Some video gamers might not want to admit it, but gamer geeks have much in common with anime otaku in the United States. Sure, some choice products are quite popular, but most of the really good stuff isn’t a mainstream hit. We’re obsessed with a form that’s heavily concentrated in Japan. Most of the art (conceptual or otherwise) is similar, and many thematic elements are the same. Several of the biggest names in each field have crossed over as well (what does Akira Toriyama take more pride in – Dragon Ball, or Chrono Trigger?).
Well, my chance to really get into the heart of anime fandom came this past weekend for me – I joined the newsletter staff for Anime Boston, fearlessly diving in the midst of cosplay (going in costume – always a favorite topic of derision on our forums), overpriced CDs, and the constant threat of people who think showers are optional. The grand scope of the convention was much like I thought it would be, but there were some subtle differences as well.
Now, Anime Boston is only three cons old now, having started in 2003. It managed, counting everyone running the con in some way, to fit over 7500 people into a convention center built to house well over three times that amount. So in that certainly mitigated several potential problems. First off, people constantly had elbow room. You were never forced into uncomfortable proximity with complete strangers, unless someone in the dealer’s room set up their stall very poorly (I’m looking at you, Sasuga of Porter Square, Cambridge, MA). This also meant that people were pretty well ventilated, so the greatest fear of a convention, the musk of unwashed humans, was mostly absent outside of the dances. It was a convention that didn’t make you feel ashamed to attend, thankfully.
As is de rigueur at these conventions, and most important to us, there was a packed video game room with plenty of imports and popular games. Sure, there was plenty of Halo, Soul Calibur, and Dance Dance Revolution. There were even some great contests for these games, with anime and manga as prizes for these. However, the real treats were chances to play some less-recognized games. One of the more popular attractions there was a set-up playing several different versions of Pop’n Music, which was the first chance for me, as well as many others, to take a whirl smacking the buttons. Rez was also there for many who never got it during its brief appearance in the States, and the room wouldn’t be complete without the game that’s the official Netjak obsession, Katamari Damacy. Anime Boston was worth it for a gamer just to see some of these games in action.
I must give full credit to RedOctane, though, for making it worth a gamer’s while to crawl into the Dealer’s Room (a misnomer; one of the huge exhibition halls housed all the dealers). To build up excitement for their own upcoming rhythm game, In The Groove, they brought a playable demo to the show and set up two pads so people could see Konami finally be knocked out as the top maker of dance pad games. I’ll spare you the details until the E3 coverage, but RedOctane certainly were in their element, and they deserve credit for going straight to their fans to market the game instead of relying on a fickle journalist’s whim. Wait a minute…
In all seriousness, though, the dealer’s room was not a gamer’s friend outside of RedOctane’s booth. I understand that it was an anime convention, and that as a gamer I should just be glad that some video gaming managed to show up at all. But when I see people trying to move import copies of PS2 games starting at 70 bucks, I know they’re out to squeeze blood from a stone. The lone copy of Vib Ribbon floating around the con for sale was put at $40. After import fees, I managed to buy it for $28, and my importer of choice still has the game in stock. Nobody should have been that impatient for the game. Soundtrack selection was even more ridiculous. I know that Katamari Fortissimo Damashii is an incredible soundtrack. I even bought it as a gift for Slusy and BabyMo. However, it is not worth $40 bucks before tax, even accounting for import prices. And the KD soundtrack was just one disc; the prices for some of the Final Fantasy soundtracks (especially the four-disc collections) were even more obscene. I might have been able to trade a kidney for them. Fellow gamers, take note: if you really plan on buying rare or import gaming paraphernalia at an anime con, be prepared to haggle constantly.
But I don’t know if any gamer would be ready to haggle. Judging by the near-silence in the video game room, I think they would have been too afraid. Sure, there were occasions during a couple of the competitions where there was some trash talk. And there were a few memorable karaoke moments by the main DDR machine (Dance Dance Revolution Forever, which deserves credit for being an amalgam of every DDR machine ever and then some). But by and large, you could hear almost no human sound beyond the occasional shuffling. For a group of people known for trash talking, especially in a busy room like that, you’d think that there would be much more boasting or taunting. Maybe gamers are much more polite than I always assumed. Maybe people are just shy in real life. I just know that the room was missing some energy that it could have used.
Of course, there was plenty of energy in the artist’s alley, which was apparently the place to hang out. This held true whether or not you were there to commission some art, as that’s where the cosplayers were all hanging out. And the cosplay was the most obvious place to see the influence of video games at anime cons. Easily a third, and probably closer to a half, of the people doing cosplay went as a video game character. I’ll grant you that the cosplay was incredibly focused on the works of Square-Enix, but people were still quite diverse, with only a couple of characters (Squall and Sephiroth, mostly) getting repeated. People weren’t afraid to get a bit more obscure, either. Sure, the best cosplay of the con was one fellow who just nailed Lynx from Chrono Cross, but another great job was a girl who went as Natsume, who was an optional character from the .hack games. There was a generic male summoner from Final Fantasy Tactics (who probably deserves a spot in our forums, to be honest), and even a woman who dressed herself and her two young daughters from Valkyrie Profile (and for the record, it’s great to see parents who decide to expose their kids to incredible games at a young age). It was quite obvious, by the end, that video games were as much of a reason for people to go to the con as the anime was.
Overall, it was a great time both as a gamer and as a fan of anime (although I figured you guys mostly wanted to hear about the gaming parts). Really, if anything, the con showed me that there’s a real hunger for a video game convention geared towards fans. Sure, there is the Penny Arcade Expo, but that shouldn’t be it. There should also be a mirror to this convention, focused on mostly video games (but with an anime room, to be a perfect mirror). Make specialty rooms for rhythm games, stock the dealer rooms with import games and systems, and maybe even convince a company or two to debut games at the convention. With the lines for the video games long but orderly, the amount of cosplay from the pixelated realms, and the real hunger for game-related merchandise (the “Art of Valkyrie Profile” book practically flew off the shelves), the con would be a hit. Seeing as how the New England Anime Society, the group behind Anime Boston, will read this and counts me as a member, I might have just unwittingly drafted myself for a Boston gaming con. Whether or not I’m responsible for it, though, someone needs to look into it. I won’t knock anime fans and the space they give us, but we gamers need to congregate on our own. We can stand on our own and succeed quite well.
