what was your first anime con?

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kndy
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by kndy »

AnimeSennin wrote:
kndy wrote:My first convention was Anime America 1993. I would post video on youtube but last time I tried, everything looks green on tape now...lol...too many years of neglect and being left in storage.
Ah, precious footage...! You sure it's a problem with the tape itself rather than the playback equipment? Maybe it's salvageable in any case...
It's the tapes unfortunately but I have put up a few on YouTube a few years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/user/oldschoolanimecons?ob=0

also on here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... re=mh_lolz
Heero
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by Heero »

kndy wrote:It's the tapes unfortunately but I have put up a few on YouTube a few years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/user/oldschoolanimecons?ob=0
THANK YOU for posting this, it's REALLY awesome to look back on anime con nostalgia from almost 20 years ago. (heh, back when anime con attendees were mostly engineers XD, or: when American otaku were basically the SAME as Japanese otaku (and I mean that fondly, I was one of those people))

Also, there's some great mullets in there and I agree with a commenter: "We got Mail Order Megazone 23" are words you will probably never hear in this day and age.

Also, was that one table sporting homemade "original" (ie. not copied) garage kits (I don't recognize the characters and the boxes sport that "amateur" look)?
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Daishikaze
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by Daishikaze »

Otakon 2000

Not a brilliant experience for me for several reasons that were not the Con's fault. I left with my friends and my wife straight from work at 7am. We drove several hours only to arrive waaaay before the con was really open, so we just wandered around until it opened. When we got in, My wife was very impolite (she had no con etiquette, having never been to a con before) loudly proclaiming every dealer I spoke to was "ripping me off" (she now knows not to do that). And then we had to leave after a couple of hours because I had to go back to work that night. I got back late, had no sleep and I had to call out.

This was entirely my fault, I should have checked about when the con opened and everything before we decided to go. I should have let my wife stay home (she's not really an anime fan), but I we only had a relatively short time together before she had to go back to Switzerland, so I didn't really want to be separated from her for too long. And I should have tried harder to change my schedule so I wouldn't have had to rush back to work, and then not be able to go in.
davemerrill
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by davemerrill »

I went to Otakon in 1999 and found it to be really well run for such a giant show (it and Anime Expo were and still are the largest NA anime cons). Went back in 2010 and it hadn't changed all that much, except to get a lot larger. Staff still had things handled really well, and that was in the face of a fire in the event hall that required the complete evacuation of the entire facility. I have been to conventions a tenth of Otakon's size that were much more crisis-ridden, accident-prone, and problematic.
raiderfan99
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by raiderfan99 »

My first con was Otakon 1999. I also went to Otakon 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2007.

I think the other cons I went to were....Anime Boston 2005 and 2006, and Connecticon 2003, 2005, 2006.

The best con still to me still is either Otakon 1999 or Otakon 2007. I hate to admit it but its kind of hard to go to other cons other than Otakon, it just has that weird sentimental place in me. I love the inner harbor area and Baltimore is a real beautiful city.

I actually have several cosplay photos over the years if anyone wanted me to upload them.
_D_
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by _D_ »

We had anime con rooms back in the 1980s. I had been doing regional scifi cons for 10 years. I remember bringing tapes with me to the Brighton Worldcon in 1987. It was the first showing of anime at a major con in the UK. I have a photostat of a pic I took at that con. The con chair would not allow us to use the projection TV so Mark Merlino had brought a 5" NTSC tv with him from California and we sat around and watched "Wings of Honneamise" on it. I also brought a bunch of Hokuto no Ken tapes that I had had digitally converted. All that stuff was left behind as I had no need to take it back with me. Probably still in the hands of some friends of mine in London. The first anime only con I attended was in 1991 or 1992. Matsumoto was supposed to be there but cancelled at the last moment. The con organizers didn't want to say anything for fear there would be massive cancelations. I actually drove from where I am in Canada to California to attend. I filmed some of that con and all of my trip. Around here somewhere on tapes. A couple years later I lost my camera equipment to a break in on my truck attending a con where Hideaki Anno was the guest. I lost all that footage since the tape was in the camera. I still think about that one. I did get him to draw me some sketches so it wasn't a complete loss.
davemerrill
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by davemerrill »

Hey _D_, by any chance did you attend the Worldcon in Atlanta in 1986?
_D_
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by _D_ »

davemerrill wrote:Hey _D_, by any chance did you attend the Worldcon in Atlanta in 1986?
Yes! And I have pix from it here somewhere. But no video. I had not won my 8mm video camera at that time.
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by davemerrill »

I do believe we've met. I was at the Atlanta Worldcon and I recall meeting and later corresponding with a "D", an anime fan from your part of Canada. If you remember a kind of hyperactive teenager obsessed with the Japanese cartoons running around the place, that was me.

At the time I never thought I'd be living in Canada myself, but life is full of surprises.

On my list of 'things to do' is to track down Canadian anime fans from the 80s and work out what kind of anime fan scene there was at the time, so don't be surprised if I bug you with some questions at some point.
_D_
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Re: what was your first anime con?

Post by _D_ »

Atlanta 1986:

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