Ikasucon

Stephanie says it was taking Vincent to see the animated Japanese movie “Princess Mononoke” (which Grandma Martha than got Vincent in video) that first got Vincent into anime. I remember he watched “ “ in Minnesota. In Bradenton, in 8th grade, Vincent and his Manatee School for the Arts friends had Saturday afternoon parties under the guise of the anime club. Then, when he got to Louisville, the libraries maintained anime clubs, and Vincent at least started out going to events at several libraries, including the annual summer event at the Main Library.

Through anime and martial arts and restaurants and home cooking and also video games, Vincent became interested in Asian culture (some Korean, but especially Japanese culture). Until a month ago Vincent was dead set on doing college study abroad in Japan, and had even drafted a book manuscript about two college students, friends, who go as exchange students to Japan, but one of them ends up becoming a ninja (“Ninja House”? “American Ninja in Tokyo”; or something like that????)

For a time Vincent was also spending lots of time on the computer watching episodes of the anime TV series “Naruto” on the Web, IN JAPANESE. And – years before – Vincent was fans of “Pokemon” and then another card game. Pokemon connected video games, playing cards, anime-ish TV and eventually movies with those fuzzy little creatures like Pikuchi and the superhero-style powers they could get.

No doubt Vincent likes the fighting and perhaps the occasionally risqué women’s outfits and the themes of revenge and the cool graphic and fashion style. But I’ve watched one of Vincent’s favorites – a violent movie that covers much of the historic ground that “Last Samurai” covers – and there is both historic sweep and good story-telling in the best of anime. Plus – for many other anime affcianados – as we shall see – anime activity connects with Halloween, dressing up, etc., which – in other settings – often appeals to Vincent.

The first anime convention Vincent went to was the mother of them all – JACON – in Orlando – in spring of his 8th grade year – when – just by accident, Stephanie and I were there to help Mom run the Florida AAUW convention, for which she was convention chair, down the street at another Orlando hotel. Several of Vincent’s anime club mates were there for a wild scene of video gaming rooms, marketplaces, forums about films and shows and games, an anime musical, and – above all – “cosplay” – this creative combination of dressing up in anime characters and playing that character- with contests and creativity abounding.

Vincent had heard of that one from friends – I believe- but, besides sending him to the Louisville Main Library’s annual summer all-day anime event – in August; the first time, just three months later – I began to peruse the Web for anime conventions. Fom here he’s been to conventions in and outside of Cincinnati; outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, at my friend Joel’s university; and in Bowling Green, KY. And Vincent met Grandma Martha once to go back to JACON (which he still talked about going to for years – too expensive for the whole trip). Some others fell through or had some imperfect moments (such as when Vincent and one of his Brown classmates miscommunicated and I didn’t check in with his parents and we de facto kidnapped his friend and took him two hours away to Bowling Green – where I worked while watching Frisco in the car, then he and I toured the campus of Western KY University, which Vincent may attend starting a year from now – until his parents figured out where he was and became unhappy. Almost all of these I found on anime convention Web sites – and sometimes dangled going to them in front of Vincent as a reward for good behavior. Because Vincent is often on an ‘electronic holiday,” and therefore can’t play video games except occasionally at others’ houses, he – more than some others, who’ve got Guitar Hero and Mario Super Smash Brothers and Halo at home – loves the (free) game room part of it. And he’ll usually watch a couple of anime movies and check out the marketplace (and in Grand Rapids/Allentown the Japanese food).

Vincent and I parked outside of the Hilton and then went through the Hilton to the convention center – all set up much like in Bowling Green. Vincent had been to the same event two years ago, for part of a day, when it was in Cincinnati. The next year it moved to Fort Wayne, and here we were again at Ikasucon. We paid and Vincent got only a schedule and we looked vaguely for the film screening rooms and game rooms before I left

After I talked with Pat, Patty, and Ms. Hannah and picked Stephanie up in Indy, we returned to retrieve Vincent and take him to dinner and the motel. On the way in we talked with two young women, from nearby Auburn, Indiana, who were playing the same – or lookalike? – character from the “Final Fantasy X 2” (video games or movies – Vincent has seen the original “Final Fantasy” movie). They explained that they could not enter the cosplay contest because they didn’t MAKE all of their outfits- they bought some things. They explained how they had developed a division of labor, whereby one of them worked on a certain piece of clothing for both of them (like the boots), while the other one worked on a different piece of clothing for both of them) – so they would look identical.

Later – when we were picking up Vincent on Sunday – we talked with a young woman from Louisville – a U of L college student whose outfit was risqué enough that I couldn’t take her picture until she stood up (below) – an Asian-American woman who said she had come in third place the night before in the Video Games Live! Pre-show Guitar Hero contest (see “Video Games Live!”) but had gotten up to Fort Wayne too late to enter the cosplay contest (she had won some cosplay contests previously.) I can’t actually remember but she was chatty and we said perhaps we’d see her at a subsequent event, perhaps in Fort Mitchell (outside of Cincinnati – in early November).

(In between Vincent stopped back from the pizza place and went to the “rave” – a dance party – he said he went back and forth between the party and the game room (?)- for 90 minutes while Stephanie and I checked into the hotel. He also brought a show sword at the marketplace to complement the wooden sword (see “Books and bokken”) he got for sword class at his martial arts school.)

After subdividing off from Al and Judy and before meeting this young woman, Stephanie and I belatedly had lunch – with Frisco, outdoors at the Hilton restaurant, practically next to our car. A woman sitting there (Shirley, it turns out – pictured below) befriended Frisco, then Stephanie. We ended up eating at a table next to Shirley’s, and talked with her for over an hour. She was an anime parent, bringing her daughter (who would have just as soon she left her there for three days and disappeared) to the convention and staying with her in the Hilton.

Shirley was a Dayton, OH ad promoter and had two multiracial kids during a difficult 14-year marriage to a multiracial German-Japanese American man (whom she said she already didn’t like on the second day of marriage. Shirley might have been one of those rare women who will privately admit to themselves that parenting isn’t number 1 on their list- or else she got completely run over by her husband inside and outside of court – since he got the house, essentially the kids (who grew tired of going back and forth each week), and child support payments from her (earned as part of her advertising promotion employment). It as interesting to talk with another parent, perhaps lonely (engaged to a new man who was not there that weekend.) We never met the daughter, but perhaps we’ll see them at later anime events like the one in Fort Mitchell.

(Vincent actually started to get in trouble for carrying around the (fake?) sword in the festival, just as we started to get trouble for carrying the dog.)

-- Perry