Anime Lockdown Once More, Weekend One
Sep. 7th, 2025 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerHeading back to the big anime convention in my area this spring did seem to carry a certain weight of “I can’t take many more steps back towards the way I’d once taken things.” (So far as “crowded spaces are unhealthy!” goes, going on a cruise for two weeks did seem to have had more of even a temporary effect on me this year than being in a convention centre for several hours.) With that acknowledged, though, it got my attention when I happened to be in the right (online) space at the right time to see “Anime Lockdown” would be setting up a new streaming presentation, that much further on from the moment when crowded spaces had been very unhealthy and it had first been improvised. A lot of the panels scheduled did look interesting, so I decided to tune in. I’d be able to see quite a bit more of them than at the in-person convention, where I’d been unwilling to go to the extra expense of “staying in the area of over the weekend.” Too, panels interest me in a way that I have to admit “taking in the cosplay” or even “checking out the dealers (but not buying anything)” didn’t as compared to others. The follow-up announcement the person handling the stream had to be out on Sunday and would move the second day of panels to a second weekend did spread things out a bit and point out things had changed and changed again for everyone.
Things started off a bit slow for me with a panel springboarding off some of the Lupin the Third specials (none of which I’ve seen) to discuss moments in history (which I have to admit to already being familiar with). A panel on “lost continents” and other mysticism in anime had me thinking that while the topic seems to work for me in anime itself my skeptical inclinations kick in when “real life” starts to get involved. Anyway, the presenter had to hurry through his final slides, which included DAN DA DAN, a series I’ve been watching new episodes of this season.
The next panel, though, had my interest pick up with a presentation on the subtleties of translation. All in all, even if I started in the “bad old days” of renamed characters passed off as “from around here” I’ll admit to preferring subtitles that read in a lively way over stilted “scanlations.” I suppose I did get to thinking again how one very obscure series I just happened to see in my personal origin time a full four decades ago now (which might have run cover for Robotech in its “localization” also not insisting through dialogue nobody ever died in this cartoon) hasn’t been fully “fansubbed,” and wondering about the glimmering insanity (and cost) of “commissioning a translation for an audience of one...”
As much as I wondered about feeling wearied by lamentations about and harsh judgements of recent mecha anime, I took a chance on a panel promising to offer introductions to the wide-ranging genre. The recommendations did happen to include one recent series I actually had a negative reaction to (which involved “the characters, not the robots,” something akin to the comment raising frequent ire among mecha fans), but otherwise I was able to find interest in the panel. I was also interested in a presentation on a promised-for-decades sequel to The Wings of Honneamise, even if I couldn’t see all of it at the time.
It turned out that one panel that hadn’t got my interest fell through and had to be replaced by one on Gundam model kits, which did get my interest. Amid the history of the kits, though, I did remember that while I built a second model after the first one I put together, I have two more boxes waiting for me to find the time to open them, even after collecting a few more modelling supplies. I then stayed up for the late show, “Anime History For Total Sickos.” I had wondered about it amounting to the stranger moments Samantha Ferreira has researched, but it was more of a general “anime industry over here” presentation, if with a weird edge to that presentation. It was still a decent history even so. While I did ponder a comment about the number of people who’d been in on the stream as compared to the throngs at an in-person convention, I am looking forward to more of the panels scheduled for next weekend.
Things started off a bit slow for me with a panel springboarding off some of the Lupin the Third specials (none of which I’ve seen) to discuss moments in history (which I have to admit to already being familiar with). A panel on “lost continents” and other mysticism in anime had me thinking that while the topic seems to work for me in anime itself my skeptical inclinations kick in when “real life” starts to get involved. Anyway, the presenter had to hurry through his final slides, which included DAN DA DAN, a series I’ve been watching new episodes of this season.
The next panel, though, had my interest pick up with a presentation on the subtleties of translation. All in all, even if I started in the “bad old days” of renamed characters passed off as “from around here” I’ll admit to preferring subtitles that read in a lively way over stilted “scanlations.” I suppose I did get to thinking again how one very obscure series I just happened to see in my personal origin time a full four decades ago now (which might have run cover for Robotech in its “localization” also not insisting through dialogue nobody ever died in this cartoon) hasn’t been fully “fansubbed,” and wondering about the glimmering insanity (and cost) of “commissioning a translation for an audience of one...”
As much as I wondered about feeling wearied by lamentations about and harsh judgements of recent mecha anime, I took a chance on a panel promising to offer introductions to the wide-ranging genre. The recommendations did happen to include one recent series I actually had a negative reaction to (which involved “the characters, not the robots,” something akin to the comment raising frequent ire among mecha fans), but otherwise I was able to find interest in the panel. I was also interested in a presentation on a promised-for-decades sequel to The Wings of Honneamise, even if I couldn’t see all of it at the time.
It turned out that one panel that hadn’t got my interest fell through and had to be replaced by one on Gundam model kits, which did get my interest. Amid the history of the kits, though, I did remember that while I built a second model after the first one I put together, I have two more boxes waiting for me to find the time to open them, even after collecting a few more modelling supplies. I then stayed up for the late show, “Anime History For Total Sickos.” I had wondered about it amounting to the stranger moments Samantha Ferreira has researched, but it was more of a general “anime industry over here” presentation, if with a weird edge to that presentation. It was still a decent history even so. While I did ponder a comment about the number of people who’d been in on the stream as compared to the throngs at an in-person convention, I am looking forward to more of the panels scheduled for next weekend.