The Old School Otaku Lounge

I was thinking recently about why anime conventions were called conventions instead of festivals, and remembered something Dave had said about the C/FO having minutes and bylaws under Randall Stukey.

"Convention" is a technical term in parliamentary procedure, the set of rules (usually Robert's Rules here in the U.S.) that formal groups like city council meetings tend to use. A convention is officially a meeting of representatives from different groups to jointly decide how to work together. As back then the unit of measure for anime was the club, if those clubs had a formal structure, then of course their group meeting would be a convention.

On the one hand, this seems like a very strange organizational structure for watching cartoons. On the other, without some sort of structure, it seems like it would have been hard to build a fandom for something like anime.

So what's the story here? Was it just a case that when U.S. anime fandom first started in the late 70s/early 80s, all clubs were run like that so of course the cartoon club would have bylaws and minutes, and if they met with other cartoon clubs they would send delegates to a convention?

Or was there something else going on?

Anime conventions started as a subset of fandom conventions, which are your Star Trek conventions, your Worldcons, your Dragoncons, your San Diego Comic Cons, etc. This culture started with the first fandom gatherings in the 1930s and 1940s, where writers, editors, and fans would congregate in one place to socialize and make deals (and start feuds). There were (and are) professional conferences that we call "conventions" - your convention of auto dealers, company salespeople, union representatives, the two big political party conventions that happened over the summer. There are conventions of social and fraternal organizations like the Elks, the Freemasons/Shriners, the Optimist Club, the Rotary Club, veterans organizations, church and religious groups. So when First Fandom (that is what they call themselves) were putting together the first gatherings in hotels, the word "convention" is what they used, and it's stuck with us ever since.

"Robert's Rules of Order" don't really apply to convention organizations, at least I don't know of any anime convention that uses those rules to conduct their assemblies. The closest we ever got to a "convention" featuring representatives from anime clubs gathering in one place to conduct anime club business would be informal gatherings in hotel rooms or during panels. There isn't much organization crossover between anime clubs and anime conventions - both involve a lot of the same people, but the structures and goals are very different.