Good day to you all

Tell the old school world who you are, and let us welcome you into the forum!
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isaacada1
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:56 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1979
Location: Greater Seattle

Good day to you all

Post by isaacada1 »

My name is Isaac. I first discovered anime in the '70s and like many who grew up in the '80s. I started off with "Star Blazers", "Battle of the Planets" and the "Force Five", then moved onto "Voltron", "Robotech", and "Saber Rider". I knew it was different then some of the American animation programming at the time, but didn't know it was called "anime". That came later.

But my first true introduction and how I became an anime fan was in the early '90s when I was in college. My roommate took me the WWU Science Club in Bellingham Washington and was introduced to all the Studio Ghibli films that had been released up til then as fansubs(Nausicaa, Laputa, Porco Rosso, Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service. After that, when I would go back home during the summer, I started visiting my local comic book shop Wonderworld Books in Burien Washington. Started to read Protoculture Addicts religiously. My second year of college was when someone started the AIYA! Animation Club of WWU and I was hooked. Was a member of the club on and off through the 1990's.
Towards the end of the decade, I heard rumblings that fandom in the Greater Seattle area wanted to start the area's first anime convention. It was called Baka-Con. The reason it was called that because the staff thought they were crazy trying to attempt run an anime convention in the area because it had never been done before. After attending the first two Baka-Con's, and organizing the first regional anime club summit at Baka-Con 1999, I chose to be on staff from 1999-2004. Briefly in late 1999 through the summer of 2000, I was also the editor in chief of Anime News Network(ANN). Working a job, running a website, and running a convention were taking way too much time out of my day so I had to focus on what I could have the most positive effect on. I then met George Phillips at Anime Expo 2000 and was able to hand the site over to both him and Christopher Macdonald. I've very happy to see how far ANN has grown under their guidance. I then was able to focus on running the local convention, which had changed names from Baka-Con to Sakura-Con. Along the way, I was the Vice Chair, Con Chair, ANCEA Vice President, Dealers Room Coordinator, Guest Coordinator, Corporate Liaison, Charity Auction MC, and Director of Relations.

My first anime convention experience outside of the Seattle area was attending Anime Expo 2000 at the Disneyland Hotel. Of all the anime events I've attended, this event was truly the most fun I had being able to meet with all the rec.arts.anime.misc people I'd seen posting for many years, as well as meeting industry reps, other convention organizers, and various fans as well as members of the anime media.

If I had a time machine, there's two anime events I would love to go back in time to attend. One is Anime Expo 1999 so I could see Yokko Kano perform, and AnimeCon 91.

Since I left Sakura-Con, I've been fortunate to attend quite a few anime events on the midwest and east coast. Very interesting to meet other anime fans from other regions.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to further discussions.
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kndy
Posts: 639
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:39 am
Anime Fan Since: 70's
Location: California
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Re: Good day to you all

Post by kndy »

Hey Isaac! Great to see you on here! :)
davemerrill
Posts: 1235
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:38 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1984
Location: the YYZ
Contact:

Re: Good day to you all

Post by davemerrill »

Hi Isaac! Glad to see another anime con veteran here. Welcome, pull up a chair.
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greg
Posts: 2159
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:00 pm
Anime Fan Since: 1989 (consciously)
Location: Shizuoka-ken, Japan
Contact:

Re: Good day to you all

Post by greg »

Ha, I've always wondered why it was called "Baka Con." I've heard of it, even though I don't live in the area. Thanks for helping to make ANN the great thing it is. We've been getting a lot of people who have been very influential among the English speaking fandom!
My presence on the Net, with plenty of random geekiness:
My homepage
My YouTube channel
My Flickr photostream
My Tumblr page
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Daniel
Site Admin
Posts: 525
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:56 pm
Anime Fan Since: 199X年
Location: USA

Re: Good day to you all

Post by Daniel »

Hey Isaac,

So glad that you decided to join us!

I'm incredibly busy, so I'll have to delay my full response here for the moment, but I wanted to give you a warm welcome and let you know how much I appreciate you being here just the same.

Welcome! Please make yourself right at home.
Daniel
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