For my second guest post here at Austin Otaku I wanted to reflect on anime fandom and how it has changed over the years. My interest in anime and manga began in 1985, when I was in grade school in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past 25 years have brought many changes in the hobby and its interesting to compare the highlights of the hobby’s beginning in the U.S. with its current state. I’ve settled on three highlights from each era to share. If you can think of any to add please let us know in the comments below.

1985

Easy to Make New Friends

In 1985 anime fans were few in number, and we knew it. At gatherings and specialty stores it was easy to strike up a conversation with a fellow anime fan and make new friends. Gatherings were small and you saw the same faces every time, so it wasn’t hard to get to know people. It was difficult to obtain anime and manga so we did what we could to help each other copy laser discs and find merchandise. Oftentimes it felt more like a club than a hobby.

An Active Hobby

When this hobby began in the U.S. you had to be a motivated person to seek out other fans. That same motivation kept us busy. Everyone was involved in some kind of activity like running an anime club, working on a fanzine, bringing new stuff from Japan, etc. At the age of 12, I was interrogating my Chinese friends to learn the location of every Asian store that carried anime products and then reporting my findings to fellow fans at the anime viewing parties.

Cons were Awesome

The conventions of the hobby’s early days were awesome. The fan activity I mentioned above would reach its peak at con time. The walls of the convention halls were covered with fan club announcements, requests for help finding certain items and humorous posters people made. I still have the flyer advertising the rehabilitation center for Japanese idol singers. The viewing rooms at the con showed the latest anime fresh off the plane from Japan. A few booths sold merchandise, but most were manned by fan clubs giving out fanzines or recruiting people for new projects. The energy level was always high. It was the place to go to see new things starting.

In the mid 80s City Hunter was the show to watch.

2010

Translations

As fun as the gatherings were in the early days of the hobby, watching anime with no dubbing and no subtitles was a fact of life. We were lucky when someone in the room could give us brief updates to help us understand what we were watching. Our manga was in Japanese only and many of us got frustrated trying to learn kanji characters. Now we can enjoy anime and manga in our own language. Whether it’s professionals translating it for us or fan groups online, we don’t have to scratch our heads when the heroine runs crying from the room or the hero makes a bold speech.

Shopping

Shopping for our favorite goodies is now light years ahead of the early days of fandom. Vendors at conventions, local stores and Web sites are well-stocked with everything we’re looking for. Even fans like myself who want rare items can request them from English speakers living in Tokyo who hunt them down and then ship them to your door. In the 90′s, I travelled to Tokyo with friends and spent days hunting down the books I wanted. Now I just send a few e-mails and choose the best price.

Better Access

At the anime gatherings 25 years ago there were many anime and manga titles I heard about but just couldn’t get. Now there are few titles that are out of reach. Whether you’re buying (or renting) DVDs or downloading files, you are just about guaranteed to get your hands on any title you want. What played on television in Tokyo last week is just as accessible as the fan favorites of the late 70′s.

Last year K-ON! was the show to watch.

So which time was the better time to be an anime fan? There is no better time! It’s always a great time to be a part of this hobby. In the years ahead, fandom will go through many more changes. I look forward to every one.

In closing, let me encourage you to combine the best of both eras to make your hobby more enjoyable. Don’t let yourself be convinced that the item you’re looking for is out of reach. Also, don’t sit back and be an armchair fan. Be active. Start a blog. Join a club. Find an anime convention to attend – and don’t just attend the con. Make something happen there!

So, perhaps the Friday night Anime Club meetings at the University of Texas in Austin aren’t convenient for you. In fact, perhaps your weekends are completely booked solid, so the monthly anime night with the Austin Anime Meetup Group is out of the question as well. If that’s the case for you, then Alamo Drafthouse has a solution for you – Anime at the Alamo on Tuesday nights, brought to you by FUNimation and their “FUNimation at the Movies” program.

Starting at 7:30pm you can watch the featured anime of the night for free. You read that right – FREE. Plus, you get the benefit of being at the Alamo Drafthouse. And you know what that means. You can eat your dinner, drink beer (or whatever your beverage of choice is), and have dessert … all while watching anime.

Here’s the schedule for the next couple of months:

For those of you not in the Austin area but living in the Lone Star State, FUNimation, in order to get more anime nights going says, “You get the theater. We’ll supply the anime.” And for those of you in the Dallas metro area, check out the FUNimation at the Movies meetup group near you.

By the way, I should give credit to my Twitter friend, Brandon Williams (@rocketeerbkw) for bringing this to my attention. Thanks Brandon!

Ordinarily, I avoid music festivals like the plague. You see, I have a bit of a phobia about large crowds. … But for you, dear reader, I overcame my phobia this year and headed down to Japan Nite, part of Austin’s annual South-by-Southwest (SXSW) film, music, and interactive technology exposition.

Unfortunately, I missed the first show by Jinny Oops!. It’s really unfortunate, because their music seems fun and upbeat, and I’ll bet they put on a good show. But I managed to see all of the other bands – Riddim Saunter, Okamoto’s, Red Bacteria Vacuum, Omodaka, Chatmonchy, and Dolly.

Here is a slideshow with all of the pictures I took accompanied by “TOKI” by Jinny Oops!:

For some higher resolution images, you can go to the Japan Nite set on my Flickr account.

And for you Chatmonchy fans, here is their performance of “Smoke of Love” (恋の煙 – Koi no kemuri).

Chatmonchy “恋の煙” (Smoke of Love) LIVE at Japan Nite 2010 from Austin Otaku on Vimeo.

Based on the feedback I got from my fellow audience members, the real breakaway performances of the evening probably went to Riddim Saunter, whose CD’s sold like hotcakes shortly after their performance; the Okamoto’s, whose 19-year-old lead singer had the stage presence of Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison; and Omodaka, whose music should’ve gone over like a lead balloon in a club like Elysium, but actually swept up the crowd and had them dancing.

On a personal note, I now have a crush on Red Bacteria Vacuum, who I bought a round of drinks for and took pictures with. In all seriousness though, they were a really fun group of women.

Well, I have to admit, even though I’m not normally a live music kind of guy, I’m kind of excited about one of this year’s events at South-by-Southwest (SXSW). On Friday, March 19th, 2010 at Elysium on Red River, seven up-and-coming bands from Japan are participating in the annual Japan Nite. This event has hosted a number of popular bands, including everybody’s favorite FLCL band The Pillows.

So, without further ado, here’s this year’s lineup.

7:00pm – Jinny Oops!

This all-girl indie punk-rock band is from Sakai City in Osaka.

• Lead vocals and guitar: Mitsuyo Ishibashi
• Bass and backup vocals: Chihiro Ishida
• Drums and backup vocals: Hitomi Futemma

8:00pm – Riddim Saunter

This band has a bit of an R&B sound mixed with what the French call a certain “I don’t know what.” A couple of their songs remind me a little of the pre-1980′s Chicago sound.

• Lead vocals – Keishi Tanaka
• Guitar – Hiroshi Sato
• Bass – Masamichi Hamada
• Trumpet and Flute – Hiroto Homma
• Drums – Taichi Furukawa

9:00pm – Okamoto’s

Hailing from Shinjuku, Tokyo, this band of 19-year-old’s claim to have an “illmatic R&B” sound. Their sound is a blend of R&B and psychedelic garage.

• Vocals – Shou Okamoto
• Guitar – Kouki Okamoto
• Bass – Hama Okamoto
• Drums – Reiji Okamoto

10:00pm – Red Bacteria Vaccuum

Another all-girl punk band from Osaka (by way of Tokyo), these girls are … umm… different.

• Vocals and bass – Kassan
• Vocals and guitar – Ikum!
• Vocals and drums – Jasmine

11:00pm – Omodaka

If you like 8-bit video game music and traditional Japanese folk songs, this might just be the most awesome band ever for you. I would say more, but I think only their music can really speak for them.

Members: (as shown on the SXSW site)

• Soichi Terada
• an Apple MacBook Pro, a Nintendo DS Lite, a Sony PSP, a Gameboy Color, a Korg Kaossilator, and the LCD monitor

12:00am – Chatmonchy

Their tagline is “Three Girls from Japan Who Rock.”

• Vocals and Guitar – Eriko Hashimoto
• Backup vocals and Bass – Akiko Fukuoka
• Backup vocals and Drums – Kumiko Takahashi

1:00am – Dolly

What would Japan Nite be without representation from the “visual kei” segment of J-rockers? Dolly, named after the cloned sheep, is that Visual Kei band. If you don’t come for the music, at least show up for the costumes.

• Vocals – Mitsu
• Guitar – Masa
• Bass – Hachi
• Drums – Tsuguki

If you’re interested in attending, Japan Nite is on Friday, March 19th at Elysium (705 Red River, Austin TX 78705). I’ll try to capture some photos and video while I’m there as well.

If you’ve ever wanted to be a fly on the wall around people who are passionate about anime, manga, and the culture of Cool Japan in America, here’s your chance. I attended Sushi Night this past Saturday with the Austin Anime Meetup Group, where I and 6 others enjoyed the fare at Ryu of Japan and discussed our favorite topics. I recorded much of it on video, which I’ve edited and posted below, and we took lots of pictures.

Enjoy. But more importantly, join us next time. It really is a Gendai Shikaku Bunka Kenkyukai (現代視覚文化研究会), or Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.

Here’s the video:

Sushi Night at Ryu of Japan from Austin Otaku on Vimeo.

And here are some of the photos from the evening. We did something a little different this time around by passing around the camera and getting shots from all angles (and seeing who can’t take pictures as you’ll see in the slideshow at the end of the video).

If you’re interested in checking out Ryu of Japan yourself, check out their website, or drop by at:

11101 Burnet Road
Austin, TX 78758
(512) 973-9498

If you want to join the Austin Anime Meetup Group, join us at our Meetup site.

I had the pleasure of attending the 2010 Classical Japanese Dance Recital by Hanayagi Dance Academy today (Sunday, February 28th). Women and children, young and old, entertained a large crowd at the Asian American Cultural Center on Jollyville Road in Austin.

Below are some pictures from the event. For more pictures, go to my Flickr page.

The Hanayagi Dance Academy is directed by Rokumizu Hanayagi (Chizuko Matsumoto). If you’re interested in learning traditional Japanese dance or folk dance, you can contact Matsumoto-san via e-mail (hanayagi [at] earthlink [dot] com). You can also contact her through the Asian American Cultural Center.

I’m back! It has been a long time since I’ve added any posts, mainly due to work consuming so much of my time. But I managed to make it out to tonight’s Thursday Night Manga Meetup with the Austin Anime Meetup Group. Lots of cool people showed up tonight and shared their manga. A few aspiring manga-ka were also there, drawing and showing off their skills.

Be sure to join us next month, or show up to one of the anime nights scheduled between now and then.

Here’s a quick video capture from tonight:

February Manga Meetup from Austin Otaku on Vimeo.

Greetings, everyone.  I have brought my relentless charm to bear on the Austin Otaku and managed to secure myself a guest post here at AustinOtaku.com.  Hopefully this post will succeed in persuading you to try an anime title that I’ve enjoyed immensely.

Most otaku in the U.S. have found anime they like and learned how to search out similar titles to enjoy.  With rich offerings from genres like comedy, character drama, slice-of-life, romance, suspense, etc., otakus are never left empty-handed.  The enterprising otaku continues to broaden his or her knowledge of anime by sampling new genres and seeing what they have to offer.  That said, there is one genre that has trouble appealing to viewers outside of Japan.

Mecha, or giant robot, anime makes up a large part of the animation coming out of Japan.  Ever since Mighty Atom and Iron Man 28 in the 1960′s Japanese audiences have enjoyed seeing giant metal men save the day.  Mecha anime is so popular in the Land of the Rising Sun that it has become its own genre.

But for westerners it seems like too much to swallow.  Brightly colored machines that dwarf automobiles fist fighting in the streets of Tokyo seems like the stuff of Saturday morning cartoons.  The heavy use of strange technical terms doesn’t help, either.  What’s a “minovsky particle” and why should I care?  But to write off such a large portion of anime would deprive us of far too much.  Is there any mecha anime that has a lot to offer a non-science-fiction fan?  Perhaps something that will go easy on us non-techies?  Enter “Patlabor.”

The members of SV 2's second division.

Patlabor started with an OAV series in April 1998 and was so well received that it went on to produce a 47 episode television series, three high-budget movies and another OAV series.  Its popularity has continued for more than thirteen years because it has something to offer everyone.  After looking at the promotional artwork and art books you would get the impression Patlabor is an action-packed mecha show, but actually Patlabor is a collection of stories that spans every genre.  Action and suspense is mixed evenly with intelligent science-fiction, touching character drama, side-splitting comedy, slice-of-life stories and soap opera romance.

The stories center around the members of the Tokyo Police Department’s Special Vehicles Section 2 (SV 2).  SV 2′s first division is made up of competent, dedicated officers, but the second division somehow became a magnet for talented misfits.  The seven members of Division 2 are passionate and skilled people, but their personalities clash, and their offbeat approach to their work make for a very entertaining series.

Although sparse, there is mecha action that won't disappoint.

Placed ten years in the future, Patlabor features giant robots that are just entering the police force to try and stop the criminal use of construction and military robots that is on the rise.  Although some stories involve mecha action, many don’t show the robots at all.  Instead of the tense military storylines or technical terms we expect from sci-fi anime, you’ll enjoy comedy, office romance, character-focused stories and much more.  Over the course of the television and OAV episodes you’ll get to know the characters well and what motivates each of them.  The movies switch gear a bit and offer intelligent science-fiction stories that involve suspense and commentary on modern society.

Patlabor truly has something for every otaku.  It’s sometimes surprising to me that so few of us otaku in the U.S. have given it a try.  If you’ve never tried mecha anime, let me recommend Patlabor.  If you’d like to read about Patlabor in more detail, GearsBlog has a few articles for you.  If you decide you’d like to see more of what mecha anime has to offer, stop by Gears Online.

Whether you personally celebrate Christmas or not, one thing you’re familiar with are Christmas episodes in your favorite animes and J-doramas. My personal favorite was the “Christmas Eve Festival” episode (#1) of “Toradora!” On the night of the school’s Christmas festival, Ryuji, being the caring person he is, rushes back to Taiga’s apartment after hearing she left to go wait for Santa Claus. Closer to the truth, she didn’t want to be a distraction for Ryuji because she knows he wants to confess his love to Minori after the party.

But Ryuji knows that Taiga is all alone for Christmas. She doesn’t have a good relationship with her father, so she lives alone. So he dons a Christmas teddy bear suit and climbs into her apartment to fulfill her wish to see Santa. She is overcome with joy, hugging “Santa” and thanking him for coming.

Ultimately, this ruins his chances with Minori, but it illustrates what should be the nature of the season – the sacrifice of self in order to bring happiness to others.

What’s your favorite Christmas episode?

For the presentation on anime for JASGA and for my anime lunch with the Japan Club at LASA High School, I prepared a handout to give to attendees called “Austin Otaku’s Guide for the Otaku in Exile.” It’s kind of a tongue in cheek name, of course, since none of us are exiled from Akihabara or Japan, but I know that sometimes I’d rather be there and can’t go right away.

The brochure is a list of sites and other online resources for keeping up to date on the latest goings-on in Anime, J-Pop/J-Rock, and J-Dorama as well as a few local groups, clubs and resources. (I’m always keen on supporting local businesses that offer products or services related to otaku specifically or Japanese culture in general.)

Anyway, here’s the brochure. Feel free to print it out and use it in your own otaku journey.

On Thursday, November 19th, the Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) Studio in Austin opened its exhibit of Lily Rosa’s “Dreams Do Come True – My Journey through Japan and China” photo tour. Photos included images of the “Winding Road of Toriis” and the Forbidden City, and framed copies of the images were (and still are) available for purchase.

Drop by the RFB&D Studio on 45th Street to see and purchase your very own copy.

As my last post indicated, there were some really cool events available for Austin-area otaku to plug into this weekend, starting on Thursday with the Austin Anime Meetup Group’s Thursday Night Manga meeting and culminating on Sunday with the beginning of the San Antonio Museum of Art’s month-long tribute to the genius of Hayao Miyazaki. Well, okay, that last event wasn’t in Austin, but San Antonio is only about 1 1/2 hours south on Interstate 35 … so it kind of counts. Right?

So, without further ado, I’ve compiled some pictures from all the events I went to, along with some descriptions.

Thursday Night Manga Meetup at Mozart’s

About 9 people showed up at Mozart’s Coffee Roasters next to Lake Austin on Thursday to peruse some manga and talk about things that otaku talk about.

Konohana Sakuya Manga Lecture

Manga couple Kohei Nishino and Tsugumi Nishino, known collectively as Konohana Sakuya, presented a lecture on manga on Saturday, October 7th. This event, sponsored by the Japan-America Society of Greater Austin and the Japanese Consulate in Houston, attracted roughly 40 people of all ages.

In addition to receiving the wonderful postcard image shown at the beginning of this post (which they handed out to attendees of the lecture), I had the honor of joining the Nishino’s for coffee and dinner afterwards.

And after dinner and drinks, I drove the Nishinos around to show them the Texas State capital building and the UT bell tower, which was lit with orange lights.

Frederik L. Schodt’s Lecture at SAMA

On Sunday, October 8th, anime scholar and author Frederik Schodt helped the San Antonio Museum of Art kick off their month-long celebration of the work of Hayao Miyazaki with his lecture “The Allure of Hayao Miyazaki.”

Afterwards, I headed upstairs to the Asian Art Wing to check out SAMA’s collection of Japanese art, including their current display of Yoshitoshi’s Ukiyo-e.

Overall, it was a great weekend. I made three new friends in Kohei Nishino, Tsugumi Nishino, and Frederik Schodt, not to mention the all the other folks I got to meet at all of the events. Stayed tuned in to AustinOtaku.com, and I’ll keep you up-to-date with any events in the future.

It’s Thursday, and everyone knows that Thursday is the unofficial beginning of the weekend. Well, I’m also unofficially dubbing this weekend “The Weekend of the Otaku.” There are several activities to satiate your thirst for anime and manga. In fact, I’ll be heading out shortly for the first event in the lineup.

Thursday, Nov. 5 @7PM The Austin Anime Meetup Group will hold its Thursday Night Manga Meetup at Mozart’s Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin Blvd.
Friday, Nov. 6 @7PM UT’s Anime Club will meet in Welch Hall on the UT Campus to watch Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, To Aru Majutsu no Index, Toradora!, Nodame Cantabile (Paris Chapter), Legend of Galactic Heroes, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Spice and Wolf II, Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and Zettai Karen Children.
Saturday, Nov. 7 @1:30PM JASGA will host manga artist team Konohana Sakuya for a manga lecture at Casa de Luz (1701 Toomey Rd.).
Sunday, Nov. 8 @3PM The San Antonio Museum of Art will host the lecture, “The Allure of Hayao Miyazaki” with Frederik L. Schodt

So, there’s plenty of otakuness go around this weekend. Who’s with me?

On October 25th, Jorge, the sushi chef from Kenichi, came back for a second sushi workshop for the Japan-America Society of Greater Austin. Roughly 20 people showed up, equipped with razor-sharp knives, to learn how to slice up some raw fish. (Well, actually, it’s a little known fact that fish for sushi isn’t raw. It has to be frozen for a minimum of 36 hours before it can be thawed and prepared as sushi or sashimi in order to kill off bacteria.)

The lesson plan for the day was learning how to prepare rice for sushi, properly slicing the fish, making nigiri sushi, and preparing a Rainbow Roll.

Here are the recipes from the class:

While you can use these recipes to prepare your own sushi, you should probably attend one of these sushi workshops in the future to pick up on some of the nuances of making sushi. I’ll keep you posted on any future workshops you can attend.