Archive for the Events Category


Events: 2003 Con Season Yuri News

May 16th, 2003

For all you Canadian Shoujoai and Yuri Fans – Yuricon has taken over Anime North’s Shoujo Room. Yes, Yuricon 2003 Guest of Honor, Kathryn Williams, is once again elbow deep in the continuing quest to share shoujoai anime with the world. The Shoujo room at AN will be scheduled with straight shoujo during the day, shoujoai and maybe even a little yuri at night, thus affording everyone something they’ll like. If you’re going to be in Toronto this weekend, stop by and lend your support!

Check out other Yuricon Events for shoujoai and yuri events across the globe. (No kidding!)





Events: "Live Appearance" Announcements!

March 18th, 2003

In case you want a few sneak previews of Yuricon entertainment or to chat about yuri, here’s a few places you can catch up with me and some of my staff:

March 22, 2003, New York City – we’ll be checking out tunes by our Saturday night feature band, Gaijin-a-gogo at Fez at 380 Lafayette St., starting at about 8PM. I’ll be there, along with a staff member or three. We’ll be the ones having the time of our lives – I mean, how can you beat J-pop performed by a New York band and Hawaiian music done by a Japanese band?! Drop by and say hi!

April 18-20, 2003, Boston – Anime Boston. I’ll actually only be there Saturday and Sunday, but you can drop by the Shoujocon table for info anytime.

Don’t forget, you can always get the low-down on where I’ll be and what we’re doing at the Yuricon Events page. I love to meet other yuri and shoujoai fans!





Events: Yuricon at MIT

February 28th, 2003

We interrupt our regular Tokyo journal to mention that last weekend I had the incredible honor of speaking at MIT about gender and sexuality in Japanese animation. Many thanks to Cassie Huang and Emily Lowe of the Women’s Studies dept and to the MIT Anime Club who were very, very cool!

The program was titled Schoolgirls and Superheroines: Gender and Sexuality in Japanese Anime.

Keridwen Luis was the first speaker – she did a great paper on shoujo anime from an anthropological perspective. Her discussion focused on “agency” – the active element, as opposed to passivity, that affected female characters in shoujo anime.

The next speaker was Dr. Sarah Frederick, who discussed Utena in relation to the work of Yoshiya Nobuko, an early 20th century Japanese popular writer. Her presentation was fascinating to me as I have a real interest in Yoshiya’s place in the origins of shoujo conventions.

I’m no academic, so I basically did what I always do – I cracked ’em up. I wasn’t profound, but they laughed a lot, which was all I cared about. I presented them with a basic history of anime and manga, some definitions; I made up some “archetypes” of the portrayal of women, contrasting the conventions of shoujo and shounen anime and manga. I finished up with a discussion of fandom and it’s role in portrayal and creation of gender and sexual roles in the field. And we all had lots o’fun.

I will be putting the text of all three lectures at the Yuricon Essays page under the title of MIT lectures (duh) so you can all read what we talked about. It was some good stuff!

Last but not least, here’s a mention of an upcoming appearance – in April in New York City, the New Festival, NYC’s Gay and Lesbian Film Fest will be showing the Utena movie and Fake. I may or may not be presenting them, and there may or may not be a Queer Anime panel – if there is, I’ll be on it. In any case, I’ll be there doing promotion for Yuricon, so drop by and say hi!

I’ll upload the next bit of the Tokyo Journal real soon – promise!!





Events: Yuricon at Comiket 62

December 21st, 2002

There are a lot of good reasons for me to *not* go to Japan, but for me, the most pressing problem I have is…language paralysis.

I’ve learned a painful lesson about myself – I get star struck. It’s sad and pathetic, but true. Like most otaku, I have few social skills and the ones I do have are a facade. ^_^ And these simply disappear when faced with someone I think is better than ultra-cool. It’s a weird feeling. I’m usually a good speaker, competent, coherent…and then Ogata Megumi asks me how I’m doing and I become a drooling moron. Sigh…

But the worst part of it is, my language skills simply go away. Here I am, surrounded by nice people with whom I can practice my Japanese, and I can barely remember, “excuse me.” (Not entirely true, the entire weekend to which I am referring, I said practically nothing else.) Hell, I can barely remember basic English phrases. So language paralysis is definitely an issue for me.

Why am I even mentioning this, you may be wondering? Well, because in 6 days, I’m leaving for Japan. And I am painfully aware that without my friend there to help me, four years of study will fly away like dandelion fuzz as soon as I get there and am forced to try and communicate. It ought to be amusing…for someone who isn’t me. I and my wife will be going there for about two weeks to attend Winter Comiket. It ought to be an adventure. I also have a deep-set desire to spend New Year’s Eve in Sanrio Puro Land (Hello Kitty Land) to the consternation of everyone I mention it to. Other than that, I expect to be dragged to a Shinjuku Ni-chome bar (duh!) and forced to tour Tokyo like a gaping tourist, all of which I’m looking forward to immensely. ;-) There is nothing as freeing as being a complete tourist somewhere. Once you get used to being stared at, it’s all easy and fun. ^_^

I can’t promise to have computer access there, but if I do, I’ll let you know how I’m doing… if not, then when I get back, I’ll regale you with tales of my adventures in Comiket-land! ^_^





Events: Yuricon 2003 schedule

October 31st, 2002

The end of a loooooooong summer

Finally! My touring/presenting/schmoozing schedule has come to a close. Anime Next
 was fun from my perspective, mostly because it was quiet, friendly and local. LOL We sold a few Yuricon shirts and posters…and I ran right out and spent the money on One Piece toys.

I wasn’t able to go to Yaoicon, and I won’t be going to Nekocon, so the next time you see me will likely be after the New Year at either Katsucon or Anime Boston.

In effect, 2002 is over for me. Now the Yuricon staff and I will be focusing on entirely dull and uninteresting administrative things – signing up vendors, advertisers, sponsor, etc. (If you are interested in helping out with any of this, or want to support Yuricon in some financial way, then PLEASE feel free to contact us!)This is all the tedious, uninteresting stuff that no one wants to do, but it has to be done to get a con going. I’m working on the above, lining up entertainment and working on our two Yuricon publications – Yuri Monogatari, an original shoujoai compilation, and a translation of a very fine Japanese manga series, Rica ‘te kanji?! by Yuricon Guest of Honor, Rica Takashima. I’m looking forward to being able to present both of these in 2003. YM will have some big names contributing – Yuricon guests Steve Bennett of Ironcat Studios, Mike “Haze-man” Hayes, Rica Takashima and Kathryn Williams of Kat and Neko Manga. We’re very excited about it, not surprisingly.

The holidays aren’t far off, so let me plug our Yuricon Goodies page, at you. You can find stickers, posters, t-shirts, even lunchboxes to help you and your friends-but-you’d-like-to-be-more get off on a good footing. And they make great gifts for your favorite yuri fanboy or fangirl! Show your support for Yuricon and get some great swag, drop by the Yuricon Goodies page.

While I’ve got your attention, let me tell you a funny story about Rica Takashima. (It’s pretty easy to do, she’s a funny lady.) I was busting on her for not having a sex scene between the protagonist of her manga, Rica, and her lover, Miho. She answered by coming out to lunch with a pile of paper. She hands it to me and says, here is a “sex scene” I did for a friend’s doujinshi. We read the story, about a Princess of the Art Kingdom, who’s dad is King Picasso (his face looks like Picasso painting face.) There is a sex scene between the princess and another woman. But…as they are both in octopus form it looks like a tangled web of tentacles. We all laughed and joked about “tentacle sex.” This is the kind of wacked out sense of humor Rica has. She’ll be a terrific guest at Yuricon – just you wait and see.

One more plug for the web site and I’ll go. Yuricon Registration is open, with a vengeance. If yopu register right now, it’s $15 off the at-the-door price. That’s pretty good, if you ask me. :-) That price *will* be going up at the end of the year, so register now, while it’s at its lowest!

I’ll be back again next time with a funny story about another guest…Kat Williams. LOL