Anime News

Representing the most up-to-date and thorough source of information for anime fans, the Tokyo Anime Center, the world’s first anime information outpost, will open in Akihabara Cross Field on March 15.

Japanese anime and games, as well as their diverse character merchandising, are renowned across the globe. In Akihabara, the largest and most advanced software market surrounding these media, a building that will become a landmark in the anime industry will open shortly.

The Center will allow anime and character fans from Japan and overseas to obtain the most up-to-date information, as well as participate in events and public radio recordings featuring creators and voice actors. The Center will also sponsor continuous events at which attendees can get their hands on Tokyo Anime Center original commemorative merchandise.

Read the full story here!

By: Cindy Lee Mackert

A club has formed for those who appreciate anime (Japanese animation), or just want to check it out. Anime Fannatiku meets the first Saturday of every month from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Hurricane Library.

“Evilness is bad,” Hillarie Gowers, a club member, quoted from an anime. “I like anime. Anime is fun. I go because I can dress up and not be laughed at.

Natalie Daniel, a librarian clerk at the Hurricane Library, was inspired to start the group by a similar one that meets in the Charleston Library in Las Vegas, called Anime Vegas.

“I was sitting at the computer one day and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had a club here where we could all get together with people who have similar interests?’” Daniel said.

She talked her co-worker, Sarah Hall, into helping her organize the club.

“We knew there would be a large fan base here,” Hall said, “because we have an extensive selection of Japanese Manga, which most animes are based on, at the library and we can’t keep them in. They’re always being checked out, especially by the high school students. When we advertised for the anime club, we received a positive response.”

Anime Fannatiku met for the first time on Feb. 4. A total of 75 people were in attendance, and some of them were from St. George and Ivins. Even Anime Vegas founder, Rich Stott, brought a group of members with him from Las Vegas to support the club opening.

Read the full story here!

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.”

Read the full story here @ The Spectator

Technorati : anime

By Mark Jenkins
Friday, February 17, 2006; Page WE27

The big-eyed ones walk among us.

Without attracting much mainstream attention, such diverse Japanese ‘toons as Astroboy, Puffy AmiYumi and Naruto have infiltrated American culture.

Mostly, these huge-pupiled characters keep to the contemporary electronic equivalent of the back roads: cable TV, video-rental stores and the Internet.

This weekend, however, the growing stateside fascination with Japanese manga (comic books) and anime (animated movies and TV shows) will come pouring out of the Woodley Park-Zoo Metro station and into the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Some of the devotees will even be dressed as their favorite characters.

The occasion is the 12th annual Katsucon, the Washington area’s largest gathering of fans of Japanese comics and other pop culture, including movies, music, video games, toys, trading cards and more. These are people whose knowledge goes far beyond such widely recognized creatures as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Hello Kitty. “Every year, we move to a larger facility as the head counts increase,” says Chad Diederichs, the nonprofit gathering’s press liaison. “This year, we’re guessing in the 10,000-attendee range.”

Katsucon is much like other conventions of comic, movie and science-fiction fans, and “con” is the customary suffix for such events. The rest of the three-day event’s name, however, is something of a mystery. Although “katsu” can mean several things in Japanese, commonly it identifies a breaded meat cutlet. None of the organizers of the first Katsucon, held 12 years ago in Virginia Beach, is still around to clarify the title’s inspiration.

“Literally translated from Japanese,” Diederichs suggests, “the name means ‘Convention of Pork.’ The best we’ve been able to tell, we must sheepishly admit, is that the original translator really didn’t know very much Japanese and got the phrase wrong. Unfortunately, by that time it had really stuck. Right now, our official policy is [to] avoid any literal translation of our name. It really confuses our Japanese guests.”

Read the rest of this article at the Washington Post here.