It would be cool if we had a room, or a period of time in a room for 'Intelligent/Hard to understand' anime, with some discussion period after certain episodes.

Of course I'm thinking of some old standards like Eva, Lain, and GITS. Also maybe some lesser known stuff like Gasaraki.

What the F*** is hard to understand about Ghost in the Shell?

ya ghost in the shell is pretty self explanitory

Meh I don't particuarly like the idea because I feel that explaining the story makes the anime lose some of it's mystery. I mean sure if you don't get something after a couple of episodes you keep watching and things tend to pull together later on.

Yeah, its supposed to be a personal experience. What you take from it might not be what someone else takes from it.

The second GiTS movie could use some explanation. Or at least someone could do research on all the quotes and see if there was any deeper meaning there.

Anyways, a discussion doesn't have to ruin it for people, it can bring out subtle nuances and maybe expose people to something they would normally be intimidated by.

Or you're taking anime too seriously? Just watch it and enjoy maybe if you pre-register you can have the option of holding a panel on it but otherwise I don't see a reason to have a room dedicated to it.

Well, you can rest assured that we will have at least SOME intelligent stuff!

Actually, I will say right here that we promise you will see something you have never seen before in our video rooms. And I'm not just talking about the newest dating sim anime or some ruin explorer something or another that you overlooked because you knew it would suck.
I'm talking a combination of the cutting edge anime that the word "redefining" is typically attached to, older classic staples of anime, pioneering works that never made it to America, early Oshii art-films, and then to make it interesting throw in a mix of newer shojo romances, high paced action shows, slapstick comedies, older bloody bloodfilled bloodbaths from back when anime was like that, classics of American fandom, CLAMP, Gainax, Perrot, 4°C, Gonzo, Madhouse, IG, and who could forget JVC!

Also, we'll be having a room dedicated to playing the Dubs that should never have been recorded, and the anime that should never have been made!

And, we will be the first con to have a Documentary room. That's right, we will find every makeing of, every documentary, and a whole lot of coold behind the scenes DVD extras to give you a place to learn more about your favorite shows, fassions, fans, and to see what goes into making the art you love so much.

Yeah, we are going to rule!

Meh, I sure hope so. What about live action programming? Man if anything you shoulda use the documentary just as a panel but whatver. Who is the con chairman and why isn't he announcing these things first?

I'm the headman, and I was announcing it... on my brothers computer... under his name by accident! Sorry!

As for live programming, we might throw on a little sailor moon in the bad anime room, but this is an anime con. Ohayocon is just a few months earlier and is an excellent Japanese Culture con. We focus on the cartoons with the big eyes!

It's your con and I'm not trying to tell you how to run it. I just figure that you shouldn't waste the limited amount of space you have to put something that you know isn't going to draw that big of a crowd. Thus scheduling it as a panel saving room space and allowing us to have another dedicated room. If the panel is successful then have a room next year to focus on it.

I get what you're saying, but there are two points to remember:

(1) We've got a lot of space, esp. in the way of lots of smallish rooms. We can have the documentary/DVD extra room and still have several normal video rooms, video gaming rooms, non-video gaming rooms, panel/workshop rooms, etc.

(2) We can't limit ourselves to stuff we think average anime fans already know they want to see. We don't want to be known as the con that had some video rooms, DDR, cosplay, and some dub VAs as guests. Yeah, we'll have that stuff, but every anime con worth the name has that. If we look like just another generic con, we're dead. We need to do things no other con does. Hence the brainstorming and off-the-wall stuff. If this con does crash and burn, I don't want it to be because we played it too safe, too generic. (So everyone, keep the ideas coming.)

I don't imagine loads of people are going to spend every waking hour in the documentary room. It's one more thing to do. It's sufficiently different from the other stuff that'll be going on that if someone find themselves in a dead spot in the schedule, when nothing else that interests them is going on, they may very well decide to watch a biopic about an animator or FLCL with the director's commentary. It's all about variety. And about showing people things they're unlikely to see outside of the con. With digisubs and cheap DVDs, that's much harder than it used to be.

It's worth saying at this point that some of us may be coming off elitist pseudo-intellectual snobs. In a sense, some of us are, but that's just our way of being fanboys. Discussions of the Freudian symbolism in Angel's Egg and arguments over whether Goku could defeat Eva Unit 1 before he turned into Tang are the same sort of fannish self-indulgent fun. They're equally valid, and we want all of it at our con. We want everyone to enjoy our con, from the Toonami-watching kid to the grad student whose folklore dissertation should have been done three years ago. "High culture", "low culture", whatever - Anime Punch is a superflat con!

(In some ways all of my quasi-academic babble about anime is just an attempt to grab hold of the ineffable, transcendent feelings I've had watching anime. And much of it's just a chance to hear myself talk.)


(Oh, and I'd like to officially move that we classify Oshii's "Talking Head" as a documentary....)

O.k. I get what you're saying now. I was under the impression that the Holiday Inn had very limited space. That was my only real concern. Now that I have been informed otherwise I say go for ti.

How about a "First Experience" room for people not used to anime? You know, like all the parents that wander dazed and confused around cons, trying not to get glomped. How about showing something really good and impressive that will trun them on to anime?

lol, not a bad idea! We'll call that the Nadia segment of the schedule!

I dunno, we could make a block aimed at being the best. Any suggestions?

Otaku Eye for the Mundane Guy. Bwa ha ha ha.

Or maybe showing parent more mature anime prove to them its not just cartoons.

Let's see.... how about something along the lines of Miyazaki? not spirited away, everyone's seen that, maybe princess Mononoke? Or Nausicaa?

Maybe Akira though that is kinda of brutal... Might make parents shy away.

Yeah, that's too gory. And they wouldn't get it. IT should probably be something dubbed, because most parents won't listen to spoken Japanese. And if subtitles are bad, they'll hate it.

First rule of ani-cons... no Di$ney. They don't like us.
That rules out almost everything Ghibli... besides Ocean Waves and My Neighbors the Yamadas (which might not be a bad choice, considering.)

But rather than dragging parents into a video room, why don't we just have a parents room somewhere.... and fill it with crazy purple knock-out gas!

HA HA about the crazy purple knock out gas....


Mike you remember my comment about not get any action. Well I borrowed the gas and my dry-spell suddenly ended miracuously.



In other words. I used it all.

Well there goes that plan but at least it went to a good cause ^_^

Ha Ha! Date rape.

Ok, enough of my falcon 7 impression. That's actually ironic because I watched the first part of violence jack tonight, where they do just that!

What's wrong with Disney? Or are you just mad because you were too stuck up to play Kingdom Hearts? And what's up with crazy purple knockout gas!?! But anyway, you try thinking of something non-Ghibli that parents will watch. Oh wait, how about Metropolis, dub version? they'll really like that. It's not to hard to understand either.

"Real" companies are a lot harder to get permission from, and usually charge a fee. Anime companies are cool. ADV, Geneon, Eigo, Right Stuf, CPM... the all just say "ok, you can show it". Disney doesn't roll like that. You have to pay. Stuff owned by Sony is a little more doable, but apparently there are a lot more hoops to jump through (plus you have to go through "SWANK Entertainment" to do it), so we usually still don't bother.

Metropolis is a great suggestion.

Indeed. The majority of companies just want you to email them and ask if you can show said anime, what volume of said anime, and when you're going to show it. Also as long as you're not going charge anything they'll say "Hey, why the hell not?. But like mike said Disney is generally like "NO! FUCK YOU AND YOUR CONVENTION!".

I'm not really experienced with liscensing, so whatever. I didn't know. I'm glad u agree on metropolis. It's one of my personal favorites not just because the anime part of it is good, but because I'm a jazz saxophonist and I love the soundtrack to death. By the way, did you or did you not play Kingdom Hearts?

I watched an eight year old girl play the beginning for a while... does that count?

No. If you haven't yet, play it now. It won't take you long, and it's pretty damn good by most people's standards. I can't wait for the sequel coming out this summer.

I'll second that ;).

As for a whole room devoted to intellectual anime, I like the idea, but I think that keeping the schedule diverse is our number one priority. While intellectual off-beat anime is my speciality, diversity is what makes the con a good experience for snobs like me and the standard fanboys/girls.

I can guarentee like mike that some stuff shown here will never be shown at other conventions, and that's enough to make me satified. Plus for discussion of deep anime there is always the deep thoughts anime panel that mike and I usually run, it tends to cover exactly what you were talking about with discussion.

As for Miyazaki, Disney has made most of his films out of reach, when our con gets more powerful I'd like to convince mike to at least try to get disney rights, but even then based on the going rates for movie rights from then we could probably only afford 1 or two films.

Which is a real shame, but we can still show Miyazaki and Takahata's pre-ghibli work (though it leans more towards takahata). Shows like Anne of Green Gables (takahata), Future Boy Conan (Miyazaki), 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother (Takahata) aren't even liscensed yet. Not to mention these shows are less likely to have been seen by people who are into Ghibli films, if we promote them well they will find an audience :)

From my little past con experience and going into it all open minded I would say to try and keep AWAY from the episodes of animes!!
To me I do never stepped foot into a viewing room cause I did not want to watch 1 ep. and then be like D*MMIT!! I say what you should try is to mix it up. maybe old school / new school rooms.
Both rooms play movies not episodes! I do not think they they should run during the middle of the day while everything is going on though. To me that was kind of dumb : / that could just be me though....
old school room play movies such as princess mononoke, akira, and things of that nature!!
and then the new school room play the naruto movie, zone of the enders, gundam, etc.
Hopefully this doesn't sound too stupid to people, but i think it would be better than the normal con.

I totally understand what you're saying. I'm all about closure; I'm tired of only ever seeing episodes 1-4 (or even just 1-2) of things. So we'll definitely have a lot of movies and short OAVs. Plus lots of weird stuff - 4°C shorts, Daicon films, etc.

We will, of course, show TV episodes. However: so much anime begins by mechanically setting up the plot and introducing characters. "Don't judge this series till you've seen through episode 8 (or 14, or 28...)!" That's not very good con viewing. Thus, when we do show the first four (or so) episodes of a TV series, I want there to be some sort of payoff in the episodes we show. Maybe the premise is interesting in itself. Maybe there's some incredible animation. Maybe it's really funny. Or maybe the early episodes are actually emotionally compelling - World Masterpiece Theatre shows tend to start strongly (I'm sure Romeo's Blue Skies moved me to tears by episode two or three). There just needs to be something.

There are two main reasons I watch anime at cons. The first is the "anime sampler" approach - I just want to see what a series looks like. The other reason is to check something off my list of things to see. For example, at an Ohayocon a few years ago, I had some dead time in the schedule and hadn't seen Gunbuster. A few hours later I had. If they were only showing part of Gunbuster I probably wouldn't have bothered. We'll try to serve both of these motivations.

We'll definitely have old school and new school stuff (Gundam's new school?!); not sure about having separate themed rooms, though I have considered the idea. Of course, there's some merit to having it all mixed up to increase the chance that the young'uns will be exposed to older stuff. "Ah, I don't feel like getting up after the Naruto movie, why don't I watch this Minky Momo thing...." Not sure exactly what we'll do here.

We will have 24 hr video rooms; it gives people more options. I hate having too much dead time at a con. That being said, I think is true that the non-primetime hours are better for people to get caught up on their anime viewing. I'm thinking that in the peak hours of the con I'll tend to schedule shorter things so that people can watch something and not miss too many panels, events, etc. On the other hand we might show whole OAV series in the overnight and morning slots.

These rooms are so going to be remembered for all time!

Oh that note... Gundam was like... 1979, and even Gundam Wing is older than Mononoke (which I refuse to beleive is old-school!)

Ah youngin's today!

Heh, it's ok Sixpod, we get the idea though, and agree with it.

And Chris... I want to see lots of Perot!!! I want to see more magical girl action than I knew existed!!

Could we really watch the Naruto movie? That would be beyond cool, even though it's not exactly intelligent... Oh and maybe Memories too, I really like those.

The first handful of Nadia episodes (1-7) make a good "movie," with beginning and decent "conclusion" at the Tower of Babel.

Heck, someone could probably edit it all together into a three-hour movie... <_<

No problem, we'll have plenty of Studio Pierrot magical girls. In fact, I'll make a vow: if we don't have a copy of the "Minky Momo vs. Creamy Mami" short at the con, I'll resign as video head and be the one to wrestle the bear.

You know, I haven't seen it in a long time, but "Fashion Lala" (not Fancy Lala, an earlier OAV) might be terrible enough for the bad anime room.

Great idea! It does work pretty well as a story arc.

That's the sort of counterproductive Japanese-like attitude I like to see!

As for Nadia, yeah, we all sort of call that "The movie", and there WILL be nadia at this con!

Only if you're good.

(Seriously, it'll depend on whether it gets licensed before the con. If it's unlicensed, yes; licensed and released, quite possibly; licensed but not yet released, no.)

Brilliant movie. (Before it got licensed I thought seriously about buying an LD player, solely because the Japanese LD release had English subs as closed captions.) I'll look into it, but no promises as it's Sony.

I thought about actually importing the R2 DVD, though it was at one point $120!

I really hope we can get this film, but if not there is always the 1980s more surreal equivalent to it, Neo-Tokyo which is liscensed by ADV (though I think Memories is a better film). Or if we're lucky by then Genius Party will be out and subbed and we can show that...