I’ve a pal who works for a Japanese-American nonprofit. She lately organized her annual convention. Every little thing was going easily till one of many occasion’s pupil volunteers approached her a couple of attainable collaboration.
“So ummm… I signify a really unorthodox group,” he started nervously. When she requested him to elaborate, he continued, “It is a very unconventional group.”
At this level my boyfriend was 90% positive it was going to be a intercourse factor, if not one thing weirder! With somewhat extra backwards and forwards, she managed to search out out the identify of his group.
Reader, that is it Otakon.
I am conserving the main points obscure to guard this poor boy’s anonymity. In any case, all of us make errors, and on this case the volunteer’s mistake was not understanding his viewers. He rightly noticed my pal as his supervisor, knowledgeable working grownup. However what he did not see was that after hours she is an anime fan, gamer and Otakon customer similar to him.
There was a time when anime was ‘unconventional’, however that is not the case anymore. Luffy is within the Thanksgiving parade. Goku is on the Reeses’ Puffs cereal field. Not solely do folks of all ages now find out about anime, they’re additionally probably anime followers.
However typically the vast majority of anime followers are invisible. Though I’ve interviewed anime followers their fifties and sixties for mine Anime origin tales journalistic undertaking, the common age at fan conventions like Otakon stays firmly between 18 and 25. For instance, I might take into account myself a reasonably hardcore anime fan, however I finished visiting cons after my youngsters have been born and solely lately got here again. I do not appear to be a typical fan anymore, however I nonetheless know what the most recent is Jujutsu Kaisen arc ended.
My pal’s group is not going to be attending Otakon for unrelated causes, though she will definitely attend as a fan. Within the meantime, she helped the kid work in a much less obscure subject. In any case, there isn’t any cause to be shy in regards to the nation’s third-largest conference, and anybody who works in a subject bordering on Japan or popular culture has absolutely heard of it.
