It’s 1991 and you’re balls deep in this anime stuff, there’s just one problem: It’s not translated and you don’t speak any Japanese aside from “konnichiwa” and “teriyaki,” so what do you do? You could try and track down the handful of subtitled anime available in the US, but they’re all expensive and Madox-01 and Gunbuster are so two years ago. And don’t even think about watching those anime titles that were dubbed and released in the 1980s, because they’ve all been hacked up and edited by assholes like Carl Macek who have no appreciation for real art. Your only option is to find yourself some synopses and your best bet for that is to pick up the authoritatively-titled Anime Reference Guide.
Once again we’ll be doing a bunch of panels at next year’s Anime Los Angeles, which happens on January 6th-8th, 2012. No less than four a few different Colony Drop dudes will be in attendance, so here’s your chance to sit in on our poorly-attended panels and grab some drinks with us. As of right now, this is the tentative schedule of panels we’ll be hosting or appearing on:
Anime Fandom before the Internet - Friday, 8 - 9 PM
The Rise and Fall of the OVA - Saturday, 11 AM - 12:30 PM
The Secret History of Gainax - Saturday, 7 - 8 PM
COLONY DROP PRESENTS: NOT KIDS’ STUFF - Saturday, 10 PM - 2 AM
The Anime Fanzine in America: Death and Rebirth - Sunday, 11 AM - Noon
Leap through time and space with me, if you will, all the way back to the Tokyo of 1994. The economic bubble had just burst, ushering in Japan’s so-called Lost Decade; at the same time, the city had yet to endure the Aum Shinrikyo cult’s sarin attack on its subways. A year before Neon Genesis Evangelion was to hit the airwaves the otaku world was in existential crisis mode, recently brought to national and international attention (and not in a good way) by the arrest of Tsutomu Miyazaki, “The Otaku Murderer.”
It was in this timeframe two French filmmakers, Jackie Bastide and Jean-Jacques Beineix, went to Tokyo, cameras in hand, attempting to find out just what this “otaku” thing was all about. The result is Otaku, a documentary that recently hit Netflix and serves, for us here in the future, as a fascinating time capsule into the state of otakudom – and the West’s perception thereof – in the early ’90s.
Last year we said that New York Comic Con should just swallow up New York Anime Fest– and its anime programming– rather than run a relative non-attraction next door to what is fast becoming one of the biggest geek-interest cons in the country. The good news is that NYCC really did assimilate everything anime– vendors, producers, distributors– into the NYCC show floor proper. Last year’s anime vendor back alley and the traffic jam therein were no longer an issue. The bad news is that the anime ghetto had returned. The space was large, and it was much closer to the show floor… but it was a ghetto all the same.
Just a quick note for you slackers who have yet to pick up THE BEST fucking anime fanzine (likely the only anime fanzine) you’ll read this year, MagCloud is currently running a sale until the end of the month. That perfectly pink periodical can be yours for the low, low price of $7.80 (plus shipping).
BUY IT RIGHT HEEEEERE
So, alright, this isn’t a straight review. I watched episodes
of CLAMP and Production IG’s new joint Blood-C. When I finished the three episodes at the time of their airing, I went to Otaku USA (probably just hitting newsstands as you read this) with a pan: the show was a fluffball, a nothing. Every episode was the same! What was I even doing watching this? Today I finished Blood-C, sort of, and I’ve come here to write this. I can’t not write it. Nobody’s paying me this time, but I have four times as much to say. This won’t work, but I have to keep you from watching Blood-C.
We’ll be presenting our History of the OAV panel at the upcoming Pacific Media Expo, on Friday, November 11th. 4-5pm in Live Programming 2.