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Anime Banzai planning for 2008

By nihon on September 30, 2007 11:15 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Anime Banzai Newsletter

September 30, 2007


In this issue:

  • Meeting Date

  • Staff and Volunteers Needed

  • Mascot Contest

  • Lost and Found


Meeting Date - 

Come discuss the pros and cons of Anime Banzai 07 and help us start planning for Anime Banzai 08!

Date: Saturday, October 6

Time: 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Location: Salt Lake City Main Library

210 East 400 South

Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Room: Conference Room A


Staff and Volunteers -

The only way to keep Anime Banzai going is with the help of volunteers. We will be looking for committee heads, security and volunteers to help plan and run Anime Banzai 08. We need all the help we can get! Come to the meetings, visit the message board or e-mail us at animebanzai@gmail.com.


Mascot Contest -

Anime Banzai 2008 Mascot Contest!!

Want to see your artwork on next year's badges, program book, flyers, website, t-shirts or banner ads?

Redesign our mascots Ban (boy) and Sae (girl) in your own style. Lineart, grayscale and color accepted. 300 dpi resolution required. Limit of 3 entries per person. (if plagiarism is suspected entrant will be automatically disqualified)

Winners will get free entry to the 2008 Anime Banzai Convention.

Submit your entries to animebanzai@gmail.com with "AB08 Mascot" as the subject line

Deadline is January 31, 2008


Lost and Found -

Did you lose something at Anime Banzai 07? Check with our AB07 Head Security Ninja, 'mnpchan', on the Anime Banzai message board .

Anime Banzai report

By nihon on September 2, 2007 4:36 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Well, Anime Banzai 2007 is over now, and I think it was very successful third year convention. All of the people I talked to there enjoyed themselves, and we are all looking forward to next year. Despite a doubling of the at the door rate from last year (to $30/person), the numbers at the con were still almost what they were last year. The amount of activities and the amount of time were also doubled (since they could start about 12 hours earlier than they could while at Salt Lake Community College), and they took advantage of all the extra time. 

The dealers room was about the same, though at least one of the dealers had less merchandise available than last year due to flying to the con instead of driving. Many of the dealers were familiar from past years, too. There was no art show this year, from lack of interest I'm guessing. The art show last year was smaller than the one the first year. It may be that they just need someone very dedicated to running one. We'll see if they bring it back again.

This was the first year Anime Banzai was held in a hotel (specifically, the Sheraton City Centre Hotel on 500 South), and while there were some rough edges due to inexperience on the part of the con staff and dealing with hotel issues, I think they did an admirable job overall. I even talked to some of the other hotel guests who asked me what was going on, and some of them seemed genuinely interested instead of amused or scared by all the weirdos running around in strange costumes. The hotel staff seemed more friendly than when CONduit was there. 

The guests this year included Artbeat and Michael Dobson. Artbeat was very well received, and had an encore performance on Saturday night in addition to their scheduled Friday night concert, pushing back the cosplay contest an hour. After their concerts, they sold copies of their CDs, signed them, and posed for pictures with their fans. From my perspective, they were very gracious throughout. 

Artbeat is an unusual group, being a Jrock group from the United States rather than Japan. The members of the group speak both Japanese and English, and have released three independent albums. They have been making the rounds to various conventions, and have even begun being noticed in Japan. 

Michael Dobson is a well-known English-language voice actor working for the Ocean Group. He's voiced Starscream (Transformers), as well as many other anime and non-anime roles. He gave a presentation about what it was like to be a voice actor, covering some of his experiences over the last many years. 

I participated on two panels, one about classic anime (1980s and earlier) and one about the difference between reality and the portrayal of life in Japan in anime. Both were very well attended (probably not due to me, but I can hope), and those attending asked a lot of good questions which we answered. You can get the handout for the classic anime panel here:

If you like anime, or even just curious about it, I highly recommend attending next year. It's great fun!I'll be posting some pictures later.

Local anime stores online

By nihon on August 16, 2007 11:49 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Salt Lake City (and the surrounding area), has two anime-only stores:

  • Aszreal's Mess, which carries a variety of licensed material imported strait from Japan. They also carry domestically released character good products (collector and action figures, bookmarks, cell phone straps, wall scrolls, posters, and so on). They will be at Anime Banzai, Utah's first and only anime convention, at the end of August. The owner, Lori Hall, is willing to hunt down harder to find items (such as this figure of Lum, or this one!), and she interacts with visitors to the site through their blog.
  • Tokyo's Anime House, the first anime-only store to have a physical presence in the Salt Lake area, carries DVDs, CDs, and manga (though the manga selection was small the last time I was there). They also carry a small amount of (mostly pirated) character goods. You have to be careful about the DVDs and CDs, too, as half or more of them are pirated (even shows which have been released domestically, which can be pretty dangerous to a company's bottom line), so we recommend making sure you're getting the real thing when purchasing there).

You can find domestically released anime and manga at many local stores in addition to the two above. Just be careful you know what you're buying as some of the other local stores carry pirated goods, too.

Anime Banzai 2007, Mountain-Con III coming up

By nihon on August 14, 2007 12:00 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Anime Banzai, Utah's first and only anime convention, is coming up August 31 - September 1, 2007. They currently have three main guests: Artbeat (a Japanese glam rock band), Michael Richard Dobson (a voice actor), and Ichidan (an anime-themed theatre troupe). They'll be at the Salt Lake City Centre Sheraton on 500 South in Salt Lake City.

Mountain-Con III is back with more sci-fi goodness September 21-23, 2007 at the University Park Marriott near the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. They have an emphasis on media-related topics, but also have authors, artists, events, and activities for most genre fans out there. Their current guest list includes actors Garrett Wang, David Prowse, BarBara Luna, Felix Silla, and Femi Taylor, and author Diana Pharaoh Francis.

Support our local fandom and come on out to these events.

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