Virtual Fools

Initial Impressions: “Unlike Anything I’ve Ever Witnessed Before”

I wrote this the first evening I was at AnimeUSA:

I will be up front with all of the readers. I have never been to an anime convention before. I don’t really even watch anime. But don’t hate me for it! Even if I don’t watch it I do have an appreciation for what it is and all the people who enjoy it. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. Your friendly Virtual Fools writers, myself and Kevin, were invited to come to AnimeUSA by marketing director and publicity manager Steph Prader. And it is to Steph that I must give mad props for showing me around for the first hour and a half. I left work early and rolled over the Sheraton Premiere in Tysons Corner. Quickly learning that the elevators are all but worthless, I took some back stairs and wandered my way up to the Con Ops room. Steph met me, gave me the press passes, and began introducing me to a whole variety of people. I got to visit the green room, in which there was an affinity for coffee and sandwiches. What a coincidence! I love coffee and sandwiches too! We all do have something in common after all! Okay, I joke. There’s plenty more in common than that… but I do love sandwiches and coffee.

Okay, here’s the deal. Kevin and I are going to be reporting to you from the following standpoint: What happens when two people like us end up at a place like this? For those of you readers faimilar with our work, you know we’re really interested in video games, subcultures, and fandom of all varieties. This is unlike any level of fandom I’ve ever beared witness to. It seems that anime and manga fans, more-so than everybody else, really run full tilt into their culture. More than half the people here are cosplaying. It’s not like Halloween, where all you have to do is roll up to a store and plop down a wad of bills on the counter, to assemble a cosplay costume you really have to seek out hard to find components. You need to sew, you need to glue, and you need to pay close attention to detail - because somebody’s going to notice. I pulled aside a guy to ask him what he felt the hardest part of assembling a costume was.

Of course I’ve been hanging out with the folks at X-Strike and Robert V. Aldrich (who is sporting some actual books this year!) and getting a feel for everything. You really have to acclimate yourself to seeing a guy in a Winnie the Pooh costume dressed as a pimp. That’s like some kind of meta costume that I can’t being to fathom. And, of course, I don’t recognize most of the things here because, as I’ve said, I don’t know jack about anime. But that makes it even more interesting because I know there are fans for everything. In that regard it is overwhelming. With such a breadth of anime available I have to wonder what percentage of people don’t recognize who their fellow cosplayers are dressing up as.

I must also tell you that all of the coverage of AnimeUSA isn’t going to be praise. No, we’re not looking to find faults with the events of the con, but rather Kevin and I will pose a few critical questions about the implications of the culture exhibited at the convention. Our coverage isn’t limited to what AnimeUSA is, but expands into what the event imtimates and suggests about the attendees’ relationships with a culture that is at once predominantly foreign yet unmistakably localized.