The Old School Otaku Lounge

danth wrote:

llj wrote:

whitesnake wrote:Hi, my name is Laurine. This site recently showed up through random Googling.

Hi Laurine. Welcome.

Your comment just made me remember something that had been on the back of my mind for a while. How DO people find their way to this site? It's sort of funny to think of a bunch of older anime fans just typing "aging anime fans" into google in a random moment of anime fan introspection.

I sought out a place like this specifically, mainly because I'm friggin' 34 and it's depressing now that everyone and their dog likes anime, but they've never heard of the anime that I actually like.

I recently went to a small anime con and basically the con was about everything else other than the anime shows themselves. Sure, the cosplaying and merchandise were based on anime, but there really wasn't a whole lot of ACTUAL anime there. But nobody seemed to care! I wondered to myself if I was getting too old for this.

llj wrote:I recently went to a small anime con and basically the con was about everything else other than the anime shows themselves. Sure, the cosplaying and merchandise were based on anime, but there really wasn't a whole lot of ACTUAL anime there. But nobody seemed to care! I wondered to myself if I was getting too old for this.

That's fairly typical for MOST anime cons now, lots of people talking about what gives the best ROI. (-_-) It's something Ushicon (http://www.ushicon.com) is actively trying to combat. (not the cons themselves, but the mentality)

llj wrote: I recently went to a small anime con and basically the con was about everything else other than the anime shows themselves. Sure, the cosplaying and merchandise were based on anime, but there really wasn't a whole lot of ACTUAL anime there. But nobody seemed to care! I wondered to myself if I was getting too old for this.

"Anime" has become what "Star Trek" was for fans in the 70s and 80s - a catch-all phrase that serves as shorthand for any number of fandom-related activities and interests. A good rule of thumb to use when deciding to attend an "anime convention" is to check out the guest list and the events - if the guests are all people you've never heard of, who haven't any connection to Japanese animation, or if the events are heavy on the dances, raves, cosplay chess and light on anything to do with Japanese cartoons, it might not be as focused on anime as you'd like.

Hey Laurine, welcome! I guess you're probably tired of me saying that it's such an honor to have you here, but it really is -- I'm so glad that you've joined us...!

I'm amazed to read about all that you've experienced and done. Best wishes for many more years of Anime Sacramento fun and friendship.

Is your newsletter open to anyone to read? While I've been meeting new friends here, I've been learning about all the great things they're *still* doing as fans to this day, and I always love to check those things out.

Welcome!!
Daniel

_D_ wrote:I lost 2/3rds of my stuff as there simply was no more room for it in the new place.

Good Lord, you used to have more?

Are a lot of the degrading tapes Beta, by chance? As far as aging goes, so far I seem to have been having better luck with VHS than Beta...

greg wrote:I think I must have missed something, but what does C/FO stand for?

If you recall, we had some C/FO stuff (courtesy of Dave) on the ad that we made awhile back.

Love the showing schedule.

Laurine was where much of my early stuff came from. I picked up on my Japanese pen pal from another source, The Videophile's Newsletter which was an early fanzine for videocassette recorder owners. In the back pages were always want lists for traders. My contact came 2nd hand from another Betamax owner in my town (who is still a great friend of mine) who had done a trade with him through the zine. I lost contact with him about 10 years ago and have not heard from him since. His current whereabouts are unknown. Without him though, there would have been a lot less contact as he set up many other people with pen pals. Virtually everything I got from Japan, I got from him.

The tapes that have fared the worst are the old Scotch formulation tapes c. 1976/77 and some of the older VHS tapes from the early 80s that were recorded on brands of tape that I never heard of. Most of the stuff including the Beta tapes that were recorded on good quality tapes even in BIII speed are fine.

Well, I just tried a Google search under otaku, and aging otaku lounge didn't show up in the first 3 pages, so I don't remember what the Google subject was when this site showed up. But it did.

Next anime convention in Sacramento (Sac-Anime) is early January, at the downtown convention center. The guests, most panels, singing groups, and dances don't interest me. The costumes are fun to look at. I like the dealers room and artists alley. Maybe the bootlegger will be there who was at that J-town anime convention last summer. He doesn't deal in bootleg anime, but had the live action Kamen Rider 000 Meets Abarenbo Shogun dvd I bought there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VkZMp6z5Jo is the trailer for the Kamen Rider 000 - Abarenbo Shogun special (2011).

The SacAnime Newsletter is available to anyone who wants to get it as an e-zine. But the next issue is already up to 16 pages long in Word. And it has a lot more news about Asian film than news about anime. I just added a Swiss martial arts movie fan to the distribution list. Doug O is on the list.

The SacAnime Newsletter is available to anyone who wants to get it as an e-zine. But the next issue is already up to 16 pages long in Word. And it has a lot more news about Asian film than news about anime. I just added a Swiss martial arts movie fan to the distribution list. Doug O is on the list.

I'd love to see it. Please sign me up...!

llj wrote:I recently went to a small anime con and basically the con was about everything else other than the anime shows themselves. Sure, the cosplaying and merchandise were based on anime, but there really wasn't a whole lot of ACTUAL anime there. But nobody seemed to care! I wondered to myself if I was getting too old for this.

This is exactly my problem with cons, and why cosplay in particular irritates me.

I would love to go to a con if I could meet up with some of you guys!

danth wrote:I would love to go to a con if I could meet up with some of you guys!

Well, if you ever come to Japan, let me know! I already met Dave when he was in Tokyo in July.

In other related discussions, I am pretty sure I discovered this forum through the Anime Past YouTube channel.