Vericon VI: Anime brought to you by Harvard
By Ashley Stagner Feb. 24, 2006
I’m a little behind with this article because the Vericon VI convention that I went to at Harvard University was from January 27-29. My main purpose for this article is to remove the stigma that most conventions have; that they are only for geeks, nerds ubernerds, etc. I don’t believe this is true.
A convention is only a group of people coming together with a common interest to share their passion for it. An example is a car show. Car shows don’t receive the same treatment, and yet all they are is a group of people coming together to share their passion for cars. I know that people who go to car shows reading this will claim it isn’t the same, but fundamentally it is. I have been to car shows before, and have seen the airbrushed cars that say “love machine” on the side. People can be just as eccentric about cars as they can be about anime.
The convention I went to, Vericon VI, was presented by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association in conjunction with the Harvard Anime Society. I went with the Hamilton Anime Club. We left Friday afternoon and came back Sunday night. And yes, this convention was for anime.
For those of you in the world who do not know of this glorious Japanese form of cartooning, well, according to whatis.techtarget.com, anime is “a term for a style of Japanese comic book and video cartoon animation in which the main characters have large doe-like eyes. Many Web sites are devoted to anime. Anime is the prevalent style in Japanese comic books or manga. In Japan, the comic book is a popular form of entertainment for adults as well as for younger audiences. Story lines are often very sophisticated and complex and extend into episodic series. Typical anime themes or genres include Ninja and other martial arts; the supernatural or horror story; the romance; and science fiction including robots and space ships. Foils for the main characters, including robots, monsters, or just plain bad people, often lack the doe-eyed quality.”
