The Old School Otaku Lounge

Brighton Worldcon 1987 (I have the colour pic somewhere):

Animecon 1992:

Early cosplay:



Fan get together (we used to do a big dinner at every con. Sadly, last I did one was in 2000):



Steve Kyte and Helen McCarthy 1992 - without them, no anime fandom in the UK:

Animecon 1993

Shigeru Mizuki (GeGeGe no Kitaro):



Komiket reps 1993:



See previous picture...Mizuki book is on table. I got them to give it to me and
I got Mizuki to autograph it. Limited edition (of 300 only) in English:



More early cosplay:



Adam Warren 1993:

[quote="_D_"]Atlanta 1986:





I know at least two people in that first picture, still hear from them regularly. The guy looking at the camera has been involved with Atlanta anime fandom since, like, day one.

davemerrill wrote: If you remember a kind of hyperactive teenager obsessed with the Japanese cartoons running around the place, that was me.

A hyperactive teenager obsessed with anime? At a con? What are the odds of that happening?

Love the old photos. Thanks for sharing!

greg wrote:

davemerrill wrote: If you remember a kind of hyperactive teenager obsessed with the Japanese cartoons running around the place, that was me.

A hyperactive teenager obsessed with anime? At a con? What are the odds of that happening?

Well, at the Worldcon in 1986, anime-obsessed teenagers were definitely a minority. In fact, teenagers of any kind were thin on the ground.

This is a photo of me and two pals at what I believe was an Atlanta Fantasy Fair in 1986.



I am not wearing a hat or glasses. I believe that's a Cerebus T-shirt I'm sporting, though.

People in the photos seem familiar. Hmmm...

Thanks....

Anime Central near Chicago in 1998. Having recently discovered anime I didn't know anyone who was into it so didn't have anyone to go with so sadly went alone although not having anyone to talk to anime about is what drove me to go in the first place.

I didn't have a car so ended up taking public transportation which still had dropped me off about 10 miles from the location and actually ended up hitching a ride to get there! (Parents picked me up though.)
I remember having already purchased a pass but when I first arrived there was a table that was asking for volunteers. I only had a one day pass but they offered to refund my money if I volunteered and room and board at the hotel for the entire weekend!

I ended up taking the deal so got to experience my first con as a volunteer which was cool because it really opened my eyes to see what it was all about. First duty was checking badges at the vendor hall!

The most memorable thing that happened was that myself and another volunteer got to spend the entire night in the vendor hall. For whatever reason the door locks were busted to the hall and so they had us guard the room overnight to make sure no one sneaked in and stole stuff. We had the entire vendor hall to ourselves which was great because it gave us the opportunity to take our sweet time and ogle over all the wares without the crowds of people.

This is when I first discovered Ranma 1/2. Ended up reading like a dozen volumes. Not even sure I got any sleep that night.