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Anime Boston 2013: Shiny Youkai and SAO
The official theme of Anime Boston 2013 was Tales of Youkai. This meant they'd scheduled several panels that, based on the descriptions in the schedule, all pretty much looked the same: "Japan has lots of stories about youkai, and we're going to talk about them." I paraphrase, but not by a lot. Inasmuch as I went to a truly kickass panel last year on the subject, I knew the basics, and pretty much all the panels looked like they were covering just the basics. Not very interesting.
On the other hand, there were plenty of youkai cosplayers. And trolls, which maybe sorta count as youkai. Lots and lots of (Homestuck) trolls.
(No, seriously. Lots of youkai. These are, IIRC, from the video game series TOUHOU PROJECT.)
First panel I went to was on Japanese candy, i.e. So What Are All Those Sweet Things You See People Eating In Anime. The poor panelists ran into the problem of being a 10 AM panel on Friday, which is the first panel slot of the con – they had plenty of audience (because candy), but the electronics did not want to cooperate with them. The panelists were handing out candy, both as prizes for those who answered questions and as door prizes at the end, but one box of candy they gave to the con staff who got the electronics working again.
The Ranmas here answered more than their share of questions. Also their costumes are awesome.
Next up: to the Dealer's Room! The director and producer of SWORD ART ONLINE had come to Anime Boston, and were having their own autograph session and panel, but for those of us who didn't want to stand in line with no guarantee of getting an autograph, Aniplex was offering an additional autograph session. If you bought a special SAO wall scroll, you also got a ticket for the autograph session on Sunday, with the director, the producer, and the English voice actors for the two main characters. Naturally, this meant that as soon as the Dealer's Room opened, the Aniplex booth was mobbed.
(Unfortunately, this was also sort of a theme of the weekend. Crowd control varied from very well handled to, well, not. The increase in security at the Hynes, which meant that all bags had to be checked, didn't help. Fair props to the Hynes, though: they made sure to have plenty of officers there, the bag check was quick and as non-invasive as a bag check can be, and people coming in with bags of food from the food court were allowed in without any kind of check at all.)
Once my scroll was procured, Tanya and I attempted to go to a panel on Japanese fairy tales. Unfortunately, it was put into a tiny room, the room hadn't (yet?) cleared from the previous panel, and the line to get in was wrapped around the corner and halfway down the wall. So much for that plan. Time to wander and take more photos!
By happen chance, we ran into an SAO cosplayer gathering. I took full advantage - all the photos are over here, both for this and for everything else.
(Also we stopped in Artist's Alley, and fell in love with some beautiful art in the Art Show, to the point of signing up to bid for it. Unfortunately, we then went and mentioned this to one of the artists in question, who of course was there with her own booth, and the ensuing discussion about Minimum Bid Vs. Buy It Now sent her running over to the Art Show for clarification. :wince: All was well, it just hadn't been very clear.)
(We went back Saturday. Someone had gone for the Buy It Now option on Piece #1, and we'd been outbid by two people on Piece #2, so we went for the Buy It Now option on Piece #3, before going back to the artist of Piece #1, who had another copy of the piece in question and was willing to sell it to us for the same Buy It Now price. End result is ALL THE PRETTY BELONGS TO US.)
In any case! We went to Dubs That Time Forgot, because that's always reliably good, and then went over and settled into line for the AMVs. I ran and got dinner for Tanya and myself, and we had just enough time to eat before they flattened the line up against the wall, and then started sending us in.
The traffic back was terrible. I discovered way when I got closer to the doors why the hold-up - and I confess, I joined in, because those costumes were worth it.
The AMVs were mostly excellent (follow the link to see for yourself). I will admit to feeling rather smug, because the sole category where I didn't vote for the winner, my vote went to the eventual Best In Show. The one exception was the last entry in the Comedy category, which was trying to be…well, I'm not sure what it was trying to be, but the result was something with not enough set-up and a punchline that kept going endlessly, without managing to move beyond 'oh for fuck's sake' into 'okay, this is funny.'
Saturday morning we headed out slightly later: there were a couple possible panels we wanted to check out at 10. Unfortunately, like a lot of conventions, Saturday is the Big Day. Friday had been somewhat crowded, but liveable: Saturday was frankly ridiculous. It was nearly impossible to walk at a normal pace through the main hall of the Hynes, or the hallways just outside the Hynes mall entrance either. Tanya and I grabbed breakfast and dove into the line.
First panel Saturday was 'Beyond Bleeps And Boops,' about both video game music that doesn't just sound like Super Mario Brothers or Pac-Man, and what various artists are doing with samples from classic video games. As you might guess from me talking about 'samples,' this meant that multiple of his examples were hip-hop artists, which left me 'meh.' Tanya had gone to this panel the previous year: she said it was different, but not very, and she was actually less impressed this time. On the other hand, it's impossible to hate a panel that plays A History Of The Soviet Union From The Eyes Of A Humble Worker (To The Melody Of TETRIS), which is one of the most addictive songs I know.
We found this Grimmjow from BLEACH outside the panel. There were still the usual Bleach and Naruto cosplayers, here and there: it's just that they aren't the default any more.
From that panel, we tried for another theme panel: 'Return To Youkai Nation.' The sole panelist was Charles Dunbar, who has a Master's in Anthropology (which is a good sign), knows his way around a good Powerpoint presentation (an even better sign), and can tell one hell of a story (the best sign of all). The idea behind the panel was not simply some generic introduction to youkai 101, or even 201: it was looking at the history of what stories were told about youkai, when, and why. Modern youkai stories are an integral part of Japan's identity as a nation, according to Dunbar, one of the ways in which they define themselves, as opposed to 'this is how the Chinese see us' or 'this is how the Americans see us.' It's a fascination with the unknown, the mysterious, the terrifying.
Seriously terrifying. Dunbar told a story about the time he and a (grown, male, American) friend decided to try out one particular bit of Japanese folklore, whereby you take a teddy bear, rip out all its stuffing, and replace it with rice, hair, and fingernail clippings before sewing it up again. Then you stand over it and say, Let's play hide-and-seek! I'll be it first! And you go off, and count, and come back to the teddy bear, which of course hasn't gone anywhere. Found you! Now it's your turn. I'll go hide, and you count to ten!
Off they went, and hid in a closet. Now, two things of note: first, the friend had a Rottweiler – big dog. After the two humans had been hiding for maybe five minutes, they heard the Rottie barking, big impressive GO AWAY barks. Then the barks suddenly turned into a terrified whimper, and the Rottie took off running, through the screen door and outside the house. At which point, the men hiding realized the second thing of note, namely that they had forgotten to grab the traditional method to end the game, a handful of salt to throw on the teddy bear before burning it.
They hid in that closet for six hours (Dunbar said), before his friend's brother, who was not at all imaginative or superstitious, came home and burned the teddy bear for them. And to this day, the Rottweiler refuses to come back in the house, even during the worst snow-storms.
Dunbar was running another panel in that same room immediately after. But Tanya and I had something else we wanted to do, so we headed out. I was glad we had: the line for that next panel, like the line for the fairytales panel the day before, had wrapped around the corner and extended most of the way down the hall.
Tanya and I were actually heading for a different line. SWORD ART ONLINE was supposed to have the premiere of the first two episodes, dubbed, with Q and A for the director and the producer, and possible give-aways of SAO goodies from Japan. People had already started lining up two hours before the event. This did not go over well with security. First they shooed us away on grounds that there was another panel in the room before the SAO premiere. Okay, fair enough. Except then those people lined up, and went in, and the doors were open so we could see it wasn't exactly crowded. So people started to line up again…and Security shooed them away again.
It was a mess. Security would yell at people to get out of line, so they would disperse into a vast cloud that was taking up most of the hallway. So Security would yell at them to get moving, which would work for maybe five or ten minutes, and then people would start forming a line again. Tanya, who was tired and achy enough to have gotten out her cane, gave up fairly quickly: she sat down, and firmly informed the lady who was stuck wrangling Security for this panel that she was Not Moving, her knee would give out if she had to pace the halls for another hour and a half. There may perhaps have been cane-shaking. Security Lady blinked down at her, then agreed to let her stay there with her (two) companions, me and our friend Matt, who'd come to keep us company. The drawback, of course, was that for the next hour, we got to keep saying, no really, there is no line, the line is a lie, come back at 4:15 - and then, when Security Lady got utterly pissed at the fact that people would not listen to her, and kept trying to line up anyway, come back at 4:30.
While stalling, I ran across these cosplayers. I loved PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA, but I actually somehow hadn't made the connection between the various Mami cosplayers (who seemed to be the most common) and Madoka. This group, I recognized, and took a photo.
Finally they did open the doors. The first hundred or so in got raffle tickets for the prizes, the SAO goodies I already mentioned. Tanya, Matt and I wound up with seats in the second row, which hadn't been Tanya's intention when she got cranky, but we weren't going to turn it down. The Aniplex Powers That Be did a certain amount of teasing the fans – making an official announcement that the dub version of SAO will be airing on Toonami, for example, and showing a video of the dub actors for the two main characters greeting us.
(The latter also included a joking-but-not summary of the first part of SAO:
KIRITO – We're trapped here! There's no way to log out of the game!
ASUNA – You mean if we die in the game, we die in real life?!
KIRITO – Yes! We must become stronger!
ASUNA- Kirito!
KIRITO- Asuna!
ASUNA- Kirito!
KIRITO – Asuna!
BOTH TOGETHER – Let's get married and buy a house together!
Beat, while the actors look at each other, then away, all awkward, and the audience cracks up, because this is actually kind of accurate.)
Then they played the first two episodes with the English dub. I will freely admit that I am a sub fan through-and-through, but I will also say that the dub, based on those two episodes, does not suck. How much of this is because I am a fangirl watching a version, any version, of one of her favorite shows, and how much of this is because the show genuinely meets my (fairly high) standards of Dubs That Do Not Suck (good translation and good script, good casting, good acting), is sadly impossible to tell at this point. Check back next year, when the DVDs are out and I've had the chance to watch more than just two episodes.
I did not win any of the giveaways – sadface, as two of them were SAO posters that were signed by the author of the original light novel on which the anime was based, the director of the anime, the producer of the anime, and the singer of the opening theme. Nor did I stand up to ask any questions of the director and the producer, because I couldn't think of anything besides really obvious questions which were asked by the first few people up, and I am well past the age where I am willing to be That Fan. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway.
The original plan had been to go to at least one more panel that night. In practice, it didn't happen. Instead, Tanya and I went back to the hotel and crashed. I'm not sure if it's that we're old, or that the con was really that exhausting. Possibly both.
Sunday, the idea was to hit the Dealer's Room one last time. I'd stand in line for the wall scroll signing, and Tanya would look for any last-minute deals. This time, the line was all organized and taped into order, without the mob rule of getting the scrolls in the first place, and security firmly reminded us that we were only allowed to take photos while in the line, no photos with the celebrities. Given they were trying to get 200 of us through the line in 90 minutes, this didn't sound unreasonable.
Kirito #1 (in the center) realized that Kirito #2 (on the right) was doing bunny ears just a little too late. #1 looked over at #2 resignedly, and said, "This is why Kirito fights alone." ...this is a lot funnier if you've seen the series, I suspect.
I got out around noon, and discovered a text that no really, we were leaving now now now. (Well, first it was a 'um, the car is kinda full, can you catch the T home,' which was unfortunately a problem on account of Tanya's T pass was packed in one of the bags that was now in the car. So we got to help rearrange the car so it could fit everything and us.) We headed back home, with a brief stop for delicious food at a Japanese steakhouse (of course), and then we crashed hardcore, because dear lord we were tired.
The rest of my photos - which include photos of Rise of the Guardians, Mario Brothers, Ultraman, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Brave, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Kuroko no Basuke, PsychoPass, The Hobbit, Detective Conan, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Legend of Zelda, Doctor Who, Fraggle Rock, How to Train Your Dragon, Touhou Project, Fushigi Yuugi, Iron Man, Disney Princesses, Trigun, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and of course Sword Art Online - are all here, for those interested. More to be added later, as Tanya took excellent photos, including an even better SAO group, and an amazing Tooth Fairy (from Rise of the Guardians, which was totally the unexpected cosplay hit of the con).
On the other hand, there were plenty of youkai cosplayers. And trolls, which maybe sorta count as youkai. Lots and lots of (Homestuck) trolls.
(No, seriously. Lots of youkai. These are, IIRC, from the video game series TOUHOU PROJECT.)
First panel I went to was on Japanese candy, i.e. So What Are All Those Sweet Things You See People Eating In Anime. The poor panelists ran into the problem of being a 10 AM panel on Friday, which is the first panel slot of the con – they had plenty of audience (because candy), but the electronics did not want to cooperate with them. The panelists were handing out candy, both as prizes for those who answered questions and as door prizes at the end, but one box of candy they gave to the con staff who got the electronics working again.
The Ranmas here answered more than their share of questions. Also their costumes are awesome.
Next up: to the Dealer's Room! The director and producer of SWORD ART ONLINE had come to Anime Boston, and were having their own autograph session and panel, but for those of us who didn't want to stand in line with no guarantee of getting an autograph, Aniplex was offering an additional autograph session. If you bought a special SAO wall scroll, you also got a ticket for the autograph session on Sunday, with the director, the producer, and the English voice actors for the two main characters. Naturally, this meant that as soon as the Dealer's Room opened, the Aniplex booth was mobbed.
(Unfortunately, this was also sort of a theme of the weekend. Crowd control varied from very well handled to, well, not. The increase in security at the Hynes, which meant that all bags had to be checked, didn't help. Fair props to the Hynes, though: they made sure to have plenty of officers there, the bag check was quick and as non-invasive as a bag check can be, and people coming in with bags of food from the food court were allowed in without any kind of check at all.)
Once my scroll was procured, Tanya and I attempted to go to a panel on Japanese fairy tales. Unfortunately, it was put into a tiny room, the room hadn't (yet?) cleared from the previous panel, and the line to get in was wrapped around the corner and halfway down the wall. So much for that plan. Time to wander and take more photos!
By happen chance, we ran into an SAO cosplayer gathering. I took full advantage - all the photos are over here, both for this and for everything else.
(Also we stopped in Artist's Alley, and fell in love with some beautiful art in the Art Show, to the point of signing up to bid for it. Unfortunately, we then went and mentioned this to one of the artists in question, who of course was there with her own booth, and the ensuing discussion about Minimum Bid Vs. Buy It Now sent her running over to the Art Show for clarification. :wince: All was well, it just hadn't been very clear.)
(We went back Saturday. Someone had gone for the Buy It Now option on Piece #1, and we'd been outbid by two people on Piece #2, so we went for the Buy It Now option on Piece #3, before going back to the artist of Piece #1, who had another copy of the piece in question and was willing to sell it to us for the same Buy It Now price. End result is ALL THE PRETTY BELONGS TO US.)
In any case! We went to Dubs That Time Forgot, because that's always reliably good, and then went over and settled into line for the AMVs. I ran and got dinner for Tanya and myself, and we had just enough time to eat before they flattened the line up against the wall, and then started sending us in.
The traffic back was terrible. I discovered way when I got closer to the doors why the hold-up - and I confess, I joined in, because those costumes were worth it.
The AMVs were mostly excellent (follow the link to see for yourself). I will admit to feeling rather smug, because the sole category where I didn't vote for the winner, my vote went to the eventual Best In Show. The one exception was the last entry in the Comedy category, which was trying to be…well, I'm not sure what it was trying to be, but the result was something with not enough set-up and a punchline that kept going endlessly, without managing to move beyond 'oh for fuck's sake' into 'okay, this is funny.'
Saturday morning we headed out slightly later: there were a couple possible panels we wanted to check out at 10. Unfortunately, like a lot of conventions, Saturday is the Big Day. Friday had been somewhat crowded, but liveable: Saturday was frankly ridiculous. It was nearly impossible to walk at a normal pace through the main hall of the Hynes, or the hallways just outside the Hynes mall entrance either. Tanya and I grabbed breakfast and dove into the line.
First panel Saturday was 'Beyond Bleeps And Boops,' about both video game music that doesn't just sound like Super Mario Brothers or Pac-Man, and what various artists are doing with samples from classic video games. As you might guess from me talking about 'samples,' this meant that multiple of his examples were hip-hop artists, which left me 'meh.' Tanya had gone to this panel the previous year: she said it was different, but not very, and she was actually less impressed this time. On the other hand, it's impossible to hate a panel that plays A History Of The Soviet Union From The Eyes Of A Humble Worker (To The Melody Of TETRIS), which is one of the most addictive songs I know.
We found this Grimmjow from BLEACH outside the panel. There were still the usual Bleach and Naruto cosplayers, here and there: it's just that they aren't the default any more.
From that panel, we tried for another theme panel: 'Return To Youkai Nation.' The sole panelist was Charles Dunbar, who has a Master's in Anthropology (which is a good sign), knows his way around a good Powerpoint presentation (an even better sign), and can tell one hell of a story (the best sign of all). The idea behind the panel was not simply some generic introduction to youkai 101, or even 201: it was looking at the history of what stories were told about youkai, when, and why. Modern youkai stories are an integral part of Japan's identity as a nation, according to Dunbar, one of the ways in which they define themselves, as opposed to 'this is how the Chinese see us' or 'this is how the Americans see us.' It's a fascination with the unknown, the mysterious, the terrifying.
Seriously terrifying. Dunbar told a story about the time he and a (grown, male, American) friend decided to try out one particular bit of Japanese folklore, whereby you take a teddy bear, rip out all its stuffing, and replace it with rice, hair, and fingernail clippings before sewing it up again. Then you stand over it and say, Let's play hide-and-seek! I'll be it first! And you go off, and count, and come back to the teddy bear, which of course hasn't gone anywhere. Found you! Now it's your turn. I'll go hide, and you count to ten!
Off they went, and hid in a closet. Now, two things of note: first, the friend had a Rottweiler – big dog. After the two humans had been hiding for maybe five minutes, they heard the Rottie barking, big impressive GO AWAY barks. Then the barks suddenly turned into a terrified whimper, and the Rottie took off running, through the screen door and outside the house. At which point, the men hiding realized the second thing of note, namely that they had forgotten to grab the traditional method to end the game, a handful of salt to throw on the teddy bear before burning it.
They hid in that closet for six hours (Dunbar said), before his friend's brother, who was not at all imaginative or superstitious, came home and burned the teddy bear for them. And to this day, the Rottweiler refuses to come back in the house, even during the worst snow-storms.
Dunbar was running another panel in that same room immediately after. But Tanya and I had something else we wanted to do, so we headed out. I was glad we had: the line for that next panel, like the line for the fairytales panel the day before, had wrapped around the corner and extended most of the way down the hall.
Tanya and I were actually heading for a different line. SWORD ART ONLINE was supposed to have the premiere of the first two episodes, dubbed, with Q and A for the director and the producer, and possible give-aways of SAO goodies from Japan. People had already started lining up two hours before the event. This did not go over well with security. First they shooed us away on grounds that there was another panel in the room before the SAO premiere. Okay, fair enough. Except then those people lined up, and went in, and the doors were open so we could see it wasn't exactly crowded. So people started to line up again…and Security shooed them away again.
It was a mess. Security would yell at people to get out of line, so they would disperse into a vast cloud that was taking up most of the hallway. So Security would yell at them to get moving, which would work for maybe five or ten minutes, and then people would start forming a line again. Tanya, who was tired and achy enough to have gotten out her cane, gave up fairly quickly: she sat down, and firmly informed the lady who was stuck wrangling Security for this panel that she was Not Moving, her knee would give out if she had to pace the halls for another hour and a half. There may perhaps have been cane-shaking. Security Lady blinked down at her, then agreed to let her stay there with her (two) companions, me and our friend Matt, who'd come to keep us company. The drawback, of course, was that for the next hour, we got to keep saying, no really, there is no line, the line is a lie, come back at 4:15 - and then, when Security Lady got utterly pissed at the fact that people would not listen to her, and kept trying to line up anyway, come back at 4:30.
While stalling, I ran across these cosplayers. I loved PUELLA MAGI MADOKA MAGICA, but I actually somehow hadn't made the connection between the various Mami cosplayers (who seemed to be the most common) and Madoka. This group, I recognized, and took a photo.
Finally they did open the doors. The first hundred or so in got raffle tickets for the prizes, the SAO goodies I already mentioned. Tanya, Matt and I wound up with seats in the second row, which hadn't been Tanya's intention when she got cranky, but we weren't going to turn it down. The Aniplex Powers That Be did a certain amount of teasing the fans – making an official announcement that the dub version of SAO will be airing on Toonami, for example, and showing a video of the dub actors for the two main characters greeting us.
(The latter also included a joking-but-not summary of the first part of SAO:
KIRITO – We're trapped here! There's no way to log out of the game!
ASUNA – You mean if we die in the game, we die in real life?!
KIRITO – Yes! We must become stronger!
ASUNA- Kirito!
KIRITO- Asuna!
ASUNA- Kirito!
KIRITO – Asuna!
BOTH TOGETHER – Let's get married and buy a house together!
Beat, while the actors look at each other, then away, all awkward, and the audience cracks up, because this is actually kind of accurate.)
Then they played the first two episodes with the English dub. I will freely admit that I am a sub fan through-and-through, but I will also say that the dub, based on those two episodes, does not suck. How much of this is because I am a fangirl watching a version, any version, of one of her favorite shows, and how much of this is because the show genuinely meets my (fairly high) standards of Dubs That Do Not Suck (good translation and good script, good casting, good acting), is sadly impossible to tell at this point. Check back next year, when the DVDs are out and I've had the chance to watch more than just two episodes.
I did not win any of the giveaways – sadface, as two of them were SAO posters that were signed by the author of the original light novel on which the anime was based, the director of the anime, the producer of the anime, and the singer of the opening theme. Nor did I stand up to ask any questions of the director and the producer, because I couldn't think of anything besides really obvious questions which were asked by the first few people up, and I am well past the age where I am willing to be That Fan. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway.
The original plan had been to go to at least one more panel that night. In practice, it didn't happen. Instead, Tanya and I went back to the hotel and crashed. I'm not sure if it's that we're old, or that the con was really that exhausting. Possibly both.
Sunday, the idea was to hit the Dealer's Room one last time. I'd stand in line for the wall scroll signing, and Tanya would look for any last-minute deals. This time, the line was all organized and taped into order, without the mob rule of getting the scrolls in the first place, and security firmly reminded us that we were only allowed to take photos while in the line, no photos with the celebrities. Given they were trying to get 200 of us through the line in 90 minutes, this didn't sound unreasonable.
Kirito #1 (in the center) realized that Kirito #2 (on the right) was doing bunny ears just a little too late. #1 looked over at #2 resignedly, and said, "This is why Kirito fights alone." ...this is a lot funnier if you've seen the series, I suspect.
I got out around noon, and discovered a text that no really, we were leaving now now now. (Well, first it was a 'um, the car is kinda full, can you catch the T home,' which was unfortunately a problem on account of Tanya's T pass was packed in one of the bags that was now in the car. So we got to help rearrange the car so it could fit everything and us.) We headed back home, with a brief stop for delicious food at a Japanese steakhouse (of course), and then we crashed hardcore, because dear lord we were tired.
The rest of my photos - which include photos of Rise of the Guardians, Mario Brothers, Ultraman, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Brave, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Kuroko no Basuke, PsychoPass, The Hobbit, Detective Conan, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Legend of Zelda, Doctor Who, Fraggle Rock, How to Train Your Dragon, Touhou Project, Fushigi Yuugi, Iron Man, Disney Princesses, Trigun, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and of course Sword Art Online - are all here, for those interested. More to be added later, as Tanya took excellent photos, including an even better SAO group, and an amazing Tooth Fairy (from Rise of the Guardians, which was totally the unexpected cosplay hit of the con).