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November 7-8, 2009
Radisson Hotel Valley Forge
King of Prussia, PA, USA
A merger of two formerly separate and smaller cons (Kosaikon and Zentrankon), Zenkaikon 2009 is the fourth incarnation of a relatively small (but rapidly growing) Pennsylvania anime convention that serves up the standards: guest speakers, industry- and fan-run panels, video game rooms, and live performances.
There were only two very cramped gaming rooms (with an admirable amount of systems squeezed in) and as many video rooms, which were split between live action and anime. While some might consider this a horrible decision given both the size and purpose of the con, I thought it was a ballsy effort to offer something more despite the smaller space and projected number of attendees (they vastly underestimated). The highlight of the viewing I was able to see was the first three subbed episodes of Princess Tutu.
The attending bands, with the exception of J-pop singer Rina Mimura, were only moderately alluring as a taste of J-music. Eyeshine, geist, and Eden Star all had members of Asian descent and were all/mostly influenced by J-Punk/-Pop, but sounded too little like it to evoke an Asian feel. That’s not to say they weren’t good, however. I’ve seen Eden Star before, and the lead singer as well as the drummer exhibit very impressive energy and talent. It just seemed a little too tellingly inauthentic. Hell, even Castle Point Anime Convention got Peelander-Z.
The dealer’s room was about the size of a classroom, and did just about all it could with the space provided, but navigation was frustratingly tight and rewards far too few. Similarly, Artist’s Alley was a joke. Very few artists were actually displaying their work (the room was smaller than the dealer’s room), and what was there seemed lackluster.
Panels were many, but scheduling was, as usual for any con, poorly arranged (at least for my tastes). All the uninteresting panels seemed grouped together to form hours of free time, and all the interesting panels overlapped separate rooms. In addition to a wonderfully informative kendo demonstration, my particular interests were with “Anime in China,” “Moe Anthropomorphism-tan,” “Psychology of Anime,” and “Do Anime Conventions Have a Future?” Luckily, I was able to catch all but the last, and reviews/summations can be found on this site for those who could not attend these enlightening and well-handled panels.
So, if you were looking for a lily pad to serve as a fix between New York and Hoboken or wherever anime pops up next – a place to commune with your fellow lovers of anime, cosplay, and all other aspects of American otaku-dom – then Zenkaikon is a decent enough pit stop. There is vast room for improvement with regards to venue, organization, and space allocation, but that will hopefully come with time.
![Cosplayers at the third annual third China International Cartoon & Animation Festival [Reuters]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1sHleFmwN54/SwiGLP-vuQI/AAAAAAAAA3E/aIoohIq7MgQ/s800/CICAF.jpg)
Although this Zenkaikon panel was called "Anime in China," let’s start off with a couple of domestic statistics. In 2006, attendance levels for Otakon and San Diego Comic Con were 23,000 and 114,000, respectively. For the third China International Cartoon & Animation Festival, held in Hangzhou, China, attendance levels topped 430,000. Just shy of half a million people come together over their shared love for Japanese and US culture via animation. But despite these massive numbers, average wait time for tickets (at the door) is only 5 minutes max. Why? Because the army does crowd control, and not just because people such as the provincial head of the communist party stop by. No, that’s not a joke.
On the first day, Industry Day, only company people attend, and that number tops 15,000. Turns out that Hangzhou is the animation capital of China. Imagine that, an entire city taking pride in animation as its most beloved factor. What kind of pride? We’re talking 20 ft tall METAL statues of the convention’s mascot at every major intersection, blimps advertising the convention over the entire city, billboards at every turn, and even a grand cartoon parade through public streets and broadcast live over television, all as an advertisement that the animation festival would be open to the public the next day. Add to all of this the fact that the convention and its happenings dominate the news for each day, and you get a sense of the love (and excellent marketing) that goes into this event.
That love, as well as the awe inspired by such a demonstration, was shared by our panel’s presenter, Kevin McKeever. As head of marketing for Robotech, McKeever was not only there on a commercial mission but also garnered observations as a foreigner visiting for love of animation. The conference is attended, on the first day exclusively and then all throughout, by all toy, animation, and studios/production companies. So, in addition to the custom STRUCTURES built specifically for this year’s con, the organization also offers offices in back for conducting industry-related (as opposed to consumer-related) business.
For the rest of the convention, other attractions include bands performing music (often from the animated shows) on the convention floor; an integrated radio broadcast from a soundproof booth; and Artist’s Alley. The latter offers a distinctive twist from the format US audiences know and love. Instead of individual artists hocking their wares, it features submissions from the public solicited by the convention, which judges them and then puts all selected entries for public display in a room relative to the size of an aircraft hangar.
What about cosplay? Oh, dear god, yes, it exists. Though there is no hall cosplay due to the hazards to costumes and people alike jammed in the densely populated convention center, there is a DAILY masquerade that goes on for 8 hours each day. Also, there are professional cosplayers at booths dedicated to specific shows. But booths are not only there to promote the finished product, there are also booths from all the art schools ready to edify and accept applications from those interested in breaking into the industry.
Then it was time to leave. McKeever and entourage packed up and left the convention to get back home, where, evidently, we have a lot to learn from those in Hangzhou about manifesting our love for anime and animation in such an efficient and affluent manner.
I love academia as much as the next guy. (Ok, most likely a lot more than the next guy), but even I have to tip my hat to and scowl at K. Levinson, who led the "Psychology of Anime" panel at Zenkaikon 2009. A published student and teacher of psychology, Levinson decided to base the panel on the cognitive approach and certainly cannot be accused of talking down to the crowd. Having not taken a bit of psychology since I was in college myself, I found my dying brain cells barely an adequate bridge to traverse the topics of why people love anime, what the nature of their attraction to it is, and what the reasons behind the artists’ choices when developing series are.
Almost any time anyone mentions psychology, the first figure to come to mind is Dr. Sigmund Freud. So what would the father of psychoanalysis say about our particular branch of fandom? Given his life drive theory, it would be anime’s aggressiveness and sexuality that keep otaku buying DVDs en masse. Big guns, big...girls. Very simple. Continuing along the timeline of psychological development, theories get a little more complicated.
Social psychology, or how people interact with other people and within groups, was our next area of examination. Basically, this field would theorize that anime viewers watch to observe relationships. I’m not only talking your typical boy/girl doting upon girl/boy (or any combination thereof), but relationships between government and people, individuals to their situations, etc. It is a form of vicarious living. But viewers don’t want to be the characters. Instead, they feel an association or desire for particular exhibited qualities. Keep this in mind when we visit Gestalt psychology.
Between here and there, however, was Abraham Maslow and his theory of the hierarchy of human needs: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Answers to what portions of the needs pyramid anime could satisfy included partial or entire levels of safety, love/belonging, and esteem. But how? The innate morality and sense of family in most anime would take care of at least relaying a vision of a comprehensible and achievable level of safety; vicarious themes of friendship, intimacy, and family take viewers into a sense of love/belonging; and contrasts between characters and viewers can instill a sense of confidence or bolster their self-esteem.
In Gestalt psychology, everything is analyzed from top to bottom – as a whole first and then by parts. Followers of this branch of psychology would believe anime viewers just don’t see the components – characters, plot, setting, animation style, music – but experience the whole first before breaking it down into what appeals to them. After viewers identify enjoyable wholes (genres), elements thereof can then be further broken down, and components of those elements micro-analyzed, etc. What makes this theory so plausible is the inherent oversimplification aspect of anime. It is the driving force behind the medium’s accelerated growth, because the simpler the whole, the easier to access, identify, and break down.
Lastly, the (fraternal) twin cities of determinism and relativism respectively state that the way people speak the language is the way they view the world and that the way people perceive things determines their language. Aspects of both arguments are most prevalent in the great sub/dub debate, which would point out missed jokes and incorrect meanings via translation. Symbolic interactions determine how we interpret, so that is why dubs should appeal to US viewers in a different way that subs do: jokes and phraseology are often tweaked for the native language instead of being verbatim translations that go over the proverbial heads of foreign audiences. Also related to this theory is the concept that anyone’s first viewing of anime is relativistic. Viewers start to form templates of new material’s form from their initial viewing, relying upon that experience as a control in an experiment. Continued watching becomes deterministic, because viewers are familiar with the form and can start to use their learned language to compare it against a familiar form.
I hope those views gave you something to chew on. There was a lot more name-dropping and psychological mumbo-jumbo, but I think Wikipedia charges by the link, and, if your head is anything like mine, it’s probably screaming out for some aspirin right about now. Take some, and next time you sit down with a favorite series, think, if only for a moment: what specifically drew you to it, how does it make you feel, and how do you use it? The answers just might surprise you.
Ani-Gamers blogger Ink checked out a whole bunch of the panels and events at Zenkaikon 2009. For more coverage, keep your eyes on our Zenkaikon 09 label!
"Introduction to Independent Filmmaking" was a panel not nearly as interesting as its presenter, Kevin McKeever. If you want to know how to get into film, there are basically 2 requirements: luck and determination, and even combined they are no guarantee for success. For McKeever, it was all about working hard in any position that the industry he loved would have him in. From unpaid “go-fer,” to unpaid and then salaried script reader, and later on to head of marketing for Robotech for Harmony Gold, McKeever crawled his way up the ranks and saw the industry change with him as he grabbed each rung. The most interesting points in the panel came not from career advice, but those insights on marketing anime he gained while climbing and how they allow him to view the current market.
When asked how the various forms of Internet distribution – streaming, downloads, fansubs, etc. – are changing the industry, McKeever acknowledged the impact. He said the Internet distribution is definitely affecting industry, but no one knows exactly how yet. It’s somewhat related to the VCR issue from days of old, when such recording devices were thought to purely promote piracy and yet ended up being the building block of the massive cash cow known as the home video market. Why sell per-hit views on websites for five cents, when you can sell a DVD for $30, right? Well, since we are a society of consumers focused on material, in-your-hands possessions, it stands to reason a large percentage of those who stream will buy hard copies. Even those that don’t, those that strictly download, are still contributing. And those that stream and let stream...every penny reaped from advertisers counts, no?
Reflecting on the industry’s adoption of anime, McKeever recalls it as scarce at first. Anything brought to the big screen or little ones was intended for our little ones (children), and the seeming lack of adult content did not substantiate further investment. McKeever credits Transformers (2007) with opening up the anime genre (yes, he includes it in the anime genre) to the adult marketplace. Its unrivaled success – equal amongst males and females alike, surprisingly – spurred a frenzied need within all the major production companies, who had been watching to see what would become of the modernized nostalgia trip. Thus the studios sought out their own “giant robot” franchise, their Cowboy Bebops, their Robotechs, their Speed Racers, their Akiras. Funny thing was, contrary to how easy it was to gain anime property and distribution rights in the past, studios found themselves in limited, strict contracts when courting their desired Japanese properties. The market had grown wise and greedy.
Still, live action adaptations of anime are seen as a blessing through McKeever’s eyes. Much the same way as Internet streaming brings consumers to store shelves, so do these adaptations bring newfound fans of the presented stories/characters back to the original source material: anime.
As for the future of anime’s success in America and elsewhere, McKeever said it all exists on a grassroots level. Fans are what brought this genre over, and fans are what keep spreading the gospel. This is why anime is a strong property. Each intimate word-of-mouth indoctrination between friends, even conventions that build face-to-face connections with and between fans and industry, spur purchasing despite a bad economy. And while otaku may get a little more picky about which titles they buy, they will certainly keep buying, and there’s something out there for everyone.
Ani-Gamers blogger Ink checked out a whole bunch of the panels and events at Zenkaikon 2009. For more coverage, keep your eyes on our Zenkaikon 09 label!
Emily Compton and Katsunori Matsushita headed Zenkaikon’s "Moé Anthropomorphism-tan" panel, which sought to explain the exploitation of moé figures created either as marketing or metaphor for use in ads, anime, and other amusements in Japan.
Moé characters, for the purpose of the subjects of this panel, are sweet/cute figures defined by a set of characteristics that evokes an inclination to protect/defend them. Anthropomorphism is defined via Wikipedia as “the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts.” Japan, which has a long-standing tradition of attributing spiritual sense to everyday objects (what they call gods, but we would see more as “spirit” or “essence”), uses a combination of pop culture and inherited spirituality to create moé mascots with attributes representing the objects they represent.
Examples range from educational comics, manga, Web animations, and anime to fetishistic advertising. An example of the former would be Afuganis-tan, a series which uses moé characters as personifications of Central Asian nations to educate children about history and current events. While this format has made the history “accessible” to youth (and entertaining to adults), it often elicits a critique of trivialization. Its characters are very stereotypical, defined by broad generalizations in appearance as well as their actions, but all the nations are treated equally, avoiding any sense of favoritism.
Mechamusume is another branch of moé anthropomorphism, wherein cute girls represent vehicles/hardware. And aside from military ads/brochures for real-world jets, tanks, and guns, examples of mechamusume’s employment can be found in anime series such as Sky Girls and Strike Witches. This form of moé anthropomorphism isn’t confined to military machinations, however. Commercial planes, trains, and even satellites are represented by cute girls integrated with either aspects of the actual design or wearing uniforms/colors of the company. An anime that touches on this is Miracle Train, which employs beautiful men riding an underground subway line as allegories for stops along said train line; each character’s characteristics are defined by the nature of the stops (business, entertainment, night life, etc.).
With an admitted soft spot for the wide-eyed girls that so often populate anime in general, I found it generally amusing to see the wealth of moé in advertising for everything from education to social commentary. It comes down to the art of representing one thing through another: a visual metaphor. Varying degrees of good and bad were clearly evident even through the various examples of a poorly lit slideshow (bad projector), but, come what may, moé anthropomorphism remains a distinctive Japanese presence and (much to the dismay of many) culturally and artistically relevant.
Ani-Gamers blogger Ink checked out a whole bunch of the panels and events at Zenkaikon 2009. For more coverage, keep your eyes on our Zenkaikon 09 label!
