It would feel more appropriate if Metrocon called itself “Florida’s Largest Gathering of Posers” because they certainly aren’t an anime convention.

Review End

To demonstrate how I felt throughout the weekend, here is a screencap of a tweet I found last week:

In-between all of those responsibilities I spend a lot of time promoting each of them and simply being a fan. It takes a lot of energy to do all of this and sometimes it’s the only thing I ever talk about, as friends on my facebook and followers on my twitter already know.

As I do all of this, I try to stay positive and energetic while at the same time mindfully avoid repeating mistakes that those who were doing things like this before me have already made. I can now understand why some people in this line of fandom have turned out the way they have because it is so easy to become negative during all the chaos we face.

Despite the risks, I keep doing these things because I love to and this year I will be traveling to a whole lot of events. Here’s is the full list so you can see how busy I will be!

Orlando Anime Day – This event actually happens this Saturday. I’ll be there to give out new flyers for AFO 11 and to talk up that convention. I honestly don’t see any other reason to attend. This event doesn’t really do anything to promote anime and is more or less a quick money making venture for anime convention vendors. They have a costume contest because cosplayers will go to anything if there is such an event. Yeah…

Nerdapalooza – The following weekend is Nerdapalooza, a music festival dedicated to nerdcore musical acts. I am extremely excited about this because The Adventures of Duane and BrandO will be there along with The Protomen and MegaRan. I look forward to seeing them and others I have not heard yet perform!

MetroCon – The weekend after Nerdapalooza is Metrocon, the self-proclaimed largest “anime” convention in Florida. I have mixed feelings about this one.

I really wanted this to be the convention I go to as anime fan because I spend so much time working two other conventions in central Florida(MegaCon and Anime Festival Orlando) that I end up missing a lot of cool stuff. Looking at their schedule this year, it looks like anime is that thing on the side and focus seems to be on cosplay, Pokemon, videogames, Twilight, Dr. Horrible, and every other aspect of internet geek culture.

(For the record, I love videogames but I can attend better talks from people well educated on the subject at videogame conferences so videogame panels at anime conventions don’t really excite me.)

The convention’s big event is their “Anime” Human Chessmatch that happens on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. It seems like they put all their resources into that event and the rest of the convention is an afterthought. (This is a shame.) I do enjoy watching about half the Chessmatch when I go but the other half is painful to sit through and the ending always pisses me off.

Usually, some “secret character” comes out to kick ass and save the day. For a couple years it was Sepiroth and last year it was Darth Vader. What the hell does the latter have to do with anime? See what I mean? How hard is it to bring out someone dressed as Goku to do a Genki Dama? The whole crowd could throw up their hands to “donate” part of their life force and it would be awesome crowd interaction and RELEVANT.

I don’t know any of my friends who are actually excited to go to Metrocon. In fact, many are just going because other people are. I’m going because I pre-registered months ago thinking that it could be good this year and since I can’t get my money back I might as well go. At least all my friends are excited about…

Anime Festival Orlando XI – Coming the first weekend of August, I will once again be busy with my ragtag hand-picked crew to do another weekend long live action game. It’s called Skies of Orlandia and it features a lot of fun things that convention attendees can do to earn experience points, level up, and help one of four factions win the impending conflict! Myself and other returning veteran staff have learned a lot about this kind of game over the past two years. Because of that, this year there will be a game better than any of the ones held at any prior AFO.

Once again, it’s the marquee event at the convention. That’s exciting; however, what do this have to do with anime? I have been wondering that for quite some time. It certainly is a fun event and does help AFO stand out. Lots of people like the live action game as well. I like it a whole lot. But where is the connection? I do not know.

However, I am going to balance things out with a couple key anime panels taking place on Friday and Saturday night respectively. The first will be my upgraded- and mostly rebuilt -hit, “It’s MANIME! The Manly Anime Panel!” This is a panel that EVERYBODY should see! It’s that good and you will be a better person for going.

I will also be doing a sequel panel to “Is Anime Already Dead?” that I did at MegaCon earlier this year called “How to Make Anime Cool Again.” It’s a lofty task but I am sure that Fuzzy and I will get a strong message delivered to our audience.

I’m also wondering how the fans will feel about all the Power Rangers guests we have this year. By the time AFO begins, the guest list will be split near the middle between representation of anime industry guests and those involved with the spandex-clad hero franchise. LOTS of people love returning guest Jason David Frank, but are we over doing it now? I may be thinking about this too much since everything will be fine and everyone going to AFO will have a good time like they always do.

(Disclaimer: The views of Kent Ward do not reflect those of Anime Festival Orlando or any of its staff members.)

I’ve seen the full list of AFO events(many are yet to be announced) and things are looking really good. There will be lots of fun for everyone, especially those attending because they are anime fans. It’s too bad I’ll be working the convention all weekend and will miss most of the panels and events I want to see!

Anime Weekend Atlanta – I haven’t been to a fandom-related convention outside of Florida since DragonCon in 2006 so Anime Weekend Atlanta(one of the ten largest anime conventions in the United States) has got me pumped. It’s about six weeks after AFO so I have plenty of time to recover from the gauntlet of summer conventions and festivals. I look forward to meeting Shinji Aramaki and many other guests they plan to have.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail approving my MANIME panel to be on the schedule that Saturday at the same time as their costume contest. This is great because I know already that I won’t miss anything that I care about! I hope that AWA can be the convention I can go to and enjoy as an anime fan.

That’s it for the year. Friends are trying to talk me into going to DragonCon and EXPCon but I am going to pass on both. Perhaps I will change my mind on the latter if something really cool gets announced. Other than that, my schedule is getting packed! Hope to you at some of these events!

What will I be talking about? There is another live action game at AFO this year called Skies of Orlandia that I am a big part of developing and managing. Not only that, I have a couple panels to announce for the convention! Since my panels as of late have been nothing but EXCELLENT you should be excited to hear of what I have cooking!

The show is going to live on the internet so who knows what might happen! The Wheldon Smiley Show can be found here so tune in at 9pm tonight and be captivated!

First, I have a few announcements to make:

• At the Manime panel, in my loathing rant of hipster douchebags and their theft of the manliness of the beard, I promised, in the heat of my passionate fury, to take it back. They can keep their shitty Pabst Blue Ribbon and their sad obsession of liking things ironically, but the beard is coming back to true men dammit! I promised to sport a manly beard at this year’s Metrocon in Tampa, or else Brotha Kyo gets to kick me in the nuts.
• I won’t be doing events at Metrocon, but I will be there hanging out and enjoying myself there.
• I am going to start up “Kent Ward’s MANcast of Awesome!” this spring. The podcast will cover all things manly in the world of martial arts movies, videogames, Manime, 80s action flicks, norse mythology, and ass-kicking in general. Stay tuned!
• Anime Festival Orlando is coming up in August. It’s the best anime convention in Florida(I’ll be happy to give you a manly headbutt if you disagree with me) and they have started pre-registration. Be there or you’re already dead.
• I’m fucking awesome and don’t you forget it!

And now, my report!

“In Anime is Already Dead?”, I discussed the rise and fall of anime in the 2000s, citing factors that lead to anime’s near demise. Moe anime(fetish anime about little girls being boring every episode) was considered a major culprit, but the lack of risks and variety of newer anime and the fact that America has caught up with Japan in anime releases are also problems.

When anime boomed in the early part of last decade, there was 30+ years of great stuff to get from Japan and on to U.S. retail shelves. Anything that was crap was abandoned for the most part. Halfway through the decade, all that was left was the stuff that just came out in Japan. Because the load of good anime was already blown quickly, there really wasn’t much good anime left to release.

Sure, great stuff like Full Metal Alchemist, Baccano!, Summer Wars, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann have recently come out, but those good series and movies are far and few between now. Because of this, along with the glut of moe shows and generic shounen shows about twelve year old kids with powers being impossibly cool, the interest has died down over here.

I made some points on where anime needs to go and I think I will follow this up with a talk “How to make anime cool again” at a later convention.

The “Panel about Everything” was a joke name inspired by a panel that happens at some other convention. It was actually a convention etiquette panel. But we didn’t want to call it that because the people who need to be taught about that the most would not show up. They didn’t anyways but there was some great discussion with both the audience and my co-panelists. Some great stories were shared too! Maybe calling it “Super Kawaii-chan Glompfest Desu” will attract the audience I am aiming for with this?

“It’s MANIME! The Manly Anime panel” was clearly the best part about all of MegaCon, period. If you did not go, then you wasted your money and wristband. That is the fucking truth. Everyone who did go, in fact, became manlier just by being there! Brotha Kyo and I covered a final revision of the Twelve Laws of True Man and we are hoping to get such laws published. I heard at least one feminist was angry during our panel but my manly spirit does not care too much about that. Maybe she should have brought us sandwiches if she was that offended? That would have fixed her good.

We discussed what made anime manly citing examples such as Fist of the North Star, Beserk, Grappler Baki, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Violence Hero Riki-Oh! We also made time to give some love to Cobra: The Animation, Guin Saga, and the granddaddy of Manime… Golgo 13! Granted, these series have excess amounts of violence, muscles, and testosterone; however those are all core ingredients of Manime.

It was the good time had by all who did not have sand in their vagina! For some reason, these three bros were upset that we did not cite Kamina and Gurren Lagann at all in the panel? I still have no idea why. Kamina has more in common with Street Fighter’s Dan Hibiki than he does the likes of Kenshiro, Gutz, and Duke Togo. I should have blown them off but I felt the need to have a debate. I hope to be able to write more in-depth on this matter later.

I helped out with other events in addition to mine. Most notably, the Cyberia dance that Anime Sushi puts on at MegaCon every year. It’s a dance for weeaboos to have seizures with glowsticks while loud electronic music and phat beats are blasting out of the speakers.

I worked security along with my friend Shawn and nobody dared to start a fight, have sex, or break out the pepper spray. This is sad because we were given permission to destroy people if such things were to happen. Perhaps, they felt our manly aura and knew the line to never cross? The dance went on without much incident to speak of, though I did have to clean up someone’s puke off of the dance floor.

MegaCon was a fun experience this year! I got to cosplay classic Terry Bogard on Friday which is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. In addition, I spent plenty of time with close friends while even making new ones. I got some cool gifts from friends and a very sweet girl brought me homemade sandwiches and cookies that gave me super powers! I bought myself the Baccano! boxset from FUNimation’s booth(which I started watching that last night!) and I saw some good panels that I helped schedule. I didn’t get to meet any guests, which I don’t feel bad about because it was they who missed out by not meeting me!

It was a great weekend and a lot of hard work and I look forward to new followers on my Twitter, more readers for this blog, and soon enough – the MANcast!

I will be hosting several panels and events at the convention in the Anime Events Track. It would be in your best interest to attend them if you happen to be going!

Anime is Already Dead?
Friday, March 12th from 2:30pm – 3:30pm in W224B

Anime in America boomed with tremendous popularity in the beginning of the last decade and by now the bubble has burst. What happened and who is to blame? What about anime has changed over the past ten years? Is there hope for the Japanese import? The founder of the Propeller Anime Club provides insight into this matter and how it will affect anime fandom in the future.

The Panel about Everything!
Friday, March 12th from 4:30pm – 6:00pm in W224B

Everything you should hear about convention culture will be discussed! Convention survival, how to talk to girls, the dos and don’ts of anime conventions, and all the dark secrets of the anime community will be covered!

(Note: I am not an expert on how to talk to girls, but my co-panelists are!)

It’s MANIME! The Manly Anime Panel
Saturday, March 13th from 12:30pm – 1:30pm in W224B

Learn what is to be a true man and makes a manly anime! This one is for fans of series like Fist of the North Star, Berserk, and other testosterone-filled classics! Both old and new anime of manly proportions shall be covered and you will even learn the gospel that is the Twelve Laws of True Man!

(Note: If you don’t go to this panel, then you are already dead!)

That is it for my panels! My club will also be running the Ninja Olympics, the Quickdraw! Contest, and Karaoke on Sunday! The anime events schedule looks better than ever this year at MegaCon so definitely check out as much as you can while you enjoy the convention. See you guys in March!