Return to the Local Online Convention
May. 31st, 2021 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerIt’s a thin silver lining indeed (and one I know wouldn’t exist at all for those with shorter commutes or the determination to stay in a hotel), but for me there’s been a genuine handiness to “streaming video presentations as a reminder of the big fan conventions of healthier times.” When my area’s big anime convention Anime North scheduled a new streaming presentation (at least returning now to the weekend after the May long weekend that was its regular date), I could look through its schedule with an eye for even the late-night segments. Knowing davemerrill’s panels were the main attraction for me, I tried to find ones from other people that sounded interesting too.
I started off with “history I was too old for” through a three-presenter panel about some of the anime aired on YTV, a Canadian cable channel for kids (as distinct from the later Canadian cable channel for animation, which never seemed to show very much anime). Although I remember a web site constantly complaining about Canadian content regulations blocking the American cable channel with an anime block from crossing the border, YTV did have its own anime block for a few years, and I sampled a few series through it even if I was years past even a “teen” target demographic by then and able to afford DVDs. Later that evening I watched a presentation on animation from China, many examples of which I could recall from last year’s online convention (right down to the series, a bit less impressive than the excerpts from other shows, about the young Karl Marx). Having spent some recent weekends watching early animation from Japan, though, I took particular note this time around of the presentation beginning with an excerpt from Princess Iron Fan, a feature-length animation made under the strictures of the early Second World War in the Pacific and a few years before the earliest feature-length animation in Japan. With the more modern works, though, conscious of the warnings that have cropped up for years now predicting a mighty fall for the animation industry in Japan I kept grappling with uncertain thoughts about winding up with “something like anime” that might only look more like how the genuine article had than “anime-esque” shows springing to whatever extent from this side of the Pacific; in the end it just might be that one excerpt that looked a bit less “anime-esque” seemed a bit more interesting to me. The presentation just happened to conclude, though, with the World War II animation from Japan inspired by Princess Iron Fan. The late-night draw was another instalment of “Anime Hell,” including a great amount of footage that hadn’t been featured in the instalments I saw the year before (although only a certain amount of it was from Japan, which again could produce “yes, so what’s your point?” responses; I at least took particular note of some Japanese commercials playing off of nostalgia for Attack No. 1). Once more, anyway, it was all to bizarre and entertaining effect.
The next day I did check the schedule once more early in the afternoon, and realised that while I hadn’t set plans to watch it I could still tune into “Origami for Beginners.” Resorting to printer paper, I did manage to fold the first project of a simple box; when I tried to follow the second pass through instructions for folding a crane I went awry pretty fast and had to resort to folding a second box with a few more creases in it than the first. I did wind up remembering the crane-folding instructions included in Infocom’s ominous and weighty last-days-of-the-Cold-War adventure game Trinity and wondering if I’d find them any easier to follow now. After that, there was a fair break until a four-person remote panel on “gatekeeping in fandom.” Thoughts were provoked and grappled with for all that I might not share some of my “fannish opinions” as widely as others and I am conscious of the dangers of thinking “having to consider that other people might have a few more barriers in their way than me makes me the most oppressed person in the world!” I did manage to wrap up my own experience with a presentation on the anime of 1981. As with the “anime of 1980” presentation I saw last year, there was plenty of variety and series I hadn’t really been aware of before even among the super robots and beginnings of some franchises that would run for years with spreading effects; I was struck by how many things did get English dubs even if they might not be approved of by some anime fans at risk of becoming bad examples of “gatekeeping.” While the panel couldn’t have touched on this, I was also wondering whether 1981 was the year I started going over to the kids next door to watch “Battle of the Planets,” although that could have been later or even earlier. In any case, when I started watching Gatchaman on DVD many years later I realised how little I remembered of its skewed adaptation.
I don’t want to make too many predictions based on wishful thinking, but it at least seems possible Anime North will be held in person next year, which will be much more suitable for a good many other people. I’ve at least experienced a bit of that myself, and remembering part of the experience I did follow a few “vendor links” this year just to see what might be featured.
davemerrill’s panels were the main attraction for me, I tried to find ones from other people that sounded interesting too.I started off with “history I was too old for” through a three-presenter panel about some of the anime aired on YTV, a Canadian cable channel for kids (as distinct from the later Canadian cable channel for animation, which never seemed to show very much anime). Although I remember a web site constantly complaining about Canadian content regulations blocking the American cable channel with an anime block from crossing the border, YTV did have its own anime block for a few years, and I sampled a few series through it even if I was years past even a “teen” target demographic by then and able to afford DVDs. Later that evening I watched a presentation on animation from China, many examples of which I could recall from last year’s online convention (right down to the series, a bit less impressive than the excerpts from other shows, about the young Karl Marx). Having spent some recent weekends watching early animation from Japan, though, I took particular note this time around of the presentation beginning with an excerpt from Princess Iron Fan, a feature-length animation made under the strictures of the early Second World War in the Pacific and a few years before the earliest feature-length animation in Japan. With the more modern works, though, conscious of the warnings that have cropped up for years now predicting a mighty fall for the animation industry in Japan I kept grappling with uncertain thoughts about winding up with “something like anime” that might only look more like how the genuine article had than “anime-esque” shows springing to whatever extent from this side of the Pacific; in the end it just might be that one excerpt that looked a bit less “anime-esque” seemed a bit more interesting to me. The presentation just happened to conclude, though, with the World War II animation from Japan inspired by Princess Iron Fan. The late-night draw was another instalment of “Anime Hell,” including a great amount of footage that hadn’t been featured in the instalments I saw the year before (although only a certain amount of it was from Japan, which again could produce “yes, so what’s your point?” responses; I at least took particular note of some Japanese commercials playing off of nostalgia for Attack No. 1). Once more, anyway, it was all to bizarre and entertaining effect.
The next day I did check the schedule once more early in the afternoon, and realised that while I hadn’t set plans to watch it I could still tune into “Origami for Beginners.” Resorting to printer paper, I did manage to fold the first project of a simple box; when I tried to follow the second pass through instructions for folding a crane I went awry pretty fast and had to resort to folding a second box with a few more creases in it than the first. I did wind up remembering the crane-folding instructions included in Infocom’s ominous and weighty last-days-of-the-Cold-War adventure game Trinity and wondering if I’d find them any easier to follow now. After that, there was a fair break until a four-person remote panel on “gatekeeping in fandom.” Thoughts were provoked and grappled with for all that I might not share some of my “fannish opinions” as widely as others and I am conscious of the dangers of thinking “having to consider that other people might have a few more barriers in their way than me makes me the most oppressed person in the world!” I did manage to wrap up my own experience with a presentation on the anime of 1981. As with the “anime of 1980” presentation I saw last year, there was plenty of variety and series I hadn’t really been aware of before even among the super robots and beginnings of some franchises that would run for years with spreading effects; I was struck by how many things did get English dubs even if they might not be approved of by some anime fans at risk of becoming bad examples of “gatekeeping.” While the panel couldn’t have touched on this, I was also wondering whether 1981 was the year I started going over to the kids next door to watch “Battle of the Planets,” although that could have been later or even earlier. In any case, when I started watching Gatchaman on DVD many years later I realised how little I remembered of its skewed adaptation.
I don’t want to make too many predictions based on wishful thinking, but it at least seems possible Anime North will be held in person next year, which will be much more suitable for a good many other people. I’ve at least experienced a bit of that myself, and remembering part of the experience I did follow a few “vendor links” this year just to see what might be featured.