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Certification Achievements
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Mountains Do Inspire - The Summit on Anime in North America
This past weekend on March 23, 2013 in Denver, Colorado, USA, a huge important gathering of professional folks involved in the anime and manga industries drew a lot of attention despite being held in frigid conditions.
The 1st-ever Summit on Anime in North America was an event done to ask the question that has some people pondering for quite some time: “Why is anime so popular in North America?”
My buddies at Anime Diet got the lowdown on what happened. Take a look and see how far the U.S. has come with the wacky, immersive medium that continues to inspire a wide variety of fans and will do so for years and generations to come.
Lots of information to digest and possibly a good sign of things to come. Much thanks to Gendomike for his coverage and the folks of Nan Desu Kan for organizing the summit!
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The New York Comic-Con 2012 Retrospect!
Forsooth, as I have returned from the crazy masses of pop culture fans that attended New York Comic-Con this past October 11-14. I can definitely say that it was a blast to be at as I have gotten to see almost all the Japanese guests that attended the event. The spirit of Tokyo was definitely thriving (albeit a small one) in NYCC.
The only problem I have is that the Jacob Javits Center (the building it’s hosted in) is still not the greatest convention center for a pop culture convention. When you have an organization like JManga complaining about the building, you know there are problems. As NYCC continues to grow and become even more like San-Diego Comic-Con, will there be any extra room for more than 116,000+ folks? Compared to San Diego, you have to travel a bit far to get to the good restaurants/bars around NYC and the Jacob Javits Center is much smaller than the San Diego Convention Center. However, NYCC seems to have more anime/manga-related content than SDCC.
Another thing I realized after attending NYCC was how much I missed New York Anime Festival. While the likes of Danny Choo, Yu Asakawa, Yoshitaka Amano, Moyoco Anno, Masakazu Ishiguro, and Masakazu Katsura are very notable guests, how can NYCC top Danny Choo? Though we should leave it in the hands of folks like Japan Foundation to bring notable Japanese talent overseas. New York definitely deserves another anime convention as there are notable differences that make Japanese pop culture stand out compared to American pop culture.
In any case, Japanese pop culture was still alive in the East Coast’s premier pop culture event thanks to the efforts of the Japan Foundation, Vertical Inc., SUNRISE, Viki, Dark Horse Comics, and JManga. すべてのありがとうございました！
Enjoy the photos below!
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Summing Up Tokyopop at Anime Expo 2012 With A Meme
At least they trended worldwide on Twitter on June 30, 2012. Let’s hope they take lessons in consumer psychology. It’s all the rage these days given the economy, y’know. At least Stu Levy addressed one person.
For a recap of the Tokyopop panel, check out Carlos Santos’ summary at Anime News Network and Deb Aoki’s extensive summary at About.com’s Manga site.
Hope you like the picture I made. Thanks, Meme Generator!
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Creepy Con-Goer To Watch Out For: William “WT” Hatch
It disgusts me to see dirty men continue to take advantage of anime convention perks to prey on attractive women that attend them. An male individual who some of you may have heard of, named Estevan Olivas, has such a history. He lies to people that he is a notable voice-acting talent to gain access. It seems that these days, Estevan is going by another alias: William “WT” Hatch”.
Here is a statement about “WT” found at the AnimeCons Forums.
Hi Patrick (AnimeCons Senior Editor),
I have recently been made aware of an upsetting situation in the world of anime cons, and I felt it necessary to bring this to your attention. It’s in regards to a person who was once a friend of mine: Estevan Olivas. He has assumed the identity of WT “Will” Hatch, and has even begun attending cons as a guest under that name. I am sure there was once a person known as WT Hatch (though that may have been an assumed name), but WT is not the person who is currently using this name. On IMDb, Estevan has actually entered his own birthdate for WT Hatch. This is pretty funny because it makes it look like he did most of his roles as a child or before he was born.
You might not be aware of this, but I was once very close friends with Estevan from 1997-2002. That was when I came to the shocking realization that he is a pathological liar. He would tell people that he had worked on various anime but tailor to whomever he was speaking. In other words, if he was talking to someone from LA, he’d claim to have worked at Coastal Carolina, but if it was someone from NY, he’d say he’d worked in LA. The truth is that he has never worked in the anime industry at all.
Sadly, I have learned that he is using his supposed “position” to prey on girls and young women. Please spread the word as much as you can to let people know not to invite him as a guest or exhibitor. In fact, it would be best if he did not attend any conventions at all, but I don’t know if that is possible. I have even more information I can share with you, if you like.
As of right now, the man is on high alert. However, Estevan can slip by the cracks. If you’ve heard of him or know him, tell anime convention organizers about him to let him know that he’s not wanted. Seriously. In fact, this should be done every time Estevan tries to make his presence felt.
Stay safe in 2012, anime convention-goers.
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Photos from New York Comic-Con 2011
Enjoy the shots I took from New York Comic-Con 2011!
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Sailor Moon & Me!
Found this old photo of me with a Sailor Moon cutout back in 2003 at the Big Apple Anime Festival (Anyone in the East Coast remember that?). Looking at this picture makes me realize how old I am. Good grief. Funny thing is that I still look the same after all these years too. This was my first anime convention.
I joked about Sailor Moon being my “first love” in this picture. It’s a tie between her and Chun-Li.
So, to you males out there, which of the Sailor Scouts you had a thing for?
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Roland Kelts on the Anime Markets in America & Japan →
Roland Kelts points out some interesting things about the state of Japan compared to the state of America. Anime conventions are definitely booming, despite some of the craziness that can go on.
Anime & manga won’t die. The industry just has to evolve. Once again, globalization is something Japan needs to accept. Period.
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A Look Back At 2010 (Part III: July to September)
For the previous entries on 2010: Part I, Part II.
The summer really heated up in the Japanese pop culture world. Here’s what went down from July to September 2010!
July 2010
CMX, the manga imprint for DC Comics, goes down for the count. Someone asked my take on it, so here it is. I first heard about CMX because of the Tenjho Tenge localization fiasco. The fact that they severely edited the content was understandable, but it just destroys the spirit of the work. Although CMX would address this & do less edits, fans still couldn’t get over it. The brand did put out some great old-school shojo titles that many readers enjoyed. But, that ONE moment involving Tenjho Tenge would haunt them forever. Also, DC Comics had the Vertigo imprint (a great line of mature comics that I enjoy). Perhaps they were trying to be “different” from Vertigo & not take on mature audiences.
Anime Expo 2010 took place with many announcements on upcoming series & other news.
The “founding mother” of shoujo manga, Moto Hagio, makes an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con 2010 and receives the Inkpot Award for her works. Fantagraphics released one of her works, “A Drunken Dream & Other Stories”. A fun fact for those who played the hit RPG game, Illusion of Gaia, for the SNES. She did the character designs for that game.
A Florida mother fights her local library for obscene manga that caused her son to go to “extensive therapy”. Her son apparently took some mature-themed manga out of the library without CHECKING THE BOOKS OUT & ANYONE NOTICING. This is parental irresponsibility at its finest. More thoughts posted here.
OneManga would finally pull all their series off the site in fear of the coalition against scanlations. Many fans become disgruntled & frustrated. I just wish there was more emphasis on copyright education, but Japan’s issues on handling intellectual property are very sketchy at best.
Otakon 2010 happened July 30-August 1. Attendance goes up once again as 29,274 people attended the three-day event. Anime still kicks butt in America. A funny incident occurs when someone pulled a fire alarm on the 2nd day of the event and everyone evacuated the convention center. Anime fans run around in confusion, not knowing how to deal with sudden sunlight & fresh air.
August 2010
Military moe manga for the win as the U.S. Military teams up with Japan to educate the country of Japan on the U.S./Japan alliance. More U.S. propaganda shoved down Japan’s throats and utter reminders of the U.S. domination of Japan after WWII? Sounds lovely.
Kuroshitsuji mangaka, Yana Toboso, tells everyone to stop pirating her work. Responses to her blog post flood the Anime News Network forums. Some fans seem to be completely unappreciative of her hard work. Don’t you just love trolls?
Utada Hikaru announced she would go on indefinite hiatus until 2011. In the meantime, bad J-Pop music & K-Pop become more relevant in Japan.
The greatest video game review ever written, courtesy of Tokyo Vice author, Jake Adelstein.
Takashi Murakami’s Versailles exhibit gets protested for being explicit. Here I thought the French love stuff that’s sexual.
Acclaimed anime director, Satoshi Kon, passes away at the age of 46. A grim reminder of how people can leave us so soon. It is also a grim reminder of the struggles the anime industry faces going forward in finding the next, great animator.
One Piece goes on a 4-week break. Even awesome ass-kickers need to stop kicking & start relaxing at some point. On a related note, One Piece Volume 59 sells 1.85 million copies in its first week. They also set a record for first printings with 3.2 million copies. The busts of Nami, Nico Robin, & Boa Hancock overwhelm the masses & smother the busts of Tsunade, Orihime, & others.
September 2010
More digital manga initiatives are pushed as manga titles are launched on Kindle, iPhone, & Nokia Ovi. Square Enix & Crunchyroll also discuss their plans involving digital manga.
Miku Hatsune would make her first U.S. performance at San Francisco’s J-Pop Summit Festival this month. Though it’s more of a digital film than a concert. Just the first step in taking over the world for Vocaloid.
All 12 volumes of the hit shoujo manga, Kimi Ni Todoke, make the Weekly Top 100 Oricon Manga Chart for the week of Sept.20-26. The live-action movie would also makes its debut in Japanese theaters as well. Question: who here thinks “Kimi ni Todoke” is the “One Piece” of shoujo manga in terms of popularity in its respective genre?
Happy 15th Birthday to the Sony PlayStation! You have to admit, the PlayStation did have a huge impact in making video gaming mainstream in the first place.
J-Rock star GACKT voices commercials promoting a new anime project involving the hit seinen manga series, Berserk.
Tokyo Game Show 2010 takes place. The Japanese gaming industry is apparently 5 years behind the West, according to Keiji Inafune. They do love their JRPGs, dating sims, & visual novels. Walls of text for the win much?
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The final part of the 2010 year-in-review is now up! Read it here!
