Spreading the word about your favorite convention

I was at the Atlanta airport on my way to a friend's wedding this weekend, and I stopped at a restaurant to get a salad.

After telling me about the salads, the girl at the counter said, "You are wearing Edward Elric on your shirt, so I'm going to give you one of these."   She handed me a glossy flier for Anime Weekend Atlanta.

She gave me my salad and dressing and said, "Well, if you're in Atlanta on September 17th-19th, be sure to come on out.  I'll be dressed in Lolita!"  She grinned hugely and went to help someone at the other counter.

The man at the bar next to us looked at me questioningly over his martini.

"It's a really frilly style of costume," I finally explained.

"I thought she meant like the book," the man said, looking relieved.  I decided not to go into the history and nuances and evolution of the word as it's been adapted in Japanese pop culture today.

He expressed interest in the flier, which I showed him.  He looked confused.  "What's this all about?"

"It's a convention for fans of anime and manga and Japanese pop culture," I explained.

"Oh, so you knew what she was talking about before I butted in?" he asked. 

I nodded, took my salad, and left, chalking his disorientation up to one martini too many.  Some people cope with travel anxiety in strange ways.

So, anyway, I hope the good folks of Atlanta have a wonderful convention!  If they're as enthusiastic about advertising it as that young lady was, I'm sure it'll be full of fun.

Do you have any con recommendations?

Fujoshi Rumi: What are those fangirls thinking?

Have you ever met a Hard-Core Yaoi Fangirl (HCYF) and been utterly baffled by what makes her tick (or tick you off)?  Fujoshi Rumi will not exactly explain the deeper psychological reasons for HCYF behavior, but it will give you some insight into exactly what HCYFs are thinking. 

Fujoshi Rumi is about a HCYF and the normal boy who gets a crush on her.  (Fujoshi is basically the term adopted by Japanese HCYFs.)  Trials and tribulations ensue as he tries to win the heart of a girl whose mind is busy trying to pair up the attractive young men around her so that they more closely match her inner, yaoi-fed fantasies.  It's pretty accurate from an outsider's perspective, and my HCYF friend told me it was embarrassingly accurate.

This manga kind of baffled me when it came out.  It was, hands down, one of the most consistently funny send-ups of otaku culture I've encountered, with just the right mix of embarrassing awkwardness and honesty.  It was highly educational and entertaining.  I liked it, but something was bothering me: I was having a hard time pinning down its intended audience.

The premise made me think it was part self-love letter for HCYFs and part education manual for those (males and females) who didn't understand what makes HCYFs tick. 

The art itself made me think it had to be aimed at guys. Though a lot of the plot is driven by perceived "yaoi" antics, the guys were decidedly sketchy.  You could tell that the art part of the show was all about the girls.  On occassion, the artist would do something nearly bishonen (usually during a particularly awkward moment easily interpretable as live shonen-ai), but the girls looked fabulous in every frame.  I decided it must be seinen. 

The thing is, the intended audience doesn't really matter here.  Anyone who is intrigued or even slightly interested and possibly also anyone just vaguely annoyed by HCYFs might really enjoy this story.  It lets you get into the heads of people you don't understand, to see life from other, very different points of view. 

Whether you still conclude that HCYFs are all particularly nutso or simply another form of "otaku," you'll learn (possibly more than you wanted to know) about how their minds work, and that can't be all bad, right?

Hayate no Gotoku (heheh, it's a pun)

I get a huge kick out of Hayate the Combat Butler.  Apparently a bigger kick than most, but I'm having such a good time, I don't care.  This show is having just as much, if not more, than I am, so we're a good match.

If you don't know, Hayate is the heartwarming story of a poor boy with loser parents who leave the country to flee their debts and, as a parting gift, sell their hard-working and responsible son's organs to the yakuza.  At his wit's end, Hayate considers kidnapping a young heiress he finds wandering around, but then he ends up saving her and getting hit by a car, and because she kind of misunderstood his kidnapping attempt as a confession of love and has a little crush on him, she hires him to be her butler and pays off his debt.

There are so many allusions to anime, manga, and video games that I really can't begin to describe them all.  Suffice it to say that there is an Evangelion reference so hilarious that I probably would have bought the first boxed set just so I could own that one episode.  Also, the opening episode's encounter with Santa is pretty much worth the price of admission.

I will admit that I really, really wanted some ADVid notes a la Excel Saga for this show because I know that I'm barely catching half of the references, and I know I'm missing almost all of the puns. I sort of wish it had a dub, so I could listen to it again while doing other stuff around the house, but I don't think I'd wish that ridiculously fast dialogue and all those jokes on any voice actors.  Plus, no one could do those intros better than Norio Wakamoto.

And it's still funny, possibly because it's moving so fast.  Manic is probably a good descriptor of the pacing most of the time.

Something about it all reminds me of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (The Power of Negative Thinking). (I mean, more than just the fact that the guy who created Hayate used to be an assistant to the guy who created Zetsubou-sensei, a fact which Zetsubou's cranky creator frequently makes pointed grumbled references to.)  They share a similar zany, moving-too-fast, incredibly wrong and funny, self-aware comic sensibility.  Or something.  You should see/read them both.  They are probably unrivaled in madcap (self)mockery.

I've seen mixed reviews for Hayate (mostly for the anime), and I'm curious about why people's mileage varies so much.  A lot of people dislike the value (no dub but the price per episode is too high).  I wonder if for others it's about expectations?  Difficulty keeping up?  Something else?  Do you have an opinion either way?

Economics for Otaku

I read a great quote from Jason Thompson in this article. 

"The easy availability of scanlations (online bootleg translations of manga) makes it even easier for hardcore fans to self-marginalize by removing any economic weight from their opinions."

Yep, especially in this economy, the fan dollar is the way to vote.  Cast your votes wisely!