Anime Boston 2010

Anime Boston 2010 was the place to be over Easter Weekend. Like any attendee, I made my way from panel to panel while soaking in the sight of fans in elaborate costumes and the knowledge from esteemed panelists. My report is essentially a short journal of my experience at Anime Boston 2010.

Friday

After arriving at the Hynes Convention center, I found the badge pick-up to be a bit of a step back in comparison to last year. Rather than going to a spacious room where pre-registered patrons could almost instantly get their gear, crowds where shuffled through several ballrooms and between two lines just to end up at the same smallish line of booths. While at this point, getting my badge was relatively painless, I was left wondering what the point of pre-registering was (besides the price of course). Another issue that was endemic of Friday especially was the fact that none of the convention guides were up-to-date with proper time and room placement, leaving people to wander around scanning the guide placards looking for their intended destination. For the next two days, the convention guides were more or less correct.

My first photo of the day: it's a Liger and friends. Kudos to the fellow on the right for doing some Cave Story cosplay.

I decided to start things off right by attending "Craziest Mecha Moments" in order to get a little hot-blooded primer for the rest of con. Unfortunately, while the presenters had their hearts in the right place, I felt the panel was rather disjointed and severely hampered by the mixture of crisp DVD footage and ancient youtube clips. Not wanting to blow my ears out on low quality Gaogaigar antics, I made my way to "Doraemon: How a Little Gadget Cat Could Change the World." The focus of this panel was an introduction to the famous manga and anime character of Doraemon. If you talk to anyone in Japan, most of them will have fond memories of the little blue cat robot from the future and his amazing pouch filled with countless gadgets which he uses to bring his human companions on fantastic adventures. The main focus of the panel was examining how this pop-culture character who is very much a product of technology, personifies Japan's own view of the ubiquitous gadget which fill their lives. The panelist (dressed in a fetching Mari Makinami Illustrious outfit) explained that Doraemon exemplifies Japan's desire to use technology to help people as Doraemon himself provides companionship and help to those around him. The panel also touched on the idea of "soft power" through pop-culture. Doraemon himself has been named "anime ambassador" to the world and serves as Japan's friendly feline face for influencing future foreign Japan enthusiasts. After the panel concluded, I snapped a quick photo of the panelist and made my way to "Cataloging Your Collection."

This is the aforementioned host of the Doraemon panel.

"Cataloging Your Collection" was a panel run by the infamous podcasters known as the Anime World Order (AWO). I have met and produced podcasts with them before so it was great to put some faces with the voices I've heard so many times. The focus of their panel was showcasing many electronic methods of cataloging the vast number of DVDs, figures, and manga books many of us seem to accumulate over the years. I myself was virtually unaware that was even one piece of software for doing this, let alone the dozen or so programs they showed off, many of which used webcam and even UPC scanning to streamline data entry.

Speaking of digital data, watch out for the mysterious Missigno Pokemon.

From there we had lunch and checked out the dealers rooms. The air was abuzz with talk of neon colored wigs, mysterious doujins, and gaggles of Gunpla. Prices were mostly fair with one odd standout being a video game dealer who had a copy of Armored Core 1 for $65. Clarissa and Gerald from AWO found a few rather "interesting" doujins from one of the dealers. I appreciate the solid black plastic bags the seller used to dispense the doujin books, very classy.

A drafty dealer's room can't stop the fighting spirit of Ippo.

After our brief jaunt in the dealers room, we all headed over to another AWO hosted panel called "Play It Again, Sam: Anime Remakes." The subject of this panel was to talk about many of the recent remakes of older anime ranging from the highly faithful new Yatterman series to the dark, gritty re-imaging of Casshern into Casshern: Sins. They even delved into the recent trend of remaking the remakes for DVD with a comparison between the TV broadcast of the Area 88 series and the DVD release.

Danboard! He's an infamous character from the Yotsuba! manga and a damn fine Revoltech figure.

Up next was "Unusual Manga Genres" with Erin from the Ninja Consultants. It was through this humble panel that we journeyed through the maddeningly diverse scope of manga. For example, almost every sport that is mildly popular in Japan has at least one manga devoted to its intricacies. You've got manly golf manga from the master of real drama, Kazuo Koike, to more lighthearted shonen titles starring young girls who are passionate about curling. Even more bizarre is the existence of manga textbooks (sort of a dummy's guide but with more cute girls) and gripping political majong manga. I salute you, Papa Bush sama~.

A smiling martial artist with the true heart of warrior.

Saturday

Having rested very little, I went back to Anime Boston with slightly renewed strength. First up was "Black Jack, Tezuka's Dark Doctor," a panel all about one of Ozamu Tezuka's most beloved characters. Black Jack, the amazing mercenary doctor, has survived for over 30 years in the world of anime starting with Tezuka's original manga from 1973. AWO members Clarissa and Daryl broke down the various incarnations of the character as well as provided many clips of his finest moments. Very few characters can claim to have operated on themselves while being attacked by hungry dingos.

Setsuna F. Seiei and Tieria Erde or as I like to call them, Gundam & Trap.

What 'bout her star?

One of the esteemed mecha panelists.

After taking a quick lunch break where I enjoyed a good banana, I headed off to "All the Mecha You'll Ever Need 3: Beyond Thunder[Break]dome." This panel aimed at giving existing mecha fans and newcomers a brief look at the major franchises as well as some more obscure titles that deserve just as much respect. I appreciated panel leader Doug Wilder's heartfelt case for Aura Battler Dunbine. The show itself was sadly given a very poor release in America. At the end of the panel, attendees were invited to the "Attack Name Shouting!" contest in where they would string together random phrases in the most hot-blooded way possible. Finally, there was a rousing cry of ‘Sieg Zeon!’

OH MY GOD! It's Joseph Joestar!

Famed anime enthusiast, writer and webmaster of Anime Jump Mike Toole hosted his infamous "Dubs that Time Forgot" panel in an absolutely tiny room which was stuffed to the rafters with fans. There was hardly enough room to contain all the laughter as Mike Toole fired off a series of obscure and often painfully bad dubs ranging from stiff Aussie acting in Locke the Superman to the antics of smarmy robot horses with Beat-X. He even showed off a really obscure little caveman show called Kum Kum. The show was actually distributed by Paramount Pictures and was only show in Australia.

A large gathering of Touhou fans.

The largest, longest, and one of the most informative panels I attended was "Touhou Project." This panel was all about the long running series of Danmaku (bullet hell) styling shoot 'em ups with an introduction to the basic gameplay mechanics, setting and characters, and even a dissection of the game's incredible music. There's something about that crazy magical world filled with Youkai, witches, shrine maidens, vampires (and everything else) that seems to bring out the most earnest love from fans. I've always enjoyed a good shoot 'em up and Touhou games are top class. The intricate bullet patterns along with the music make for an almost spellbinding experience.

Suiseiseki desu!

For a more practical and poignant panel, I went to " Manga-Mania I -- Enter Panel-dome." Headed up by American Manga expert and industry insider Ed Chavez, this panel served as a round table discussion for various topics concerning the manga industry. Other guests on the panel included Mike Toole, Clarissa from AWO, Scott Green from Ain't It Cool News, and Erin the Ninja Consultant. The topics discussed included such pressing issues as declining manga sales, the problems of digital distribution, and the lack of more new hit Shoujo series. I'd like to thank the guest panelists for keeping everything palpable to the audience despite the overall dryness of the subject.

Vocaloids are a very well known anthropomorphization of various digital signer programs. They were also the most common costume seen at the convention. I swear there were dozens of Hatsune Mikus.

As the hours ticked by into the night, I headed off to "Recent Trends in Anthropomorphization, Hetalia to Wikipe-tan." The panel was hosted by both Ninja Consultants along with Hetalia support from the country of Sweden. Like with the character Doraemon, Japan is known for anthropomorphizing objects and concepts for various reasons. The hosts explained that much of it comes from the desire to keep a certain level of polite while still providing helpful information. A man lecturing on why you shouldn't put your pets in the clothes dryer might appear rude, but a cute illustration of an unhappy appliance spitting out kittens communicates the same message in a less overt manner. There was also discussion of some of the most recent personification-fests, such as Miracle Train: a show where Japanese train stations are now beautiful men and old stalwarts like the OS-tans.

Big guns abound with Black Rock Shooter and her companion.

Sunday

Sunday is where everything was rapidly winding down. Since this was actually Easter Sunday, it seemed like a lot of people were shuffling towards the exits. I really didn't attend any panels at all, save for brief stopovers while trying to kill time. At one point I walked around the artists’ alley and met one guy with a sweet VF-0S drawing. Check out his art, it's quite well done. The one panel I was looking forward to was "Japanese Vinyl: Kaiju as Art." Unfortunately, none of the panelists showed up and it was quietly canceled. I spent the rest of the time playing Street Fighter III in the gaming room. Before I left though, I took one last picture.

A battered cardboard Eva Unit 1 silently guards the information desk.

In the end I had a lot of fun at Anime Boston. Some may recall this is actually my second trip to this convention and I found this year to be equal to the last. I am very glad there is such a large convention relatively close to my hometown. Before I end this I just want to thank everyone involved in the convention and all the cosplayers who let me take their picture. If you are one of those people, please let me know and I'll send you the original file. I am the Veef, and this was Anime Boston 2010.

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