Featured photo and additional photography by Solomon Bennett, find more of his work here.
Writing and photos by Izel Villarba, find more of his work here.
I completely forgot that anime conventions were a thing. The whole idea of them just seemed so absurd and utterly geeky for them to actually exist; and for that matter, that there are actually people who exist that go to anime conventions. I’ve never been ashamed to admit to the nerdier side of my personality, but to go to New York’s premier anime convention at the Javitz Center was almost overstepping the boundaries of my admission. Almost.
I initially learned about Anime NYC from a friend who was going through a breakup. “We were supposed to go to the anime con together”, he confided in me. “Yo that sounds cool as fuck…”, I thought to myself. After promptly buying a weekend pass, I wondered what my friends would think when I’d tell them I had to miss their gig because I was attending an anime convention. I justified myself by realizing that they have shows almost every week, but the convention only happens once a year.
Some people outgrow their anime phase, others never really go through it. I’ve been fortunate enough to have casually kept my interest in anime and Japanese culture throughout the years, though it’s never been a constant; mainly rewatching the shows I loved as a kid staying up late to indulge in Toonami, the mature anime segment of Cartoon Network’s evening offerings. Some boys and girls my age found solace in these Japanese cartoons and now that we’re older, that solace has turned into nostalgia.
When I think about those earlier years of my life, I also think about the music that influenced my view of the world at the time – bands like System of a Down and My Chemical Romance, Green Day and Blink 182, millennial type shit. Music continued to shape my identity even after my interest in anime began to dwindle, but attending Anime NYC reminded me how both still make an impact on me. It threw me into a beautiful world of freaks that I found eerily similar to the New York music scene I’ve come to envelop myself in. I figured it’d be fun to compare these two cultures through the lens of my relationship with both. Here are just some of the things I noticed.
Photo courtesy of Solomon Bennett
The Train
This happens a lot when you go to shows outside your neighborhood. You’re on public transportation, a bus or train, on your way to a show that isn’t easily accessible by foot, maybe St. Vitus or Baby’s All Right, when you notice other people who are obviously going to the same show you are. They could be wearing band tees or totes, merch to signify their support for the music they really love. In the case of St. Vitus, if you see someone wearing more leather than necessary or covered in tattoo sleeves and piercings, you know they’re going to the hardcore/ metal show.
On the way to the anime convention, it’s pretty easy to spot who’ll be attending. People seriously commit to the cosplay aspect of Anime NYC and they aren’t afraid to rock it on public transportation before and after attending the convention. One example: a group of hairy men in their mid-30’s dressed as Sailor Moon, in skirts too short for this cold weather. I don’t blame them, it must take a ridiculous amount of effort to get ready and you don’t want to waste any time once you’re at the convention. What I love about New York is that you can dress as outlandishly as you’d like and other passengers won’t really mind, they see crazier shit on any other given day.
Spectacle, Performance, Costume
One of the main reasons people go to shows is for the experience. They’re reviewed like other performative art forms such as cinema, theater, and dance. Every musician has their own appeal in this regard and what I love about live shows are the countless ways an act can brand themselves in their performance. Maybe they’ll choke themselves with the microphone wire, hump the amp, incite a mosh pit, or break the mayhem with a soft, tear inducing, acoustic ballad. A musician’s brand could also be in the way they dress to reflect their music. A good show provides an experience that people want to stick around for and be a part of. Anime NYC was like one really big live set and much like a good show, I felt fully immersed in the crowd.
Everywhere I looked there was someone in costume from an anime show I knew or if I didn’t know the show, someone else there certainly did. I’d often see a person in cosplay get stopped by a fellow fan and hear some variation of, “oh my god are you such and such from such and such show?!! Can I get a photo?”, then they’d trade a pose for a shot. I was guilty of stopping people for photos as well and had an absolute blast doing it. I saw many cosplayers run into others in the same costume and revel in their enjoyment together as they discovered they weren’t alone in their ingenious idea.
The convention facilitates the performative aspects of cosplaying by having organized “meetups”: waves of characters from particular animes linking up at a scheduled time in the southern pavilion to pose for photos together. You’ll have Dragonball Z at noon, followed by One Piece, followed by Naruto, and Demon Slayer to end the day. Countless animes featuring countless characters, all squeezed into three days. It was nuts! They had professional photo shoot set ups for these meet ups and I got to see these fans bask in the attention. This must be what musicians feel like on stage, all eyes on them.
Subcultural Friendship
If you frequent enough shows in Brooklyn, chances are you’ll run into the same people over and over again. This happens when people who live here come to appreciate and support the same kinds of music and thus become a part of the “scene”. Whenever I run into my “show only” friends, we often catch up and discuss aspects of our lives outside of a musical context: our 9-5’s, our love lives, the last movie we saw in theaters, etc. It’s really quite nice. It’s also good to know that you’ll probably see those same people at the next show coming down the line. They’re good folks you can rely on to hang out with in a setting where sometimes it’s hard to meet new people.
Similarly, I witnessed convention goers run into each other and act like they only ever interact with each other at conventions. Like I mentioned earlier, people stop and get stopped all the time for photos of their costumes or a comment regarding how they did such a good job with their hair, their props, or their makeup. Maybe they’re just wearing a really cool anime shirt that should be verbally appreciated. What’s crazy is that these small interactions can lead to lifelong friendships, even if they’re only ever at conventions or live shows.
I ran into an old classmate of mine who I hadn’t seen in a few years and after briefly catching up, he told me how he goes to Anime NYC every year and is currently trying to “weebo-fy” (weeb/weebo meaning an obsessive anime fan) the school he’s teaching at. I fully expect to run into him again next year and see if his mission was a success. It happened to me quite a few times where I’d run into someone I knew and if I had a break in between going to panels, we’d check out the merch booths in the main exhibition hall, a vast spectacle of merchants varying in every form of Japanese culture. Booths included t-shirt vendors, anime artists, toy stores, autograph tables, and even a table devoted to furry accessories (that’s right), with Japanese food trucks sprinkled throughout.
Floating through this endless carnival of anime nerdom reminded me so much of drifting a venue between band sets, going for a drink, out for a smoke, or talking with a friend and being able to hear each other’s laughter without live music to drown it out.
Geekiness
Within the confines of human history, it’s been widely accepted that a lover of comics or anime is the archetype of what we’d consider a geek or a nerd. I’d argue that an equally passionate sub sect of society lies within the music community. Think Phish. Think Insane Clown Posse and Radiohead, Slipknot and the Dead. These bands were able to garner cult like followings, with fans who have encyclopedic knowledge of their musical history and are able to nitpick any intricacy of every chord strummed and every lyric sung; completely scientific in their analysis. Phish Festival and Gathering of the Juggalos isn’t that much different from Comic Con or Anime NYC when you really think about it.
At the convention I went to, official panels were held in basement exhibition rooms beneath the main floor of the Javits Center. These ranged anywhere from industry presentations, where upcoming animes were teased and discussed, to Q&A’s with voice actors and show creators. One particular panel I went to was about Gundam model kit building (based off the giant fighting robot anime) and presented by Gundam enthusiasts as well as an architect who was able to draw correlations between the hobby and designing buildings.
Much like the music industry panels at CMJ or SXSW, these gatherings are meant to showcase what’s to come as well as open up a dialogue between the people that run the industry and the fans that support it. A personal highlight for me was during Q&A sections when at least one person – at EVERY SINGLE PANEL – would stand up in full costume, go up to the mic and speak with the cringiest, most nasally, Nardwuar-esque voice, all while asking an incredibly insightful question that an industry panelist would be able to expound upon. It made me appreciate how important it is to find like minded people who share your niche interests because they’re the only ones who’ll be able to speak your language.
Marketing
During the Gundam panel there was a middle aged journalist with a sound recorder running on the seat next to him. He was attentive in his note taking, jotting his thoughts down on a hefty, professional legal pad. He reminded me of how much of an amateur I was – as I penned my pocket notebook in spurted scribbles – and more importantly that anime, just like music, is a business; money drives its success and research is required for how it’ll be distributed to the masses.
Later, I’d attend a panel for GKIDS, America’s leading distributor for some of the most well recognized animes in the market; namely the films of Hayao Miyazaki made under his company, Studio Ghibli. GKIDS brought us award winning and critically acclaimed titles such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro, with Weathering With You currently down the line supported by international praise. Now consider the modern record label and its role in supporting musicians. Much like anime distribution companies, record labels tailor their lineups based on the potential success they see in the music they represent. This is where the brand and marketability of a music artist really comes into play and what labels desire as it means they can expect some return on whoever they choose to back.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but attending these events and participating in the entertainment value of music and anime comes at a cost. The weekend pass is the best bang for your buck for Anime NYC and music festivals, but you’ll also have to prepare for a significant amount of spending on upcharged basic things like food and merch. In the case of Anime NYC, the convention is tailored towards providing you with infinite excuses to spend money. The merch, especially, comes plentiful.
I imagined the crowds from these panels, after the excitement of the convention, go about their regular lives and tell their friends about everything coming on the anime horizon; aided by social media and publications such as the one that journalist writes for and the one you’re reading now. Conventions like Anime NYC and music showcases like SXSW or CMJ are bankable methods for information dissemination and they share responsibility in building the hype.
– Notable Mentions –
Music in Anime
In trying to look for connections between anime and music, I wanted to shout out this “intro/ outro credits of an anime” meme format. Anime intros are often energetic in nature and I’ve seen plenty that use jazz and rock to successful effect. Outros, on the other hand, are sad as shit. When streaming services didn’t exist, these somber end credits amplified the emotional finality of each episode as it meant you’d have to wait another week for the story to continue.
Social Awareness
I was pleasantly surprised to find out how self-aware Anime NYC was to certain social issues.
The following are examples of such awareness:
-There were anti harassment warnings in the official convention maps that were handed out to attendants. Anime fans and nerds are not inherently creepy; creepy people are creepy and they can be found everywhere, including conventions. Anime NYC made it clear to attendants to be respectful to each other and that any unwanted touching or harassment of any kind would not be tolerated.
-Kinks and Curls, a panel devoted to discussing how to cosplay if you have ethnic hair. Here’s a direct quote from the map/ brochure:
“From Sephiroth’s majestic spikes, to Sailor Moon odango buns, hair is a big part of anime. With the multitude of ethnicities in the cosplay community, sometimes it’s difficult styling kinky curly hair. We will show you how to style your natural hair, and afrocentric wigs, to enhance your cosplays.”
-Panels for LGBTQ Anime fans and a discussion on how to make the convention more accessible for attendants with disabilities.
Happiness
Another friend of mine relayed an experience to me where he recently went through an existential crisis. He was depressed and unsure of what he wanted to do in life. He started thinking about what brought him joy and meaning and the one thing he landed on was anime. It’s something that he looks forward to when he gets home from work or school, something he can use as an escape for comfort. I know others who could say the same about music. Everyone’s got their thing, if not things.
As I grow older and more reluctantly accepting of adulthood, I’m realizing how reliant a part of my happiness is on my financial freedom. When you’re a kid, there are certain pleasures in life you straight up just can’t afford. You have to beg your parents to buy you the latest and greatest video game or toy. Once you’re old enough to start really getting into music, maybe you ask them for money to buy an expensive ticket to a concert you want to go to or a record that just released. Now, in the midst of my twenties, I get to stupidly spend money on whatever I want – including a weekend pass to the anime convention AND taking work off for it. I’m also realizing how much of my childhood self has stayed in my conscience. One night last week, I was listening to My Chemical Romance (they’re back) and simultaneously playing the latest version of Pokemon – which has been around for 20+ years – when it occurred to me that I’m currently living a life that grade school me would be proud of, a life he would be unashamed to admit to.