アニメノース - Anime North

The idea for this blog actually came to me while I was walking around the Dealers' Room at Anime North this past Sunday. For those of you who don't know of it, Anime North is Canada's biggest anime convention, and it takes place in my city every year in May, from Friday to Sunday (although they now do some small gaming things and a party here and there on the Thursday night, as well). I live a 10-15 minute drive from the place where the con is held, so I'm pretty lucky. I have plenty of friends who come from significantly farther away to attend this con, and stay in hotels near the con for the weekend. (It's actually good to get a hotel room if you live here, too, so you don't have to go home and then get yourself all the way back to the con again the next day. I've never stayed, though.) While I'm not a huge anime fan - if I'm selective in my Jrock tastes, I'm fifty times more selective in my anime tastes - the experience of the entire weekend is way too much fun for me to miss. Practically everyone I know goes to AN, and it's like one big party. This was my third year going.

Anime conventions in North America are an interesting thing to behold. This is where I see the most people who are in a similar situation (fandom-wise, at least) to my own in the highest concentration: there are people of all different races there, and they all like Asian pop culture to at least some extent. That said, I wouldn't necessarily say I relate to a lot of the people there. For one thing, most of them love anime, while I'm not a huge anime fangirl. I have my favourites, but I haven't seen many of the childhood basics, let alone today's most popular shows. Some people will create these elaborate cosplays of anime characters, while I just make (fairly) simple ones that are never based on anime characters (the first year I did a Battle Royale student; last year I did Kusumi Koharu's outfit from the "Koi Kana" PV; this year I did Hirajima Natsumi of AKB48's dress from their "BINGO!" PV). And to be quite honest, a lot of the people at this con are n00bs. I understand that we were all n00bs at one point, but some people just don't seem to grow out of it. They like to act like they know everything about things they just don't know that much about, and fangirl like crazy over shows they've barely watched just because one of the characters is hot, and things like that. I'm a bit of an anime n00b, but in that I just don't know much about a lot of anime. In that I can admit that, I am not that kind of n00b. At this point I'm probably sounding judgmental, but I'm just trying to provide my honest outlook.

In any case, an anime convention can be both a really cool and absolutely ridiculous thing to witness. I mean, you'll see everything from people with really amazing cosplays to cute lolitas to Caucasian ganguro girls. No joke. I saw that this weekend. And I hate ganguro, for the record. But it's always interesting to see who an event like this will draw in and what they'll be wearing, buying, and doing. It's one of the biggest weekends of the year for a lot of people like me in this entire province, really.

Momoi Halko, the singer/seiyuu who I know for the song "Mail Me", which was used in the movie Suicide Circle, and for producing Perfume's special single "Akihabalove", was the con's big guest this year. I didn't wind up going to her concert, or either of the Q&A's or autograph sessions. I tried to go to her second autograph session, but I got there too late, so the line had already been cut off. I'd planned out what I was going to say to her in Japanese, and everything. 「私は自殺サークルとパフュームのファンですから、Mail MeとAkihabaloveが好きです。」 "Because I'm a fan of Suicide Circle and Perfume, I like Mail Me and Akihabalove." My Japanese still feels pretty beginner, but I know she would've at least understood that, and appreciated my efforts. But alas, I didn't get the chance. Ahh well. Last year, ZZ were the big guest. They're a five member band on Avex who play AWESOME music (go look up their songs - try "Samurai Blue", "Samurai Crew", "A-Z", and "Yorokobi no Uta", to start with, since they all have PVs), but they haven't released anything since before they even played at AN, and their official site hasn't been updated since before then, either. There's been no news on them, and it's killing me, because I've fallen so in love with their music since I saw them play at AN. I still remember the sentence I spoke to their vocalist, Sotaro. 「ZZのコンサートが大好きでした。」 "I loved ZZ's concert." I miss them a lot, and I hope they don't just disappear off the face of the planet.

I had a good time at AN this year, as always. It's kind of crazy to stand there, in the middle of the Dealers' Room, seeing all of the people looking at and buying things, and realizing that all of these things they're consuming were never meant for consumption in this country, and yet can draw in this large of an audience. It's really quite fascinating. But if I try to get into that topic, that'll be a whole new blog entry. It's just an observation I made.

Also, after this year's AN, I can now say that I have watched porn in a room full of people. Ahh, life.