Fanime 2023: The Rebuilding Continues

Once again, I’ve been given cause to wonder where a five day period over Memorial Day Weekend has gone for me.  This is the time I use to attend Fanime every year that it happens, but it always goes by quickly enough to make me wonder if it even happened at all.  While the con has been in rebuilding mode post-quarantine for the past couple of years now, things felt more “there” than they did last year.  Granted, they were in the awkward situation of having to put all video programming in the Doubletree, miles away from the convention center, but word is that might be fixed next year.  Even with that, there were still plenty of panels to keep me fully engaged with the con from morning until night on each day (that wasn’t Monday… or Thursday).

Andre Pena:

Sumo!  You Should Watch Sumo!

This was a case of me attending a panel on something I’m generally not that interested in because it’s being hosted by someone I trust to make it interesting.  That remained the case here as Andre gave a good overview of the sport, its terminology, and even showed off a few pivotal matches to prove the point of the panel’s title.  While it was interesting to learn about the terms specific to sumo, how a match is traditionally performed, and a bit of its history, seeing the matches themselves and listening to Andre’s commentary was the real highlight.  He picked some memorable matches, and had an appreciably non-traditionalist take on them. Particularly regarding the one where one opponent demonstrated a frowned-upon but obviously successful way of dealing with the opening charge.

This was also the one panel where I asked its host a question.  I had heard (somewhere) that sumo was in danger of dying out due to the fact that it was getting difficult to attract new entrants to the sport.  Andre affirmed this, bringing up previous points he had made in the panel about the difficulty of getting into the sport, how it can be hard to make an actual living if you’re not a champ, and the lack of a safety net if you get injured.  So while this panel made it clear that you should watch sumo, you might want to consider starting now while it’s still an actual thing.

Cthulhu for President

Back for another year of berating the audience for failing to get H.P. Lovecraft’s elder god of madness into office.  This is always a good time even as his slideshow changes very little from year-on-year.  Though, this year, they included digs at Putin for botching the invasion of Ukraine, and a pretty solid takedown of conservative figures like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott.  The highlight of the panel, as it is every year, was in seeing Andre interact with the audience as Cthulhu’s campaign manager and espousing a very specific brand of evil.  How specific?  Eating men, women, and children is a good thing, as is the wealth gap and unleashing the full fury of the LGBTQIA community on Russia.  What’s not good?  Doing anything to children other than eating them.  It may seem like a flawed distinction, but you probably shouldn’t bring that up at the panel as you might get eaten yourself.

The Society for the Preservation of Gen 1 Pokemon:

Make Anime Great Again

Max, Clayton, and Andrew were at it again with this panel which is all about reaffirming the belief that anime was created during the crusades by Scrooge McDuck, the inherent superiority of “The Jackie Chan Adventures” animated series, and Harambe.  Because Harambe will never be dead to them.  This isn’t my first time attending this panel, so a lot of it was familiar to me from previous years.  Yet there’s some stuff about it that remains funny in a timeless way (“Zoids:  Trigun Century”) and there’s always some fun to be had in seeing them dunk on current trends like Isekai.

Let’s Talk About Harems

This was the Society’s one all-new panel for the convention and it didn’t disappoint.  Even if Max admittedly (and obviously) threw it all together in the week before the con, it was still a very funny experience.  From outlining the origins of harem anime via “Ranma ½” and a ridiculously complex flow chart to mentioning how all harem anime protagonists are the same to talking about how often slavery comes up in isekai harem anime, a lot of the fun and humor involved dunking on the very concept of the panel.  Which Max did quite well as most of the targets (hello “World’s End Harem”) were more than deserving of his condescension.  Believe it or not, he even managed to give a decent overview into the genre itself once you looked past the trolling, and even cited Ishigami from “Kaguya-sama” as an example of what a quality harem protagonist should be like.  So we got all this, and a virtual novel love story involving a time traveling Nicolas Cage not just trying to steal the actual Declaration of Independence from the Founding Fathers, but falling in love with them instead, too!

Sonic:  An Unfortunate History

I went to a version of this panel a few years back that was just Max winging it after his partner wasn’t able to make it.  So we got the business half of Sonic’s origin which was really just a recap of Sega’s rise and fall during the 16-bit era.  We got that again here, but Andrew was on hand to provide some discussion of the games themselves and Sonic’s representation in mass media.  The end result was obviously a more balanced panel and a funnier one as well.  Both for the potshots taken Sega and the Blue Blur himself, and for the concentrated assault on his fandom that wrapped up the panel.

Waluigi Time

This was another of the group’s panels that I’ve seen multiple times over the years, but it’s also one that I don’t mind seeing over and over again.  That’s because the guys do the panel in character with Andrew as Mario, Max as Luigi, and Clayton as the Main Man himself.  The improv involved gives the panel a sense of unpredictability even as the slides remain mostly the same year-on-year.

Speaking of which, we almost didn’t get the slides this year as the team were dealing with some technical issues when I walked in the room.  This seemed to be a recurring issue with just about all the panels I went to this year and it’s something I hope the con works to fix for next year.  That said, the guys did a good job going it alone until they finally got the video feed established.  After which we were treated to a visual history of games that Waluigi has been in (“Mario Tennis,” “Mario Strikers,” “Super Smash Bros.”) and games that I’m sure were almost certainly made up (“Waluigi’s Taco Stand,” “Waluigi’s Medical Bills,” “Waluigi Gets His Waluweenie Stuck in a Post Box,” and “Waluigi Goes to Court for Hitting a Woman”).  We also got to hear about his incredible-sounding italian restaurant in Oregon that certainly did not swap out its parmesan for cocaine.

Anime Survivor

For those of you unfamiliar with this, it’s basically the TV show “Survivor” done with an online season generator using (mostly) anime characters.  This year the cast consisted of:  (Returning champion) Chika Fujiwara, Cthulhu, Dio Brando, Hayao Miyazaki, Truck-kun, Waluigi (The Fanime All-Stars), Kazuma Kuwabara, Lupin III, Mamimi Samejima, Misa Amane, Ranma Saotome, Shinji Ikari (Modern All-Stars), Bojji, Hitori Goto, Makima, Marin Kitagawa, Taiju Oki, and Tengen Uzui (Classic All-Stars).  Yes, it was clear that Max mixed up the titles of the last two groups, but nobody bothered to correct him on it.  He was hosting with some friends from the versions he ran on the Society’s Twitch channel, along with a very special guest:  Andre, who was there to support Cthulhu’s presence in the game and provide his own brand of color commentary.

The Elder God actually did pretty well, making it to the final six (which allowed Andre to leave in time to go run the Hentai Music Videos panel at the Doubletree).  There were a lot of good surprises in this edition of the game, and some quality responses from the audience when it came to explaining the actions made by various characters during the panel.  To give you an example, when it was mentioned that Hayao Miyazaki had a meltdown at one point, I suggested that “It was because they showed him ‘Demon Slayer.’”  In one instance where Chika and Makima had bonded a little, I said “When Makima takes over the world, she’ll give Chika all the ramen.”  For my suggestions, I got a PG&E stringbag, described by Max as the worst prize (he’s still bitter about PG&E burning down his dad’s house).  The other “winners” got a $5 “Bleach” stationary set, and a cloth print of Edward from “Twilight” with wings, which was described as the “grand prize.”

If you’re curious who won, Chika managed it for the second year in a row.  She played a good game by getting the most immunity idols and utilizing them at the right time to keep her simp Dio in the game until she could throw him away.  Makima also played a good game by strategically joining the right alliances and not pissing off anyone along the way.  I was rooting for her, but by the end it was clear that the game belonged to Shuiichin’s pink-haired spirit of chaos.  Great stuff, and further proof that I’ll have to check this out on their Twitch channel the next time it comes up (assuming I’m not busy with “Tears of the Kingdom” then).

Jirard Khalil:

Mario Maker Mayhem

The Youtuber best known for his series “The Completionist” was a guest of honor again this year at Fanime.  He had previously been here a few years back and I saw part of his panel without knowing who he really was.  Years later, I’ve seen a lot more of his videos and I’m attending his panels on purpose this time.  While the concept for this one was pretty solid – people in the audience would play one of the levels Jirard made in “Mario Maker 2” with prizes for those who made it the farthest – the execution wasn’t that great.  This is because it seemed like a lot of people who were called up to play had never played a 2D Mario game in their life.  I mean, the idea of holding down the “Y” button to accelerate while jumping seemed like a foreign concept to them.  Then again, at least they all had the guts to come up and play in front of the audience while I just sat in my chair and watched.  Props to Jirard and his producing partner, Alex, on stage as they were never anything less than enthusiastic and supportive of whoever they called up to try and finish a stage.

The Completionist Q&A

Did what it says on the tin.  A bunch of people got to ask questions about Jirard’s life, his gaming tastes, and The Completionist itself.  There were a lot of good questions asked and we got lots of detailed and insightful answers from the host.  Such as what he thinks is a good “completionist” time for a game:  Around forty hours.  The kind of game mechanics he really doesn’t like seeing in games:  Time trials.  What anime he’d start watching if he had the time:  One Piece.

Other questions gave him the opportunity to expound upon parts of his own personal history as well.  Such as the time he went to the same convention as Rare composer Grant Kirkhope and they got to know each other after signing autographs next to each other and then proceeded to go to a bar and talk and drink until five in the morning.  There was also the time that he featured a game on “The Completionist” because someone managed to game YouTube’s algorithm to the point where his requests for it got hundreds of likes.  (The game in question:  “Yakuza 0” – so at least the guy had good taste.)  We also got a bit of the behind-the-scenes of his most recent viral video; you know, the one where he and his friends bought up every game and associated DLC on the 3DS and WiiU before the servers went down.  Last, but also first (and don’t tell this to anyone else), we learned that he’s working on a video game of his own.  It’s still early in development and also looking for a publisher, so Jirard said we shouldn’t expect it until ‘26 or ‘27.  Still, it’s something to look forward to if you’re a fan of what he’s been doing all these years.

Other Panels:

Anime and Black Culture

This was positioned between “Make Anime Great Again” and “Let’s Talk About Harems” so I figured I’d stick around see what the panel had to offer.  While I was worried that it might wind up being a dry history lesson with a lot of reaching, that’s not what it was at all.  Host Jeffrey Clark was a dynamic presence who powered through the multiple technical issues plaguing his presentation to deliver a thoroughly engaging and frequently hilarious panel.  From tying Yoko Kanno and Nujabees to the Harlem Renaissance, to discussing why people identify characters like Piccolo, Usopp, and Yoruichi as Black, to identifying why there’s any kind of Black representation in anime (they’re 2% of the population in Japan) Jeffrey had plenty of quality insights to offer.  Which were all done with a level of flair and humor that only made things more fun – even when he had members of the audience come up to talk about the shows that got them into anime.  No doubt, this was a real standout panel of this year’s con.

Cosplay Wrestling Federation:  Fanimania VIII

After discovering this last year there was no way I wasn’t coming back to see cosplayers trash talk each other for championship belts in front of a live audience.  Kicking things off was Jigglypuff with the Blackout Championship belt and his challengers Tonberry from the Final Fantasy series and Gaston from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”  While I’d like to say that the Tonberry cosplayer put up a good fight, the audience made it clear that Gaston was the hands-down winner here.  This was followed up by a battle for the Anything Goes Challenge Belt which was held by Doctor Doom and could only be won via challenge.  The challenges were many and varied and they involved Mister Satan getting smacked by Mario wielding a folding chair, Rintaro Okabe (from the anime and visual novel “Steins; Gate”) getting into a shouting match with one of the judges, Gilgamesh (from the “Fate” series) getting starstruck by the appearance of Saber (also from “Fate”) and just letting her take the belt from him.  It culminated in a massive battle of put-downs, cunning, and shouting between Rintaro and Reality (from “South Park”) where the latter’s entire life was shattered before the audience.  It was fantastic and great way to kick off the first night.  I would’ve stuck around for more if not for the Dark Horse Manga panel.

This turned out to be a trend for night two as I came late to the event from “The Completionist Q&A” and left early for “Anime Survivor.”  What was in between was still pretty solid as we were introduced to the challengers for the Championship Belt, currently held by Spicy Burrito, still carried by his manager Senor Mustache.  Challengers returning from last year included Travis Touchdown, the Helltaker, and Sonic the Hedgehog, while new challengers included Loid Forger, Kirby, Don Corneo, and the Trashman.  There wasn’t anyone who garnered the audience’s utter contempt as Coach Connors did last year, but Mike “The Rockstar” Ishida certainly gave it a go with his one-percenter energy.

I did get to see the match for the Blackout Belt in the middle of it all.  After defeating Tonberry the previous night, Gaston took on Jigglypuff and it wasn’t much of a fight.  The Disney villain came on strong, but Jigglypuff put up a good fight with his put-downs in the first couple rounds.  You could tell that things were starting to turn for the audience when Jiggly started talking about everything that he had done to be there and what the belt meant to him.  It felt like a play for sentimentality, which was a mistake when done in front of an audience that thrives on arrogance and bravado.  In the end, the audience awarded the belt to Gaston, and the new challengers started making their initial assaults on Spicy Burrito and his manager.  Even though I didn’t stay to see who won, the momentum Trashman had with the audience was so great that it wouldn’t surprise me if he won by simply eating his opponent onstage.

Dark Horse Manga

As always, this is the only industry panel I regularly attend at this convention.  As always, it’s hosted by Editor and Localizer extraordinaire Carl Horn who gives a history of the company’s manga publishing efforts before diving into the extended upcoming release schedule for their manga titles.  In another sign of the technical issues plaguing the con, Carl was barely audible for most of the panel before a tech guy came and fixed it.  We were still able to pick up on most of what he said via his slideshow which highlighted a number of titles that were coming back into print.  Notable upcoming titles included the first volume of “H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” the latest Lovecraft adaptation from mangaka Gou Tanabe, and the first “Innocent” omnibus which is a fictionalized take on a real French executioner from 18th Century France.

While they sound good, there was no mention of the next “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” omnibus.  I asked Carl about it during the Q&A for the panel.  He assured me that they were working on it, so it’ll be coming eventually.  Even if the news wasn’t as specific as I would’ve liked, it was still good to get confirmation the series is going to continue for at least one more omnibus from the publisher.

Game Translation Gone Wrong

I arrived at this a little late coming from the Dark Horse panel, so I didn’t catch the name of the guy who was hosting this.  Which is a shame since he did a good job with keeping things moving and selecting some of the most memorable translation issues from gaming history.  Yes, “Zero Wing” and it’s infamous “All your base belong to us” translation were featured here, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.  We were treated to classic manglings of English that made bad gameplay decisions worse (looking at you “Ghosts ‘n Goblins”) to botched localizations that changed “Yes” to “No” in some cases, and dubious translation choices that may have seemed fun at the time but are now pure cringe in retrospect.  All of these examples were great, as was the host’s general overview of how game translation has become better over the years.  To the point where arguing over whether or not a translation is bad is more subjective than anything else.  Well, except for rare cases like “Ys VIII’s” infamously bad initial translation that gave us the “Archaeozoic Big Hole.”

Anime’s Biggest Assholes

You can always count on Richard “MoNgReL” Neil for a quality panel and this was no exception.  He even managed to make math funny in his introduction as the man outlined the criteria for his definition of “asshole” and the formulae he would be using to objectively determine who was the biggest one of all.  Last year’s champ was The Invisible Stream from “Yuri Kuma Arashi,” which was a fancy way of saying the intolerance of society itself.  You can’t argue with that; though, the clips shown from the series were so hilariously on the nose that they left me with the impression that I’ll have to sit down and watch it with Steve one of these days.

As for this year’s crop of assholes, there were some very worthy candidates that we saw.  They included Kyubey from “Madoka Magica,” Saionji from “Revolutionary Girl Utena,” Promoter Tamaki from “Deadman Wonderland,” Mr. Outside from “Eden of the East,” and God from “Maria the Virgin Witch” (because why not).  All of these were good choices, save for one.  Kei Kurono from “Gantz” also got brought up here as well.  While there’s no arguing that he’s a GIGANTIC asshole at the start of the series, his growth over the first ten volumes of the manga is nothing short of remarkable.  Unlike the other characters featured here (yes, including God) he’s the only one to actually leave his assholishness behind over time.  Richard encouraged us to “check his math” when it came to the rating he assigned each character, and my one regret about this panel is that I didn’t bring up some kind of “redemption” metric to be applied to characters like Kei .

The Hero’s Journey

I think I may have attended a version of this panel from years ago, but my memory is fuzzy about it.  Anyway, this was a panelist duo collectively known as Scarlet Rhapsody and individually known as Jared the Greek and Scarlet Aznable.  Their goal for the panel was to break down the individual aspects of The Hero’s Journey and show how many anime characters also fall into the guidelines established by this concept.  So if you wanted to know what separates an Aspirational Hero from a Cathartic Hero from an Anti-Hero, they had you covered.  I was mostly engaged throughout; though, the best bit came when Jared tried to break down which kind of hero Guts from “Berserk” was.  He admitted that part of what made the series great was how Guts shifts between all three kinds of heroes over the course of the series.  Jared then talked about a fictional example of how the character is so focused on his goal that he needs some cajoling to do the right thing.  “Guts, the village is being overrun by goblins!” he said, “You should go help them.  If you do, then you’ll be some kind of Goblin Slayer!”  I laughed and so did the audience.

Bioengineered Catgirls and You

This was the last panel I attended and it was a great way to wrap up the con.  I attended in the hope that we’d get some good dumb fun, and boy did it deliver.  It was given by a man who only identified himself as Dogtor Ben (because he has a Dogtorate in Genetics, you see) and was all about the things we would need in order to engineer catgirls (and boys) in real life.  While there was a lot of talk about the actual science needed to do so, there was a good deal of comedy involved.  This was a panel that acknowledged Gendo Ikari, Shou Tucker, and “sentai monster development staff” as the visionaries that made this kind of work possible.  It also acknowledged the need for unlimited money, a secret hideout, an artificial womb, and “volunteers” in order to actually pull this stuff off.

It was a great presentation, albeit a brief one because “Tears of the Kingdom” came out in the same week that Dogtor Ben was putting together his presentation.  Fortunately the panel was such a hit that there was a long line of audience members ready with questions to ask about his work.  Most of them were addressed by the Dogtor reminding them that they were trying to make humans into catgirls and not cats into catgirls.  The best one, however, came from a catboy who asked him, “Father!  Why was I created?”  To which the Dogtor responded, “Well… there comes a time in every man’s life where he feels compelled to push boundaries…”  Which garnered a, “So I’m the result of a midlife crisis?!” from the catboy.  It was great and the whole line of questioning earned him a framed picture of Shou Tucker because it was also really messed up.

The End

I would’ve liked to attend Midnight Madness and the Hentai Music Videos events in person, but the logistics of traveling to the Doubletree late at night made it seem like more trouble than it was worth.  (I did attend Midnight Madness remotely however.)  That aside, the only real issue this year was that there were a lot of panels that conflicted with other ones I wanted to see, and a dearth of stuff of interest on Sunday morning.  Which was more my bad luck than anything else.  Every panel I did attend, I enjoyed and the new stuff – from old and new panelists alike – was all entertaining.  It’s a great example of why I keep coming back to the con year after year, with 2024 looking to be no exception there.