An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

The roughly mid-90's and earlier (generally pre-Toonami, pre-anime boom) era of anime & manga fandom: early cons, clubs, tape trading, Nth Generation VHS fansubs, old magazines & fanzines, fandubs, ancient merchandise, rec.arts.anime, and more!
Fireminer
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by Fireminer »

Can anyone here give me an advice on how to make more people aware of my index? I have tried to post the link on social networks and forums I frequents, but there are almost no one reply. I wonder if I have been talking to the wrong audience, but beside this forum, I don't know any other place where old anime fans congregate.
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DKop
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by DKop »

There is an old school anime fan group on facebook that would be interested, I think Dave and Tim are part of that. Submitting your work to ANN for them to do some kinda hit piece might work in your favor, but im not so sure about them. The guy who runs Colony Drop/ Zimmerit.moe is a good person to talk too, it couldn't hurt to reach out to them. That's really all I got.
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by davemerrill »

Dkop, what makes you think ANN is likely to do a "hit piece" on a list of anime fandom figures?
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by Fireminer »

DKop wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2019 4:41 am There is an old school anime fan group on facebook that would be interested, I think Dave and Tim are part of that. Submitting your work to ANN for them to do some kinda hit piece might work in your favor, but im not so sure about them. The guy who runs Colony Drop/ Zimmerit.moe is a good person to talk too, it couldn't hurt to reach out to them. That's really all I got.
I have written an email to ANN for a few months back and never receive a reply. I will try to get in talk with Sean O'Mara though. Thank you for the advice.
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by DKop »

davemerrill wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:00 am Dkop, what makes you think ANN is likely to do a "hit piece" on a list of anime fandom figures?
If it can come in the form of a short blog that's really what the most ANN would give to something like that, maybe. I guess if its not someone in the anime industry doing something borderline illicit, then they got nothing to write about. That seems to be how they operate these days.
Fireminer wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2019 8:26 am
I have written an email to ANN for a few months back and never receive a reply. I will try to get in talk with Sean O'Mara though. Thank you for the advice.
Well, that answers that question on ANN. Yea try Sean, I hope you do better with him. You might have to write a bit about why you're doing the list and the research on these people in fandom, but it would be right in line to the theme of Zimmerit.
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by davemerrill »

ANN's "news" tab today:

0:31 Kyoto Animation's Physical Store Remains Closed Through March 2020
09:34 22/7 Member Mei Hanakawa Goes on Hiatus Due to Poor Health
04:32 Psycho-Pass 3 Anime Gets Manga in October
02:07 Crunchyroll Streams ORESUKI Are you the only one who loves me? Anime
02:06 Zo Zo Zo Zombie Manga Gets New Net Animated Shorts
01:26 Legend of the Galactic Heroes Anime's 2nd 'Season' Reveals New Visual, Images
Sep 30 Kengan Ashura Anime Reveals 14 More Character Roles
Sep 30 Shinkalion Anime Film's Trailer Unveils Theme Song, Guest Cast, December 27 Opening
Sep 30 Kaguya-sama Stays at #2 for 3rd Weekend, Weathering With You Back at #3
Sep 30 Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Anime Also Gets TV Run in Japan

Not really seeing a lot of news articles about anyone doing anything borderline illicit here.
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by SteveH »

I think the communication problem is that someone doesn't understand that the phrase 'hit piece' has negative connotations.

He may have meant 'quick piece' or 'short piece' or 'throwaway space filler article'.

As opposed to deep research well thought out essay or commentary. Which frankly I find in short supply at ANN. Mike Toole's work being a notable exception, as well of course our own Dave Merrill
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by davemerrill »

I've never written for ANN, so I can't take any credit (positive or negative) for anything that happens on there.

I do believe I get the intent of the "hit piece" term, that if a story isn't current or sexy enough, it's not going to be "news". As they say, "if it bleeds, it leads." And that's OK, it's a news website trying to cover news in the field. A list of prominent figures in the early anime fandom isn't "news" - maybe writing and publishing a book about those figures would be news, or the release of a documentary would be news. Or if somebody's killing them off one by one, like that time somebody was killing the great chefs of Europe (that's a joke). But the mere existence of a list in and of itself, that's hard to sell as "news."
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by DKop »

My intent on saying "hit piece" is just throwing up an article that people might find that the information lacked the proper research before something should be posted. I feel there is a lot of articles out there online that write about a person or scandal that only copies the information from others and not really adding anything new to it.

The #KickVic debacle is how I looked at not just how ANN wrote the story originally (which is how from Twitter things started to be publicized on the details), but how other sites cashed in on "views" to stay relevant in order to just do it to gain traffic to their site. I guess that's the nature of the beast for journalism and that every site will copy or have their own form of bias views on a story. I felt at the beginning everything that was said about Vic was full of nearly all speculation of rumors that originated on Twitter that people seemed to take as golden truth without any hard evidence to back up the accusations against him. I wasn't sure how to take a site like ANN that if they're considered to be a solid source of actual news reporting, then why throw up a story without all the facts being correctly confirmed in the first place (like police reports/court documents/written confirmation of accusations). That information did come months later through affidavits which brought more facts into the open, which I thought that's what should've been done in the first place. But without how the original story got started, we wouldn't have never gotten to the point of affidavits being done. That was my take on how all that went down earlier this year, which im likely to be right and wrong in some areas of my opinion on that. I didn't take issue on what was said about Vic, it was just how it was reported that I had issues with.

That doesn't mean that ANN does this for all of their content, since they will do articles on series with the material present to report about that everyone can see the same information they do, like a movie release date or convention reports. That is a majority of their written content from what I've always seen.

In the end #KickVic is over and done with, and the courts have decided the decision on what is considered defamatory or libel, so it is what it is either way.
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Re: An index of prominent figures in the early anime fandom?

Post by _D_ »

Interesting work. But spotty on several people, especially Canadian fandom. William Chow I had never heard of until a few years ago. I don't recall ever trading with him or anything. According to an old newsletter I was involved with (The Captain Harlock/Galaxy Express Newsletter dated 12 August 1980) I sent Phil Gilliam tapes of Albator for him to air at a local meeting. I also say this was the first time I had written a fan publication. Albator I had started to watch in November 1979 (I still have the tapes). I wrote to the C/FO and as far as I can recall, I was the first Canadian member. Craig Walker was #2 a month or two later. I had found out about the club from Don and Maggie Thompson in the Comics Buyers Guide. I was receiving tapes directly from Japan as of June 1980 I believe. Can anyone look up Gatchaman Fighter "Downfall of Count Egobossler" for me to check the date? That was as one of the first ones I got, though GE999 "Pirates at the at The Time Castle" part 2 might have predated it. Afterwards, I started to get other people contacts in Japan through my contact in Nagasaki who was a big foreign film collector. We traded for 20 years but I lost contact with him about 2000. There is so much more and so many people that came later. Marg Baskin has to have been the den mother of anime fandom when it first started up in Toronto. As well as the fanzines and APAs she edited. I have lots of them sitting here. Ann Nichols was invaluable for translations in those early days. Most translators I knew at the time were all women but their contributions seem to have been somewhat overlooked after all these years. A pity really. I started dealing with Helen McCarthy before Worldcon in 1987. I brought over tapes but we couldn't watch them as the con organizers would not allow us to use the multi system projector. So, the first major showing in the UK was watched by a handful of fans watching on a 5" TV that Mark Merlino had brought with him (I think it was part of his video recording equipment). I'll have to check the tapes I shot myself and see if there was anything on them of note. I did have the slide of the fans watching that TV but all that remains is a photo stat in black and white of that first viewing. The reason I had got involved at all was no one else was willing to go through with things like getting conversions done or dealing with people overseas. But I had been doing this for some time already via Dr. Who fandom. And...they needed help...

Lots more to reminisce but enough for today...
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