IT IS (in Viet Nam).

I guess that can be the topic of another column- I knew nothing of Mixi until this week, and I’m interested in hearing how this site has changed otaku-dom.

Sorry to hear that about your manken. I wonder how the ChibaDai Ani-Ken is doing… since Chiba is a big school, I’d hope it’d still be around.

I still remember my ‘introduction’ to the club.

Clubmate A: “ねえ、キームー！一番好きなときメモキャラって誰？”

Me: “・・・美緒です。”

Clubmate B: “なんで？”

Me: “メガネっ子が好きですから～ *^^*”

Club: *laughter/”one of us” chanting

–

The keijiban lasted for a while (up until… 2002? 3?) from what I remember, but the ‘zines died once MLs were easy to access.

And Mixi… damn, but all of my friends keep trying to get me to join it. >.

I shudder to ask: what’s Mixi?

“How bout you, Shingo? You like playing the outsider over there, or do you wish you could break through?”

Good question. There are advantages and disadvantages to being the perpetual outsider, as all foreigners here are to varying degrees… I spend my time trying to leverage the advantages and mitigate the disadvantages, and generally fit in to the extent possible. I guess my goal is to ultimately “break through”, but it’s a difficult and complex path to tread, for me at least. Sometimes it seems nigh impossible, but perservere we must… This is an awfully vague reply, isn’t it. Still trying to figure out a good (post-worthy) way to approach the issue…

>>rabidkimba, omo
I’ve only been to one con in the US (ACen 2002) and that was with my college anime club, bearing out the whole “come as a circle” thing holding true across the Pacific. I can hardly claim to be an expert on US events based on that one experience, but it makes sense that most congoers wouldn’t be there deliberately to get into strangers’ pants. That said, American events are certainly more oriented toward socialization than Japanese ones are. That fact alone may have more to do with the type of socialization that happens there than any inherent cultural norms.

>>hachi
Aha, so that’s where all those livejournal hits have been coming from. Quite handy, though I do wish it kept more of the original HD formatting of images and the like. :/

>>Sydney2K
From my experience (and from watching Comic Party) it seems that, prior to the recent explosion of social networking sites in Japan, most “virtual” communication leading up to events took the form of fan letters and emails to artists, and similar communication between artists. These would tend to lead to relationships based on the art being produced, and friendships based on respect and/or shared tastes… not a lot of coupling going on as a result, from what I’ve seen. With the advent of Mixi, though, all bets are off…

>>Richard “Pocky” Kim
I’m familiar with the “haunting your old college circle” phenomenon, though it seems the manken I was in while studying abroad was disbanded this year due to waning interest… ;_; I still have a couple of friends from it that I keep in touch with from time to time.

The keijiban and newsletter methods didn’t cross my mind, though they make a lot of sense – I’m reminded of methods used by bands to attract members in the case of the former, posting want ads in music supply and instrument stores. How I would have benifited from that sort of thing in my local hobby shop here… I think the internet may have complicated otaku interaction unnecessarily, what with everything anonymous these days.

I guess Mixi is a brutally effective replacement, but still.

a) keijiban – bulletin boards: usually at Animate and Manga no Mori, people could ask around for like minded groups/people. They could also buy and sell stuff on these boards sometimes.

b) Newsletters/APAs: A monthly doujinshi that you and your friends would put together, usually just enough copies for the group, occasionally a few extra if you were looking to pick up new members. This was popular in the U.S. for a while, too.

c) Much like Madarame, people who graduated from college kept in contact with the members of their circles (hell, they still do, no matter what circle you are/were in), and often times these circles just evolved into fully-fledged social circles. (I can attribute many a late-night karaoke binge to this, when the seniors would come back and kidnap us at the Chiba U Ani-ken).

Man, I miss Japan.

I understand what you are saying but LOL, don’t suggest it like that. I concur that while you’re at it, one form of “consummation” is no different than another, but now we’re talking about something completely different :)

I think what you say is true, and certainly in the early years of US cons most groups attending cons did centre around the local anime clubs in your area- why go alone when you could go with like minded friends and enjoy the experience even more.

With the Inertnet though (sic), and especially with Instant Messaging, internet organised hobby groups, such as cosplay, anime music videos, even disorganised websites such as 4chan, and just through e-mails people are meeting each other at cons for the “first time”. These prior relationships then are virtual, rather than personal.

For example, a friend of mine who accompanied me to Anime Expo did so because she wanted to meet a certain “cosplay idol”, and because she knew I knew her, she wanted me to introduce her (which I did of course). I jokingly described my accompanying her as just an excuse to pump me for my cosplay friends.

Cons are recognising the fact that a lot of singles are attending cons, with panels about how to be attractive to the opposite sex, and things like the dating panels. A lot of people do go to cons to meet and make friends and some even hope for lasting relationships- and why not? You are going to a gathering of people with like-minded interests. But don’t go for the cosplayers. The good-looking ones are almost certainly already with partners (more often than not they’re cosplayers too.) Go for the congoers who aren’t dressed up. Some of them can be just as attractive.

I’m already reading this on LiveJournal!

http://heiseidemocracy.livejournal.com/

:D

One thing I do have to say is that the relational aspect of American fandom isn’t really all that different. A good amount of the hardcore con-going population do use cons to “consummate” their prior relationships. Some of the events that mark the American anime con tend to be just more social and shared (compared to buying and selling porn), but it is still somewhat superficial given the type of relationship the closely-knit otaku circles are.

One more class to go till Dragon*Con!

She’s now in New York :D