| Ikasucon (my stupid anime con writeups, let me show you them) |
[Aug. 12th, 2007|11:58 pm] |
So I spent all day yesterday at Ikasucon in Fort Wayne, Indiana, my first anime convention, which managed to be tiny and mild, cool and surreal, predictable and extremely unexpected, all at once. There are three main points I wish to cover, which are as follows:
A) I did not sing karaoke, for which the world is forever grateful; and I did finally finally finally get to see DDR for the first time live and in person. I kept wanting the players to select JE music; sadly, no one did, and moreover whenever I gratuitously brought up Kame and Yamapi and Jin, people stared at me like I was a fan of some freakily obscure anime that even the fans of freaky obscure anime thought was too lame to mention in public. Also, o.O, despite being a smallish convention, OMG SO MUCH COSPLAY. I NEVER KNEW. O.o
B) I BOUGHT 30.5. ADSFLK;SSDLDS OMGGGGGGG 30.5 THE PRINCE OF TENNIS ARTBOOK, IT IS MINE. IT IS ALL MINE AND IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I HAVE EVER SEEN AND I THOUGHT I HAD SEEN ALL THE SCANS OF 30.5 BEFORE BUT THERE ARE PICTURES IN THIS BOOK THAT I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONLINE, AND I CAN'T TELL WHETHER I'M MORE IN LOVE WITH, FOR INSTANCE, THE PICTURE OF SENGOKU AND AKUTSU LOOKING CUTE AND DOMESTIC, THE PICTURE OF OISHI STEALING TEZUKA'S GLASSES AND WEARING THEM AND I REALLY HOPE SOMEONE SOMEWHERE HAS SHOWN THIS PICTURE TO ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) prillalar BECAUSE OH MY GOD, OR THE PICTURE TOWARDS THE END OF RYOMA AND KARUPIN ASFKJK;LSFJAW;KLSKLAFKJS;FKLDSJF;LASDJF;KLS;DSKLJKLFLSK;D;FKLSFKLSAFSDFSDLD;LS;DSKJL I LOVE IT I LOVE MY ARTBOOK I AM SO HAPPY SO HAPPY SO SO HAPPY AND MOREOVER NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE GO TO ANIME CONVENTIONS IT IS FOR THE SWAG.
C) I had signed up sort of last minute to do the Yaoi panel (which was predictably entitled "Your Thoughts On Yaoi") last night from 10-midnight, which made me pretty nervous despite the fact that I've modded panels before, since as we all know I hate anime. ;)
Instead what happened was that even though we were scheduled opposite the two main events of the conference (the dance and the karaoke), the room was packed. And not only was the room packed, but:
- more people kept showing up as the night went on, and staying;
- in some cases, people left briefly and then came back with more people to sit in, including a parent who went and brought in her daughter and her daughter's friends because she wanted them to sit in on the discussion
- even though it was a two-hour panel, it flew by, and when no one wanted to leave, the guy who was holding the panel after ours told us to keep going, because he said we were doing what panels were designed to do.
The panel was extended for a full half hour, most of which was discussing the recent events at livejournal, which I had purposely set aside the last 15 minutes to discuss. Everyone asked questions - most of the audience members had LJs and were concerned about what was happening. We talked about the art, which most everyone had seen, and we discussed action being taken and the best sites to go to. I gave my opinion that at the moment Journalfen is the best place to be if you're an at-risk community or fanwork-producing journal.
I conducted as a round table. We talked to everyone in the room and I was so totally gratified by the discussion and people's eagerness to discuss slash and yaoi together without devolving into a discussion about semantics, which always seems to happen. Though I kept bringing up WB shows in examples, for which I blame the greater fandom on LJ entirely. I may also have mentioned Amanuensis's Finding Nemo chanfic. Uh.
Most of all though, I was really elated to see the openness and the honesty people brought to the discussion. Lots of guys came and I really enjoyed having that many straight men talking about how they were trying to become more open to yaoi, whether to impress their girlfriends or to better understand the genre. Also I discovered that I totally knew as much about yaoi as anyone else there, which was a huge relief even if I got totally blank stares when I mentioned Tezuka/Ryoma. :)) It was a totally vibrant dialogue, and we got permission to run over for half an hour, and the best part of all was that after it was over, the mom and her daughter and her daughter's best friend all came up and hugged me, one after the other, because they said the discussion had been incredibly powerful.
teenagers hugged me!!!!!!!
I'm still pretty much on a high from this, and will probably be for a while. I LOVE TALKING ABOUT SLASH.
Yay.
Also, in response to the stance taken by 6A on pro-ana "support" communities on LJ, one member of the audience at the yaoi panel last night has formed a similar "support" community for fandom members who like to slash fictional characters. I think this is risky on her part, but I applaud her for it. The comm is prowrnotpedos, and the userinfo is a thing of pure beauty. :D
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Jackie, I have not watched your ep of Ouran yet. I have been gone. However, I did watch a couple eps of D. Gray Man. Love me.
Epon, you will hate me for this but I kind of............... neverfinishedMonster. However, I feel my reasons for this are vast and valid. :(( I am sorry to devastate you in your hour of need.
Veronica, for the love of god join that community i'm not supposed to talk about and download the eps directly. i can't believe you are doing this. HAVE YOU SEEN NOBUTA YET? |
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