimation was to showcase what you have rather than actual sales.

A: Most places are that way. At the huge tradeshows, it’s generally along the line of “You’re going to spend three times than what you’ll actually make”. Some of the bigger shows like Comic-con and Anime Expo are far more expensive, but overall, because there are a lot of smaller shows where we can make more money than we spend, they begin to add up. So it’s a balancing act between going to the giant shows, and these great smaller ones. And with fewer and fewer people having access to anime, like with Best Buy cutting back on their anime stock, and an influx of new fans who don’t know where to shop yet,  people are waiting for anime conventions to get their anime.

W: Do you ever see Funimation not having a presence at conventions?

A: I really hope not, because that’s my job. But I really don’t think so, regardless of the matter of whether I’m here or not. I believe that we’re always going to be at conventions, being that right now, we’re all about communicating with our fans as much as possible. The big deal right now is the whole social media and social networking, because people want to be communicated with. They don’t want to be told that a series is coming out, they want to get the information, and then discuss it with the people who work on it, or who are marketing it, or with other fans. So anime conventions have so much value in the sense that we can come out here and talk to fans and they can talk to us. We’ve had fans this weekend who’ve come up to us and told us that the Soul Eater panel with all the voice actors just made their month, let alone their day, so they’re going to tell six friends who are then going to tell six friends, and so on. Additionally, if there is something they don’t like, they’ll tell us of that as well. We get some great feedback here. We did some survey work and found out recently that over 58% of fans prefer dubs over subs, and with some of the other companies bringing out Sub only DVDs, now we have the information saying that, no, there is still value to dubbing anime. So I don’t foresee us ever leaving conventions. If anything, our presence will be growing. Since this year was so successful, hopefully next year we’ll be able to go to even more shows. We even have a program called “No Con Left Behind”, which, though we only attend 17-20 shows a year, we support over a hundred shows nationwide.

W: Could you just state for me all the properties that have been announced at this con?

A: We announced that we have the full cast of the original Full Metal Alchemist returning for FMA: Brotherhood, with the exception of Al, because the original voice actor’s voice has changed, so he cannot reprise the role of a child character. So now, Maxie Whitehead is filling the role, who is just amazing. We now have the rights to bring out both the TV and OVA of X, which is a wonderful show that Geneon used to have back in the day. We also announced that we are going to be bringing out all four stages and the extra stage of Initial D, and we are going to do an entire redub and resub of the show that will include all of the original music. It’s a big deal for us. A last minute big deal, we got everything signed off about two hours before the panel.

W: Is there anything else that might be announced later?

A: Not at this show, but there’s definitely more before the end of the year. There’s a lot on out plate, and we just have to get this and that signed off before we announce anything, but expect some more from us before the end of the year.

W: One last question, Funimation holds the Higurashi series…

A: Yes, we have the first season, and we don’t have the second season yet, but we do want it. People all the time are asking about the second season, so we hope to get it soon.

W: My question is if there is any word on the “Sister” series, Umineko?

A: Don’t know about that one, I mean, I know of it, but I don’t know if it’s available or if we’re looking at it. I know right now that right now we’re more focused on can we get season two of Higurashi, than anything else.