While I’ve already talked about some of the awesome “big” events I got to attend at ACen, as someone who prefers to spend my time at conventions attending sit-down panels and presentations (as opposed to going to concerts, taking photos, etc.) I wanted to make sure I mentioned some of the other great panels and events I had the chance to attend while I was there.
Anime Monsters: The Creatures Within – with Helen McCarthy and Crispin Freeman
Crispin Freeman’s name should be familiar to many of us long-time anime fans as his voice has helped define the English voice-over tracks of many very famous anime productions (Hellsing, Slayers, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and many others). What many people don’t know is that he’s also done scholarly work on the subject of mythology and how it relates to modern storytelling and popular culture.
Helen McCarthy is someone who really should need very little introduction; she’s one of the originators of English-language anime fandom and has a vast knowledge of fandom culture, anime history, and textual analysis. She’s also one of the best speakers I’ve had the pleasure of being able to see – her panels on the Heroine’s Journey and on the films of Hayao Miyazaki are some of my favorite memories from attending A-Kon the past couple of years. She’s pretty much the person I hope to become someday – a long-time (and well-spoken) fan of a rich and interesting medium.
These two excellent speakers collaborated on a presentation exploring the concept and the role of the “monster” in human culture, including various familiar monsters from popular culture (Godzilla, Dracula, and others). Helen’s half of the program focused on specific monsters and their various pop-culture expressions, and then Crispin delved more into the psychological aspects of monsters, and how the monsters that we create represent our culturally-based fears – meaning, that sometimes the interpretations of some monsters can change over time as our fears and prejudices transform.
This type of panel makes me feel good about being an anime fan, because the speakers do a wonderful job of relating the stories that we relish as fans to our real-life cultures and experiences (something which I’m always trying to do). I’d encourage others to attend some of Helen’s or Crispin’s panels if they get the opportunity to do so!
Live drawing with Kenichi Sonoda and Shuzilow.HA
As a (very) amateur artist myself, one thing I’ve found very helpful in developing my hobby is to watch videos of other more accomplished artists sketch, draw, and color their own work. I watch a lot of character drawing videos on YouTube every week (I probably devote more time to doing that than to actually drawing… which might not be the best). One thing I’ve never really done, though, is attend drawing sessions in “real life.” I got the opportunity to fix that since guests-of-honor Kenichi Sonoda and Shuzilow.HA (Shujirou Hamakawa) partnered up to offer a very fun live character-sketch extravaganza, where they took audience requests and did the best they could to fulfill them.
Kenichi Sonoda is a familiar creator to those of us who were around in the early-ish days of Western anime fandom, (or were, more accurately, in fandom when some of these earlier classics were still readily-available). His character designs helped to define the look of several memorable series and OVAs, including Riding Bean, Gunsmith Cats, and Gall Force. He was actually at the convention to participate in the premiere of Bean Bandit, a Kickstarter-Funded sequel to Riding Bean.
Shuzilow.HA is an animator and animation director, famous for working on several series including Gankutsuou, Witchblade, Bokurano, and several others. He’s also the creator of Solty Rei. He’s also worked on some video game production at Konami.
While there’s definite appeal in just watching two accomplished artists do what they do best (and they both did a great job, even drawing characters they weren’t familiar with), what I really loved were the conversations and stories shared between the two artists and the audience. One of the “fun facts” that I learned (and how I didn’t know this already is a mystery to me) was that Mahiro Maeda, a director known to me for his work on Gankutsuou, has done a lot of design work outside of Japan. He contributed some character designs to an unrealized anime companion piece to Mad Max: Fury Road. Some of the designs were actually re-purposed and used in the live action film.
The various character drawings were given away using a very scientific method – rock, paper, scissors. Sadly, my husband and I lost every round – but we still have the memories of all the great art we had the privilege to see come into being right before our eyes!
Anime and Manga Translation: Bridging Cultures and Identifying Pitfalls – with Dan Kanemitsu
The translations that appear in anime and manga are often a major subject of debate among fans of those media. We armchair translators often question the decisions that translators make, and many of us prefer a certain “type” of translation style. The act of translating something from one language to another isn’t simply a matter of finding an equivalent vocabulary word in the target language, though; it involves a lot of nuance and cultural knowledge, as well as some good decision-making skills. Experienced translator Dan Kanemitsu, who’s provided his talents to all sorts of anime and manga translations over the years, shared some of his insight on being a translator, what it takes to become a translator, and some of the challenges that come with providing official translations to things like anime and manga.
Funny story – I actually sort of know Dan from way back. He attended the University of Minnesota back when I was a student there (early 2000’s). Our anime club was watching the series Martian Successor Nadeshiko in 2002 or thereabouts, which is one of the series that Mr. Kanemitsu lent his talents to translating. He was kind enough to talk about his translation process and choices, as well as provide other insights, in between episodes of the series. He also TA’d at least one of my Japanese film classes back in the day.
Second fun-fact: one thing he mentioned during the panel is that, when English-language voices are needed during an anime voice recording session in Japan, sometimes directors will grab whoever they know who speaks English (which as we know can have some amusing results). Dan has gotten this request before, including one major instance that I was already aware of – as an over-the-top bit character in Kunihiko Ikuhara’s Mawaru Penguindrum episode 16 (“Oh no, Mr. President! Watch out!”). Because of this, I can honestly claim that I’m only a couple of degrees away from Ikuhara, one of my favorite directors. I suppose the same could be said for Hideaki Anno, since Mr. Kanemitsu has provided translation assistance for all three of the new Evangelion films.
In any case, translation is definitely an art form, and it was really interesting to hear Dan speak about his experiences doing what is actually kind of a complicated job. I especially enjoyed hearing about all the different choices he has to make, and the differences between translations made for “hard core” fans (for example, retaining Japanese name suffixes like -san, -sama, -chan, etc.) and those meant to reach a wide or younger audience (some of the English language dub versions for what I’d call “glorified toy commercials,” like Beyblade and similar). I think this is a process very easy for us to complain about, but much harder to gain a full understanding of, and this panel really helped to supplement my relatively limited knowledge of the subject.
***
I’ve realized over the years that panel programming is often overlooked by a large portion of the people who attend anime conventions. While in a way this is kind of helpful to me (because I don’t have to fight for a spot in most panel rooms), I also think it’s a shame. While I think everyone has their own way of interacting with anime fandom, I also know that learning about anime through the knowledge I’ve gained from attending fan panels is one of the ways I’ve stayed engaged and involved over the years. While cosplay and AMV’s are flashy and exciting, I think panels are also a rich way of being a part of anime culture, so I hope I’ve convinced a few more people to check out some panels at their next convention!