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Notes typed while sitting at a Boston airport cafe, watching travelers watch Phil Mickelson win The Masters on TV: This site and its author took yet another different approach to handling anime conventions. It started when the author glanced at a message on the Anime Boston message board that mentioned a 2003 photo room hadn't happened and wondered if it would happen in 2004. The author wrote the convention chairman and asked about the idea, and the response quickly came that the convention had a room available and the author could use it as his base of operations. The room was located on the fourth floor of the Boston Park Plaza, among a group of meeting rooms used for panel discussions, video presentations and workshops, along with the artists' alley. It's the sort of floor that was common to hotels in the 1920's, when the Park Plaza was built. Getting to the room took extra work, since it was a long walk up from the mezzanine where the main events were held, and from the Castle building across the street where Anime Boston moved their dealers' room. Despite the isolation, the photo room drew a steady flow of fans and costumers, whose pictures you see on this site. The restless author occasionally headed away from the room to find costumers in the halls and site in on a couple of interviews, but the number of people in the fourth floor room kept the author from wandering very much - except for the Saturday night costume contest, of course. Once, the author thought he'd sneak out of the room for a moment, only to encounter a group of costumers who wanted to see him, saying they were headed to the room for pictures. Then there was the big group from Rhode Island who nearly filled the photo corner of the room for their group pose. All of this positive reaction to the Fan's View photo room was exceptionally welcome, a heartening confirmation of this site's philosophy and work over the last six years. Watch for the site to get back to interviews and panel discussions in a couple of weeks with the Sakura Con trip. Another photographer from the Seattle area has the photo concession at the Washington state event, so the author will stand back and let that business handle the job. But there most likely will be photo rooms or areas run by this site at the Anime Central convention in May and AnimeNEXT in June. The author prints a few pictures of costumers at each convention to place in the sample binders that fans enjoy, and one of those pictures was of a Vash the Stampede from Trigun in an elaborate leather-like outfit. That costume's popularity was shown when another fan spotted the picture and wanted to buy it on the spot; the answer was no, because this photographer doesn't sell pictures to anyone other than the people in the pictures (or parents and close relatives). That picture stayed in the binder only another couple of hours, because the Vash costumer spotted it and wanted to buy it, and the deal was made. And on the same night, the Vash got the best in show presentation award at the costume contest. This writer doesn't spend much time at Saturday night parties because he's rushing to get costume contest pictures and winners on line, and he's worn out after a full day's work. But this time the party came to the writer, as a bunch of people flowed into the photo room after the contest to hang out and get their pictures taken - including some of the contest judges. Those people, judges, who have experience at sci-fi cons and fantasy events, said they liked the work they saw at the anime convention. They also suggested that it was time for a merger of sort in the judging and classification concepts used at sci-fi cons. There's already been a move toward skill classifications at anime events, but it's hard to tell if the costume contest organizers at the 50 anime conventions in the U.S. are going to want to have a common set of rules. That contest didn't have the organizational revolt from 2003 because the y hired an experienced organizer from the Anime Expo staff to run things. The event started on time, ran fast and finished after a reasonable delay from the judges, who said they had a hard time deciding how many awards to hand out. However, some people had to be turned away from the contest when the ballroom was full, sent back to their rooms to watch the show on closed-circuit TV. The effective announcer, Lauren Goodnight, let the live audience know that the contest could be seen by everyone in a hotel room, which led this writer to wonder what the mundanes thought if they were trying to order a Spectravision video and got cosplay instead. The small size of the fourth -floor meeting rooms led to a couple of overflow crowds for events like a Japanese-language demonstration. And there was a persistent false fire alarm on Saturday afternoon that caused some fans to head for exits until the all clear was sounded. The surprise hit of the convention was the make your own plushie workshop, which showed fans how they could use felt and cotton balls to make a facsimile of their favorite character. In 2005, Anime Boston's crowds are sure to increase because they'll be at a convention center a couple of miles to the west. That's the same year that will feature a convention in Hawaii and the third Star Wars Celebration in the same month. The author spent less time than usual dealing with panel discussions, a little disappointing because there were some fresh acting names which the author wanted to hear. At least we had a chance to meet Lex Lang in the lobby, and spend a few minutes listening to Crispin Freeman, who spoke about the changes in his voice and the Asian philosophy that's woven into the cloak of most anime stories. This site keeps close track of the anime convention schedule and the guests expected at those events. In the week before Anime Boston, things got very interesting for those who have to decide which of four U.S. conventions they'll attend on the Memorial Day weekend. The Anime Mid-Atlantic convention is going to have a couple of hot dub actors in Monica Rial and Greg Ayres: no change there, but the Animazement guest list had a big change. Every year, that North Carolina convention has fans wondering if Yuu Watase, the Fushigi Yuugi artist, will show up. The early April announcement from Animazement: yes, Watase is coming back. Watase has been one of the most popular convention guests - her presence has drawn people from all over the U.S. and distant parts of Canada - so she'll attract a lot more people to Animazement. That means an unofficial popularity contest between Animazement and Anime Mid-Atlantic, events that are 170 miles apart on I-85 and I-95. And, both the new Pacific Media Expo and Fanime Con are going to have big music shows. The new Expo, in southern California, has been billed as a music event with Silver Ash, the hyper-powerful and popular T.M. Revolution, and Nami Tamaki. Fanime Con, in northern California, has decided to get together with several other groups and make another attempt at a one-day GakuFest music show, featuring Blood, Duel Jewel, Camino, Monkey...and Nami Tanaki. T.M. Revolution attracted a big crowd to Otakon in 2003, and Blood had a healthy crowd at Ohayocon in 2004 - but the 2003 GakuFest was an attendance flop. The big Pacific Media Expo concert is supposed to happen on the Friday of the Memorial Day weekend, and GakuFest is set for Sunday, so a determined fan could attend both events, which are about 380 highway miles apart. However, Fanime Con has additional competition from the BayCon sci-fi con that'll be a few miles away. For the time being, based on the way it's listed on the Fanime Con web site as a separately-ticketed, cooperative venture with several other groups, this site is placing GakuFest as a separate event on the convention schedule page. While pondering the four-convention weekend at the end of May, you might wonder why there are no U.S. anime conventions on the last weekend of August. Or consider how the New York City area will go from four conventions in 2003 to only one in 2004. (Easy guess there: the New York area is too expensive.) Some good news that happened on the west coast: Viz video producer Toshifumi Yoshida got married and new wife Trish Ledoux had his baby, all in one week. |
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