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Phoenix Anime Fest - Author's Notes - 2006 For this site, the Phoenix Anime Fest was another one-day last-day convention trip, dictated by a changing work schedule, and made possible by reasonable walk-up air fares. We'd been interested in attending the AniZona convention in April but couldn't make the trip, so we decided to make the Phoenix Anime Fest our final fling for the year. The first (and only) time we previously traveled to Phoenix, many of the current generation of fans hadn't been born. It was in 1979, when we headed to Arizona to attend the first Championship Auto Racing Teams event at the Phoenix International Raceway, the paved mile track west of town. We recall chasing down a disappointed Danny Ongais, who had the race won before his car broke, and having Gordon Johncock's car blow a pressure relief hose over our foot in victory  lane. That was a one-day trip, too. We rented a car, drove to the track and got there just in time, getting our credential and walking through the cars as they were staged on the starting grid. The hot machine of the day was the Penske PC-7, the first ground effect car in Indianapolis-car racing. There was no such thing as an anime convention yet, and this writer didn't know that such a thing as Japanese animation existed. We learned in the years to come, and were back in Phoenix at a hotel that probably hadn't been built before our previous trip. Tsutomu Nihei and his Japanese editor were on hand for the event and we briefly saw them in the hotel lobby, not far from costumer YuffieBunny, who was wearing only civilian clothes for once, had long hair and was not painted blue. She promised a large number of elaborate costumes would be forthcoming in 2007. Unless things get really strange, this will be our final convention trip of the year, giving us 24 anime and fandom events covered in 2006. We actually got to 25 events, but there wasn't enough visually interesting at a Star Trek convention on the previous weekend to get us to take the camera out of the bag. We'll give the people at that Trek convention credit for all showing up - we bought badge number 256 and counted 210 people at the event - but it was a plain and drab event when compared to an anime convention. Many of the people at the Trek convention looked as if they were old enough to have seen the original episodes on TV in 1966. Already, we're making plans for the 2007 convention season. We have to keep going for another year, if for no other reason to try to better our personal record of having pictures in four publications that were in print at the same time. We're expected to have a photo booth at Ohayocon, where we'll start the year, and we're waiting to find where the costuming photo areas are going to be located at Katsucon. We have hotel reservations at both events. Beyond that, we're trying to keep track of 2007 events so we can maintain the convention schedule page, and maybe decide where we'll go for the rest of the new year. There won't be much rest; on the Phoenix event weekend, we made a casual check of events from 2006 and ended up adding three or four convention dates to the 2007 schedule. And we got an e-mail on the convention weekend announcing yet another event. We count at least 70 U.S. anime events for 2007, with another 20 or so from late 2006 that haven't announced 2006 dates yet. Other non-anime events, such as the annual Costume-Con in Missouri, look tempting. Most of the following observations are off the top of our head, opinions with no basis in fact: While this site has a reputation as a cosplay picture site, we've always been interested in the artists, writers, actors and creators who inspire the costumers. Check the 2006 reports, and you'll find many stories on interview sessions and panel discussions with those people. Conventions offer a special chance to meet these artists and storytellers, especially from Japan, and we wonder if that's going to continue in 2007. A glance at the guest list for 2007's conventions shows few Japanese guests have been announced so far. We vividly recall an early summer convention where only a handful of people attended a panel discussion held by a couple of Japanese animators, which led a convention veteran to wonder if interest in those guests was starting to decline. On the other hand, an example set by one of 2006's most popular Japanese pop stars might set a pattern for 2007. Koda Kumi has been one of the hottest performers of the year, and her success followed appearances at Texas conventions in 2004 and 2005. A couple of week before this was written, the female song and dance quartet Max appeared in Virginia, and that concert got plenty of attention in Japan. Other appearances by J-rockers, ranging from TM Revolution to Dir en Grey, have helped publicize the performers as having been successful in Japan. Will Koda's example will lead more Japanese musical performers to travel to the U.S. in 2007? Phoenix Main Page