Geek vs Life

Alright, Day 2 of Aki-Con… Got there just in time to catch the “Special Guests Q&A”, which was great. I was laughing so hard. I might type up my notes from it separately (I’m really tired, so I’m planning on going to bed as soon as I finish this and take a shower), but for right now, know that it was awesome.

After the panel, I killed time for an hour and a half by going into the dealer’s room (btw, I’ve spent $70 in there, and all of it is for other people, who are paying me back… there’s just not much in there for me to be interested in), and then watching some Ouran Host Club subs (and I do mean subs… I could barely hear the audio until I moved up next to the DVD player). After that, I went to Vic Mignogna’s Q&A, and he played an AWESOME video. And that’s all I will say, as we were requested not to spoil it for people. I’ll just say that it’s a “fan-film” he made (well, he is a professional video editor, so you can’t exactly say “fan”), and that is of dubious legality, and he only shows it at cons, and he wants it to be special for cons. But it is awesome, and if you guys get a chance to see him at a con, go see his Q&A and hope he plays it.

After his panel got out at 1:30, I figured there was a semi-interesting panel at 2, but there was really nothing to do. The Dealer’s Hall I’d gone over too many times, I wasn’t interested in what was in the other panel room, nor the viewing rooms. And since I was pretty much on my own, with no one to hang out with, I left. I spent an hour walking around 7 blocks each way to the Jack-in-the-box to get food and back.

By the time I got back, I peeked in on that semi-interesting panel (it was the people who do those “abridged versions” of anime). The panel might’ve been interesting (it looked like there were about 4 or 5 of them there, and more on a conference call via laptop), but there was no sound system in the room, so all the sound was coming out of the laptop. Given that I was sitting next to the un-closable door (those nice torii gates around the doors? They were tied to the door workings, in a not-fire-code way, according to my friend, and made the doors unclosable), I couldn’t hear anything. And it didn’t help that people would walk by, peek in, not know what was going on, and start shouting out the door to friends of theirs. Where was someone to tell them to quiet down or leave, they were interrupting a panel? Oh, wait, Aki-Con isn’t running the panels room… Another panelist actually came in, during a video, went to the front and said that their panel would be running late. Umm, it’s only halfway through this panel? Later, they came by, and from the door called to ignore what they’d said earlier, the panel was in a different room (main events).

After that, I hung out with some friends for a bit, since I had nothing else to do. I also pulled out my piccolo and played in the lobby. I’m gonna have my flute out tomorrow (since there’s really nothing I’m interested in Sunday until Soul Candy’s performance), and see if I can get some people to make donations to “feed the poor Otaku” (I can try!). I did go to the “How to get into video games” panel, which, ironically, was run by a graduate of my own late college (college ran out of money and closed… poor Henry Cogswell). After that, there was nothing else to do, so I came home.

Wrap-up will be tomorrow, and hopefully I can get my roommate to offload my pics from my camera, so I can get some images up.

Okay, so I hop on the bus, get up to south Everett, get to the Holiday Inn… And there aren’t many cars there… And I don’t see people… so I call Carlos from Soul Candy and…

I’m at the wrong Holiday Inn… it’s the one in downtown Everett…

So, I hop another bus and get up to Everett Station, get directions, and walk to the Holiday Inn. It’s not hard to find their Registration (one table on either side of the hotel’s main doors, one for pre-reg, one for registration. I find out where to get my badge, they ask for my name, and hand me my Guest badge (since I’m with the band). I had to find a pen to put my name on it myself (I actually saw a few people with guest badges with nothing written on them), but then I got my plastic katana peace bonded (I apparently didn’t have to sign their peace bonding “form” since it was just a toy).

I took a quick run-through of the Dealers’ Hall and didn’t see any Tokunaga plush (from Tales of the Abyss) or Xenosaga Legends Episode 1 figures (I only need one figure to have all of the Xenosaga Legends figures), so I wandered back out. Their room doors were decorated quite nicely, with a “torii” gate around the entrance with a sign on the center saying what the room was. Starting from the lobby, there is the gaming room (which has a simple “Gaming Center” sign on an easel in front of the door, not the torii), and then a long hallway. On the left side of the hall (going from Registration), there’s the Sub room, the Panel room, the Manga Library/snack shop (this, apparently, is Manga Kissaden, or however it’s spelled), the Dub room, and then we enter a new section of hallway (you know, they’ve got those double doors that you can close?). Along the windows in this “new” hallway is the Artists’ Alley, and a door on the right is the Dealers’ Hall. At the end of the hallway is the Main Events room.

The Dealers’ Hall, btw, was pretty sparsely filled. There was still too much for a smaller area, though, and this made their Main Events room pretty small. Probably about the same size as the original Karaoke room for Sakura-Con at the Convention Center (6D or something like that, I think?). Also a bit concerning to me, is that when I asked why a panel that sounded interesting wasn’t happening (the room was empty), I was told that they were “not in charge” of the panel rooms, and that if the people for the panel didn’t show up, it wasn’t their fault. Which wouldn’t be so bad, since their schedule does say “subject to change”, except for that the ONLY schedules available was the printed one. There were no schedules in the rooms, so there was nowhere to note that the panel was cancelled. Or that they were changing stuff in the video rooms, such as, at 5pm, where they were supposed to be playing Hell Girl in the Sub room, and Bleach: Memories of Nobody in the Dub room. Hell Girl was actually on in the Sub room, but it was dubbed, and the dub room had Tokyo Majin playing (which should’ve been in the sub room a few hours earlier). Speaking of scheduling, why were there two panels on cosplaying at the same time? Especially since both of them would be good for someone just starting to cosplay.

Since Bleach wasn’t playing, and the line was gone and still some room in Main Events, I decided to go to Opening Ceremonies. Which was running over a half hour late. And they didn’t have a working mic, so they had to talk loudly. They announced at Opening Ceremonies that they were nearing 1,000 attendees, but I’d question that number. To start the OC, they played their commercial, which was streamed from YouTube. The AMV contest winner, however, was played from a computer, and was awesome. The AMV was Hellsing (I believe I saw a mixture of footage from the OAV and TV series), set to the song “Our Solemn Hour” by Within Temptation.

After grabbing some food, I was wandering the halls when I spotted Vic. Along with some Sakura-Con related chit-chat, I asked him about his autograph session, and it turned out he was on his way there. On his way to his autograph session, which was at a table in the hallway, not on the schedule, and with no way of people knowing where and when. He still signed my copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES, though, and I got Chuck Huber to sign my notebook, since I don’t actually own anything he’s worked on.

Now it was time for set-up for Soul Candy and The Slants. I played roadie by helping carry stuff and set up, but mostly I sat around and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, well after 8:30 (when Soul Candy was supposed to start), they finally got a sound check done, and the show got started. They should have had a half hour for set-up, and at LEAST a half hour for sound check, if not more, since there were two bands. Soul Candy’s liaison was not happy about the half hour TOTAL they were given. They had two volunteers keeping people off the stage (however, I noticed I had no problem sitting on the steps up, and leaning over onto the stage to take pictures. Maybe they had seen that I was in there for set-up or something, but I dunno. It would’ve been nice for there to be a buffer-zone, so that the photographers could actually MOVE AROUND to get shots, but it wasn’t so bad.

After Soul Candy was done, I had to get out of there (too loud), and I got a ride home. I wouldn’t call it a bad con, at least, not at this point, but I’m glad I didn’t pay any money for it. Tomorrow and Sunday will show us. It’s just a lot smaller, and a lot quieter, and a lot less to do than Sakura-Con was, even 7 years ago.

[pics will come on Sunday or later, when I offload them from my camera]

7 years ago, after I got out of the day’s class in college, I took the bus to the Holiday Inn in Everett, WA, where I attended my very first anime convention, Sakura-Con 2001. I had been to the old “Seattle Comic Cons,” which were nothing more than a glorified dealers’ hall with a few guests attending, and I had no clue what to expect.

7 years later, I’m a bit more experienced at anime conventions, especially since I’ve been on staff for Sakura-Con since 2002. But, today will be a new experience for me, once again. Today, after I finish this and get a few last things ready, I will be once again taking the bus to the Holiday Inn in Everett, WA.

[As a side note, the Holiday Inn where Sakura-Con 2001 was held changed it's name to Comfort Inn, and tore down the entirety of where the convention had been held (there's a big empty lot there... not that I'm sad to see that horrible dome go). The Holiday Inn where Aki-Con is taking place is on the other side of I-5.]

Aki-Con is a new anime convention that has sprung up (literally… I think I first heard of it in July), run by NDP Comics and Manga Kissaden (I probably spelled that wrong, and I honestly don’t care righht now). It is a FOR-PROFIT anime convention (as opposed to Sakura-Con and most of the other successful anime conventions around the country, which are all either NON-PROFIT or NOT-FOR-PROFIT [yes, there's a difference]), and this is it’s first… well, for now, I’ll say it’s a “first attempt,” not a “first year.” As I’ve learned from following the Anime Convention Mailing List (ACML), many “first year” cons never have a second year, especially if they are for-profit.

But, I digress. I am attending the convention as a guest of Soul Candy, a local rock band who specializes in covers of anime music. They are opening for The Slants tonight at 8:30, and have their own set on Sunday at 4pm. During their set, I will be performing “The Rising Fighting Spirit” from Naruto with them. Since the con is so close, I will be coming home each night, and giving everyone a report of the day.

So, see ya tonight!

Got this from ICv2, via the Anime Conventions Mailing List (ACML):

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has signed on as consultant to the defense of Christopher Handley, an Iowa collector who faces up to 20 years in prison for possession of manga that he ordered from Japan. The CBLDF will add its First Amendment expertise to the case, which is being managed by the United Defense Group’s Eric Chase, and the CBLDF will also be providing monetary support towards obtaining expert witnesses.

Handley, who is 38 years old, faces penalties under the PROTECT Act for allegedly possessing manga that the government claims is obscene because the books include what the government claims are depictions of minors engaged in sex acts (no photographs are involved).

CBLDF’s Charles Brownstein finds the Handley case especially troubling.  “The government is prosecuting a private collector for the possession of art,” he said. “In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the federal government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books.”

Handley has a collection of over 1,200 volumes of manga; he’s being prosecuted for images that occur in just a handful of the volumes in his collection. Putting the case into context, Burton Joseph, CBLDF’s Legal Counsel says, “In the lengthy time in which I have represented CBLDF and its clients, I have never encountered a situation where criminal prosecution was brought against a private consumer for possession of material for personal use in his own home.  This prosecution has profound implications in limiting the First Amendment for art and artists, and comics in particular that are on the cutting edge of creativity. It misunderstands the nature of avant-garde art in its historical perspective and is a perversion of anti-obscenity laws.”

Eric Chase and his team at the United Defense Group have already scored a major First Amendment victory when the judge ruled that portions of the PROTECT act are unconstitutional, but Handley still faces charges under surviving sections of the act, which will require a jury to determine if the material in question is legally obscene and meets all three of the criteria of the Miller test for obscenity: (1) would the average person find that the material appeals to the prurient interest; (2) does the material depict, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; (3) does the work, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The jury will have to find that the material fits all three of the criteria in order to convict.

So basically, he’s got a few volumes of manga (maybe doujinshi, maybe not), where probably high schoolers are likely non-explicitly having sex. And he could go to prison for 20 years for it.

The following is the official press release announcing Sakura-Con’s musical guests.

Seattle, WA1-23-2008 Sakura-Con hosts US debut of Ali Project and welcomes musical guests SCANDAL

Sakura-Con 2008, March 28-30th at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center will host the Japanese band Ali Project for their first ever US appearance. Also confirmed for Sakura-Con 2008 is the Japanese, all girl band SCANDAL. Both are presented with special thanks to NEU BAUHAUS.

Ali Project is a highly accomplished Japanese band with 19 albums to their credit and songs on over 14 anime soundtracks-including series beloved in the US- such as: .hack//Roots, Clamp School, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Noir, Rozen Maiden (TV, Ouvertüre, Träumend), Wish.

Their success in Japan has led to invitations to play all over the world, as their fan base continues to expand, but due to native popularity and an intensely busy schedule, they have declined to play outside their homeland until now. Sakura Con will boast the overseas debut of Ali Project, featuring their first appearance, performance and interview ever held outside of Japan!

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience Ali Project right here in the USA!!

SCANDAL was formed with four bright and talented high school girls in Osaka, Japan. Quickly moving from doing local live performances, to gaining recognition across Japan, SCANDAL is embarking on a full fledged US tour in 2008-including a special appearance at Sakura-Con.

This year is proving to be Sakura-Con’s most musically diverse ever! With special thanks to JapanFiles.Com, as previously announced, Japanese band ketchup mania, the winners of the Shojo Beat 2007 award for “Best Japanese Punk Band”, will be performing on our main stage with Ali Project, fresh from their performance at the prestigious SXSW music festival!

Also appearing at Sakura-Con, as previously announced, are The Slants, the popular “Shojo Beat approved” Asian dance/rock band from our own Pacific Northwest.

If you like music, chances are we’ll have something for your tastes at this year’s Sakura-Con!

Pre-Register now and save substantially versus at door prices. Remember that pre-registration helps ANCEA, a state and federal non-profit organization, put on the best Sakura-Con possible! For more information please visit our website at http://www.sakuracon.org.
FULL CONVENTION MEMBERSHIP RATES
$45 until 3-2-2008
$60 at the door
Children age 6-12 are half-price
Children under 6 are free

ANCEA is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about popular and traditional Asian media and culture.