Anime Expo 2011 Success!

Posted on 6 July 2011 by Alex Leavitt

Took a day to recover from the four-day-long Anime Expo this past weekend, but I had a great time this year. There was an increase in downtime where I was just hanging out or roaming the dealer’s room, but events like Mikunopolis were utterly amazing! And I think the Day Zero Izakaya Meet-up was a success; thanks to everyone who came by to hang out at Honda-ya!

Stolen from Kevo’s blog.

I presented three panels this year (as well as participated in two others). I had a great turn out on Friday and Saturday, and an average turn-out on Sunday (though pretty good for a 9:00am panel on Day 3!).

The talks were:

1. Uncool Japan: The Trials & Tribulations of Japanese Pop Culture (Friday)

Click for larger image.

2. A Survey of Anime Opening & Ending Themes (Saturday)

Click for larger image.

3. Anime Tune-Up (Sunday)

And then two more that I participated in:

4. Benu’s Violent Torpedo Of Moe (I was a guest on this live podcast. / Friday)

5. Anime/Manga Studies Academic Symposium Open Session 4 (I gave a research presentation on Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid. / Sunday)

If you were able to attend any of the following, I would really appreciate feedback! Feel free to post a comment here, or email me at alexleavitt@gmail.com.

Hope to see everyone next year! I’ll probably be checking out the other cons on the West Coast as well, so if you have any to recommend, email me or ping me on Twitter (@alexleavitt).

ANNOUNCEMENT: Anime Expo Day 0 Dinner Meetup

Posted on 26 June 2011 by Alex Leavitt

My girlfriend Ashley and I are hosting a dinner on Thursday evening before Anime Expo proper at an izakaya in Little Tokyo.

All the info you need and the RSVP form can be found here.

We really want to meet people local to LA, but we’d love to meet new people going to the con anyway, so we have some friends to hang out with. Check out the meetup page!

Anime Expo Academic Symposium Schedule

Posted on 16 June 2011 by Alex Leavitt

AX 2011 Anime and Manga Studies Symposium
(Los Angeles, California, July 1 – July 4, 2011)

Friday, July 1
2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Keynote Address: Prof. Ian Condry (Comparative Media Studies, MIT)

3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Roundtable Discussion 1
Theoretical perspectives on Japanese visual culture

* Samantha Close (University of California, Irvine)
* Amanda Landa (University of Texas at Austin)
* Gino Zarrinfar (University of Hawaii Manoa)

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Open Session 1

Andrea Gilroy (University of Oregon)
* This place is a nightmare: Globalization as horror in Katsuhiro Otomo’s Domu

Casey Brienza (University of Cambridge)
* Manga Revolution or logical evolution? Field theory on the rise and
demise of Tokyopop’s U.S. publishing programme

Saturday, July 2

12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Open Session 2

Sandra Aragona (Claremont Graduate University)
Sherrie Bakelar (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
* Between Yasashii and Bushido: The balancing power of warrior mothers in anime

Annie Manion (University of Southern California)
* Modernity and pre-war Japanese animation

* Deborah Scally (Southern Methodist University)
Cogito, ergo anime: Some thoughts on using anime and manga in the classroom

3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Open Session 3

Paul Cheng (University of California, Riverside)
* History, memory and aesthetics in animation: Isao Takahata’s Grave
of the Fireflies

Kukhee Choo (Tulane University)
* “Cool Japan”: Soft power in the 21st century

Gino Zarrinfar (University of Hawaii Manoa)
* The Guyver and societies of control

Sunday, July 3

10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Open Session 4

Samantha Close (University of California, Irvine)
* Real ninjas make AMV’s! Anime through the eyes of vidders

Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)
* Title to be confirmed

Forrest Greenwood (University of Southern California)
* “Past fungibility”: Examining the speculative value of history in the doujin works of Takeshi Nogami

Alex Leavitt (University of Southern California)
* “Open-source culture”" and the cult of Hatsune Miku [this one is mine!]

3:30pm -4:30pm
Roundtable Discussion 2

Teaching, writing and thinking about anime/manga: New directions, new
opportunities

* Northrop Davis (University of South Carolina)
* Druann Pagliassotti (California Lutheran University)
* Kim Rudolph (University of Oklahoma)
* Deborah Scally (Southern Methodist University)

4:30pm – 5:00pm
Closing Remarks

Writing about otaku: Lessons from fandom, academia, and beyond
Lawrence Eng (Anime and Manga Research Circle)