This year kransom and I (plus mdl and stephieku) helped run the panel and did song translations. We still ended up an hour late, since the previous panel had way more corporate sponsorship, but here’s the playlist.

Most of these links are to the unsubtitled versions, since I forgot to ask if we could upload the translations, so contact us or watch this space if you’d like them. But you should watch them anyway!

1. honey and clover club by yuuyu and baker, video by nagimiso

2. Aku no Musume Trilogy by nazyo, NazekorewoP, Yuuki

3. DYE/Re:reflection+ by Treow, remixed by AVTechNO, video by heki

4. Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya! by daniwell, and the MMD version

5. Rondo of possible world by millstones, video by masataka

6. Strobe last by Powapowa, video by masataka

This one’s translated!

7. Sweet Devil and Electric Love by HachioujiP, video by wakamuraP

9. Memories (unfinished video) by SmileR, video by wakamuraP

10. Innocent girl feat. Kaai Yuki (international edit) by KagomeP and rlldi

I have no idea what this video is about.

11. Ameyumerou by HitoshizukuP and Suzunosuke

12. Flower Tail by yuukiss and 25 KAITOs

13. My world by KuchibashiP

(not actually related to the next song)

14. World is Mine video (unfinished) by Sadamasa Shiika

15. Last night, good night by kz/livetune

Finally, there were three new songs presented by the special guest producers:

1. Galapagos by Penguins Project
You can find the English introduction at his blog.

2. The Socialist by ZANEEDS
Japanese title: “What if Kagamine Rin read Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’”?

3. Boring Bowling by SunzriverP
It’s a song about bowling, because Americans love bowling. No translation just yet.

My AX report is that instead of Day 4, I went to the beach. I recommend you do the same!
Photos (featuring several returning stars) can be found here or on the sidebar —>

I’ve left “doujin” untranslated for that 2ch feel, but of course they mean the Artists’ Alley. You are also missing out on some jokes because I can’t think of a translation for アメリカのおまえら.

Source: the News4VIP thread I went to an American Comic Market via hamster sokuhou

1: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:00:42.69 ID:9cXwo77C0

I don’t know if you could call it a Comic Market, more like an anime festival, but anyway there were doujin booths and industry booths.

3: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:02:26.65 ID:N8peOve80

Foreigners cosplay pretty openly, huh.

At Comic Market, you’re required to arrive in normal clothes and change on site, to avoid scaring normal people on the way there.

7: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:03:07.53 ID:9cXwo77C0

8: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:03:32.42 ID:S9I+C3lZ0

It’s so similar I’d believe you if you told me it was Japan.

22: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:07:46.01 ID:n/GQz7rH0

>>7
When I saw the pizza, I knew it was America.

27: Ninpochou [Lv=2,xxxPT]¹ 2011/05/31(火) 13:10:52.33 ID:0byQt2KO0

I’d like to know what’s different about the doujinshi over there.

35: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:14:11.70 ID:9cXwo77C0

>>27
People mainly sell posters.
I barely saw any doujin books, but somehow I got a Japanese Touhou doujin. There were some from Taiwan.

I don’t know what the Japanese book was. There was a dealer called Fairy Doujin selling doujin artbooks in Chinese that were good but very expensive. Hen Da Ne did not come to Fanime, so there was no Comiket content to be found.

32: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:13:01.97 ID:9cXwo77C0

There’s a lot of guys like Saizensen-kun in America too.

Saizensen-kun is the name of a famous sweaty photographer who was the subject of an old Internet meme.

47: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:17:22.65 ID:9cXwo77C0

The doujin area

Some little girls

I must have missed him.

57: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:19:13.38 ID:S9I+C3lZ0

>>47
The familiar sight of backpacks…
Wait, isn’t this just Japan!?

55: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:18:38.78 ID:viUDrtXA0

I laughed at the Vocaloid cosplay.
What are the popular manga and anime in America right now? I was under the impression they’d stopped showing Naruto and Dragonball.

58: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:19:44.69 ID:9cXwo77C0

>>57
It’s the same as you guys. They all like Madoka Magica and stuff.

62: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:20:41.95 ID:9cXwo77C0

By the way, all the Asians I saw seemed to be Chinese.

78: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:24:47.31 ID:mJZBDakd0

Does doujin art over there use American comics style?

84: Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:28:46.40 ID:9cXwo77C0

>>76
There was one with American-style Touhou.
But they weren’t selling doujin books, but posters for $15. And pins.

He means Miluda and Rabid Potato‘s booth. The pins are cool, but they were selling a book! You should go see them at AX!

123 Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:43:20.68 ID:G+wiPBwPP

This is the best part of your photo.

133 Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:48:55.84 ID:C+HWyze50

>>123
<Do you have a job?>

130 Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 13:47:16.62 ID:Hh8lsAH60

Has fujoshi culture made it over there?
Does Amazon list BL as a category over there?

The manga category on amazon.jp is actually named “Manga / Anime / BL”.

185 Anonymous 2011/05/31(火) 14:23:31.92 ID:9cXwo77C0

These are all the doujin I found…

The one on top is by kata. I think the rest are Chinese. I’m impressed he found that many… but how did he miss Potato Mill? Or Mill Potato.

I suddenly got bored translating. The highlights:
- Americans only do posters for art.
- Americans are really good at making costumes.
- American cameras are silent so it’s easier to take stealth photos.
- You can take pictures anywhere in America, but it’s forbidden in most parts of Japanese events.

As for myself I’ve never bought an artist print, because I have no idea what to do with it… they should really do more books. Well, plus all the artists outside the West Coast are just completely awful anyway.

As for Fanime, it was much better than Acen, but almost as programming-free. They had so many late panel changes that the schedule wasn’t printed until the second day, and Anime Hell disappeared this year. I spent most of it playing Twinkle Star Sprites and meeting Touhous.

The location and nearby food are really good, so convention recommended anyway.

1. I have no idea what his name means.

The FLOW concert (they did that one Eureka Seven OP) was delayed. Instead they put on SWEK, aka two old white guys on guitar and drums who seemed to be escapees from an 80s metal band and a woman wearing a nerd-joke shirt whose singing was even worse than the people at con karaoke. They butchered some assorted 2000s anisongs for an hour. I’m not sure the instrumentalists had ever heard the songs before. Was the “no cameras” rule meant to hide their copyright violation? Are they con staff? Who will solve this mystery?

Ex-internet forum moderator “Menacer” won a prize by completing the sentence “Where the hell is Jack…”. The prize was the Mecha Masters box set including the soundtrack to M.D. Geist II.

I mistook a Pokémon cosplayer for a Cyborg 009 cosplayer, which I found out when she complained that everyone she’d met that day had asked her if she was a Cyborg 009 cosplayer, and what was a Cyborg 009 anyway? I told her but I’m sure she forgot.

We went into a Vocaloid panel (there were two, for no reason, but of course one of them was full) where they spent the first half explaining “what is Vocaloid,” and then asked the audience “how did you get into Vocaloid”? If they can answer that, they didn’t need the explanation, right!?

The Madoka count was 4 Mami, 3 Homura, 2 Kyouko, 1 Sayaka, 1 Kyubey, 0 Madoka. Mami is the most American, I guess.

I had a really good steak. Half the group went to Alinea and never actually attended the convention.

Photos here.

Update: I happened to check the guest list for Fanime, the next weekend, and noticed both the X Japan guy and FLOW are also attending there, where you probably won’t have to hear any local con bands first.

1. One was a webcomic author retelling the plot to his comic, frame by frame, to an room about 1/10 full.

I decided at the last minute to go to Anime Boston after I realized I’d scheduled myself out of Otakon. Not having been there before, I had no idea if it was any good, but had heard positive things about it… probably from seeing Anime Hell on the schedule.

It actually turned out to be a little uneventful. Not as much as MomoCon, of course, since there were ~17,000 people, but I never really met anyone – all the attendees seemed to spend their time sitting in the hallways and not going to the same panels as me. The con organizers had decided that their con theme was “mad science”, which is something that doesn’t really exist in anime and is kind of hard to work with (AWA has since ditched con themes for similar reasons). Anime World Order, who were doing all the featured panels, gave it their best by playing important scientific anime Baoh and some villainous plots from Sailor Moon, but it didn’t quite work.

Some things which did actually happen:

I got there just in time to see the end of wah’s Shinbo panel, which consisted of him playing five different clips of Bakemonogatari and reading random translated jokes from his Uncyclopedia article, which nobody understood. It sounded pretty unfocused and his presentation skills aren’t really up there, but I guess that’s what you’d expect from a first-time panel. We stayed in his apartment for the weekend, and it was truly an otaku_room.

I went to one of Alex Leavitt‘s eight million panels, this one about pilgrimages to the sites of your favorite anime background paintings. He spent the first half talking about his attempt at the actual Shikoku pilgrimage, to the point where I thought he was just going to talk about that the entire time, but came back at the end and we all found out where the the anime pilgrimage wiki was.
(I just remembered that I went to see Emma’s house in London in 2006, but it’s a bit too late to write that one up now.)

Vertical’s Ed Chavez had a discussion people where he asked various Internet manga-knowing-about people questions about the state of manga and the industry. In keeping with the philosophy of this blog, he didn’t introduce any of them and you were just expected to know who all of them were. One of them was kransom, contributing his knowledge of “having actually been to Comic Market” and his skill at beating down evil. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten most of the panel content, but you can hear it all here!

We went into the Touhou panel long enough to take this picture and leave. Nobody seems to know what the audience for those things is supposed to be – this one started off by explaining that Touhou is a shooting game “like DoDonPachi”, which would just confuse anyone who didn’t know what it was, and then they just started playing one of the slower stages from PCB, which would just bore everyone else. They could just talk about pixiv memes the entire time, that’d be pretty good.

I tried to play Sonic 3 but got stuck in a pit. The game room, despite being in a huge badly lit garage-style room, is somehow still not as depressing as Otakon’s. I guess that’s something!

Photos here, although few survived review this time around.

First, I went to MomoCon, a free convention at Georgia Tech where nothing happened. Luckily, attending it involved walking about five minutes, so that wasn’t much of a loss. (although I did buy a shirt for some guy who hasn’t paid me back yet, oops)

They’re apparently getting a bit too popular, so this year they developed a (pretty much meaningless) attendance cap. This was implemented by having four different lines in two buildings all labeled “registration” so you had no idea where to go. Other changes included the room with some guy’s doujin game PC on a projector being replaced with a room where three guys played the Miku PSP game over TV link on a projector, and also the room where they played Photon Space Sailer [sic] Starlight Odin being replaced with this:

Now, the only episode I saw of Element Hunters was pretty dangerous, but that could use some work.
At least the future is in safe hands(?):

Some other dumb pictures here. I’ll try to write up Anime Boston before I forget it…

Update: I forgot I found a copy of eternal fighter zero for $5. I’ll probably never play it, I’d have to finish Melty Blood story mode first and that’ll never happen.

Of course, to start off this series of posts, I’m going to basically mess up my entire theme by starting with a professionally published book from 2007. I did, however, purchase this book at C77, and it’s the closest one to my laptop, so I’m going to start with the first volume of Manga Ronso Boppatsu (マンガ論争勃発, “Manga Debate Eruption”, alternatively “The Manga Criticism War Erupts!”), authored and edited by Kaoru Nagayama, author of Eromanga Studies　(East Press), and the journalist Takashi Hiruma.

Manga Ronso Boppatsu is a collection of nearly fifty short (2-6 page) articles on a variety of topics, most of which center around a single expert or critic’s thoughts on the topic at hand. The authors of the book state that the idea behind the book is to listen to various positions on each of these hot topics, such as the globalization of manga, creators’ rights, and the limiting of free expression in manga, so that constructive discussion can start taking place rather than the mindless, polarized shouting matches that’re all too easy to fall into when debating these issues.

I ended up getting this book (and its sequel) thanks to a tip from Vertical’s Ed Chavez, who sent me off in the direction of the far-left corner of the Big Sight’s East-3 hall, where I found a rather large table staffed by just one guy, who I assume was one of the authors of the book. The placement of their booth was a bit odd to me, as it was down in one of the doujinshi-selling halls (as opposed to the upstairs industry hall), but up against the wall where non-doujinshi products like markers and corn dogs are sold.

This was actually a rather appropriate place to stick these guys, as while their book is released by a professional publisher (Micro Magazine), the subjects covered in the volume either deal directly with doujinshi events like Comiket, or are extremely relevant to the ideals embodied by these events themselves: Spreading manga culture and providing a space where individuals can distribute works of free expression. I’m not just making this stuff up, either–the Comic Market Preparation Committee and the National Doujinshi Event Liaison Group are both prominently given credit for cooperation right next to the authors.

I mentioned that Manga Ronso Boppatsu is the closest book to my laptop, and there’s actually a reason for that; it’s basically the only thing I’ve been turning to as of late when I feel like educating myself on manga. While I’m still working through it, the articles I’ve read so far are all very informative and provide thoughtful views on whatever topic is at hand. Of course, there is a trade-off to gathering the breadth of experts that the book jams into a little over 200 pages, and that is that a relative lack of depth in any given article. However, the articles are all excellent primers on their respective topics given by some of the most respected individuals in their fields. Since it’d be nearly impossible to give my thoughts on each individual article, I’m simply going to spend the rest of this post below the cut translating each article’s title and the primary individual consulted or interviewed (when applicable), and strongly suggest the volume (available for purchase at Amazon and bk1.jp, among other places) to anyone with an interest in a mix of solid journalism and on-the-ground, current commentary on the state of manga and doujinshi.

Chapter 1: Manga is Spreading Across the World

The Current State of Manga Culture in Chinese-Speaking Regions¹ – Au Yeung Yu Leung, otaku researcher

The Deep, Broad Universe of Manga in Korea – Sun Jung-Woo, manga critic

Japanese Manga in Thailand – Nekoshima Rei, manga author

The State of the Medium and Regulation in the USA – Odagiri Hiroshi, American comic researcher

Why Anime and Manga are Popular in France – Etienne Barral, journalist

In Spain, Manga Represents Japan

Let’s Guide Foreign Fans to Japan – Okada Maki, Japanese Resident Ambassador to Denmark

Manga Was a Worldwide Niche Industry – Nakano Haruyuki, manga researcher

Unauthorized Translations of Manga and Anime Found Online

Asian Piracy

Get Your Politician Involved – Sakai Masayoshi, associate professor at Waseda University GITS

What’re METI’s Policies?

Chapter 2: Doujin Culture: Sustaining the Japanese Content Industry

Doujinshi / The Manga Authors from Comiket – Misaki Naoto, doujinshi researcher

The Charm of Doujinshi Events

Testing Out Dispatched Editorial Departments – Nakamura Kimihiko, member of the Comitia executive committee

Do All Manga Lovers Come to Comiket? – Fudetani Yoshiyuki, co-representative of Comic Market, editor

Chapter 3: Manga and Copyright

The 1999 Pokemon Doujinshi Crackdown Incident　- Sakata Fumihiko, Gataket representative

The “Doraemon – Final Episode” Doujinshi Incident

Is This a Black and White Situation? – Takekuma Kentaro, author, editor

The Meaning of Manga Plagiarism Verification Sites

Lessen the Scope of Copyright and Enforce it Strongly – Shirata Hideaki, assistant professor in the social sciences department of Hosei Univ.

Let Copyright Holders Decide – Matsumoto Leiji, manga author

Chapter 4: Expression’s Ground Zero

The Front Line of Censorship

From the Desk of a Professional Eromanga Editor – Shiyoama Yoshiaki, eromanga editor

Manga Authors’ Voices – Tamaki Nozomu, Yamada Sansuke, Hoshiai Hiro, manga authors

The Josei Crisis

Chapter 5: Obscenity and Harm

The “Harmful Books” Controversy

The Beginning of Doujinshi Censorship

The Day Otaku Moved Government – Nishikata Kouichi, former representative of the Manga Defense League

The Yokohama Conference and AMI – Dan Kanemitsu, translator

The Shobunkan Trial – Yamaguchi Takashi, lawyer

Higurashi / School Days / The Tokyo Trade Center

Chapter 6: The Current State of Censorship and Self-Censorship

Determining Harmfulness and Zoning　- Aoyama Ayako, section chief for youth affairs for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government

Self-Censorship and Divided Exhibition

What is CERO Inspection?

Chapter 7: Freedom and Censorship

What Was the Virtual-Ken? (The Investigative Committee on the Protection of Children from Harms Brought on by the Virtual Society) – Maeda Masahide, professor in the college of general education at Tokyo Metropolitan University

What is Radical Feminism? – Nakasatomi Hiroshi, associate professior in the administration and social sciences department of Fukushima University

Manga Does Not Induce Crime – Saito Tamaki, psychiatrist, critic

Do the Problems of Expression and Censorship Oppose Each Other? – Ito Go, manga critic

Are Symbols and Reality Connected? – Ueno Chizuko, profesesor in the graduate school of humanities and sociology at Tokyo University

Expression Must Not be Restricted by Law – Chiba Tetsuya, manga author

Chapter 8: The Mass Media and Manga Culture

Misunderstanding and Prejudice

Media Literacy and the General Public – Ootani Akihiro, journalist

Otaku and the Media

Chapter 9: Manga’s Freedom

Being Prepared to Risk Your Life Over Freedom of Expression – Satonaka Machiko, manga author

Leniency in Japanese Culture – Azuma Hiroki, critic, philosopher

The Future That the “Anything Goes” Ideal Holds – Ichikawa Kouichi, Yasuda Kahoru Comic Market co-representatives

1. the term “manga” in Japanese can be used to denote comics of any national origin, and while these articles are focused around Japanese comics, each country’s domestic works are also frequently discussed

I think that covers that.

Otakon’s panel department has been a little… unprepared for the last few years. One of Surat’s more extreme clip panels got shut down 15 minutes into its two hours, apparently because they can’t plan for anything in between “all-ages” and “18+”. And we ended up locked out of Mike Toole‘s old dubs panel because, although they’re apparently actually enforcing room space limits this year, they didn’t move any of the popular stuff out of too-small rooms first. It wasn’t really a huge problem – at least we actually got a chance to explore instead of sitting in a chair for a few more hours – but it looks kind of bad compared to other conventions I may or may not attend.

Also I got a poster signed by “Yamamoto☆Yutaka \(`-’)/”.

Fred Schodt had a good panel Sunday morning, about Astro Boy and Tezuka, featuring this photo of him attending a CFO meeting with a bunch of 70s proto-nerds:

Afterwards we finally managed to see Noboru Ishiguro; by then everyone had run out of questions, which he solved by taking 15 minutes each to answer three questions about LoGH. Afterwards he gave a speech about the Japanese government’s anime museum and how they should be funding studios instead; his new idea, “in case you know any Japanese government officials”, is for them to fund digitizing of old film masters, since a few early episodes of LoGH have already been lost in floods. He also gave away a pile of Reborn product samples at the end of the panel; one person somehow got an R2 rental DVD of Silent Service instead. (I hope the late fees on that one aren’t too bad.)

And then we left. Even though it was still as packed as last time, this year’s Otakon seemed really low key – there weren’t any HOT CON PARTIES and the dumb teenagers in the halls didn’t even remember to start yelling “Marco Polo” at each other until Sunday. And I actually know so many internet superstars now that meeting them all is becoming really hard, a #firstworldproblem if I’ve ever heard one. Still, it was a cool event for cool people.

Here’s some photos, presented in advanced Apache directory index format.

Facts about Yamakan:

• He is cool
• He composed the Haruhi dance in his apartment while standing on his bed
• He recommends Summer Wars by possibly-acclaimed director Mamoru Hosoda
• He doesn’t actually hate slightly-more-acclaimed director Akiyuki Shinbo
• He probably shouldn’t have made three dancing anime in a row
• “If I said I didn’t like any other directors, people would yell at me on the Internet again”

Highlights of his panels included an Asian guy, possibly from a mysterious land known as “#denpa”, dancing the Kannagi OP.

Facts about Kikuko Inoue:

• She was a fish in a previous life.
• She “knows this”.
• She spent half of her panel asking Hidenori Matsubara to let her be in the next Eva movie. (He offered to let her be Pen-Pen)
• People in the audience thought Maikaze and games were recorded differently from anime, but they weren’t.
• She can remember how to sing the Ah My Goddess opening, but not Cruel Angel’s Thesis. But she did her best!
• Only girls can join her 17-year-old club, because it’s more bittersweet.

Tomorrow I’m going to do something other than sitting in guest Q&A panels, I hope. Like sitting in Surat’s panels.

Events and sec at ab is kidna bimyou

The meaning of this is that despite the promises of excitement and fun made for the weekend, in reality it had bimyou-ish panels and events, and the “sec” was also bimyou.
I would venture that this entire gathering was a physical form of chu-mail: the hand flapping of a thousand aspies wearing their Sonichu medallions and courageous but awkwardly attempting to express their love for anime.
Let us be thankful that their failure was mostly contained within a single convention center and the hazukashii news did not reach the glorious nation of Japan.
So, it’s sort of understandable that no post was written here, on this blog, about the anime event he attended.
I wish to recommend you instead a blog made by a GNU/Linux doujin guy.
He went to Kinko’s and printed up 50 copies of the Ubunchu doujin!
If everyone in attendance did this, we would have kopibon at the convention and it would become a doujin fair.
My friends, if we want to return creativity to our great nation and ban the bomb, anything which makes America more like Japan must be accepted without question.
Let a thousand flowers bloom. Flowers of GNU/Linux.