Badges are printed and laminated, signs are being made, panic and anxiety has commenced! It’s a real, live anime convention for certain! Behind the scenes, we’re doing a lot of last-minute stuff indeed. One of those last-minute things means adding stuff to the schedule that didn’t make it into the program guide. That means more panels and a few more videos. You guys win.

Something that I am really amped about promoting to our attendees is the screening of Penguin Memories. This video comes to us courtesy of anime industry veteran translator Dave “The Flem” Fleming. This is the tale of a Vietnam vet who comes home but doesn’t quite resume life as usual. He takes a cross-country journey, sees things, and oh yeah, all of the roles in this film are played by penguins. Not just any penguins, or just any penguin. We’re talking the Suntory Beer mascot. This film is played entirely straight, as straight as The Deer Hunter or any other post-Vietnam film. It’s just got penguins. What that means is that the awesomeness of this film is proportionally equal to the fantasticalness of this film. It’ll be shown at 7PM on Saturday in room 551 in place of Appleseed: Ex Machina. Yes, it’s that awesome that we decided to show that instead of Ex Machina, and that was by no means a bad film.

Some of the other stuff that you’ll want to catch (along with Anime Hell, which I already talked about in a previous post - 5PM on Saturday!) includes our own Jeni Duschak’s panel on “Introductory Mixology and Room-Party Basics for the Discerning Adult Con-Goer,” which is going on Friday at 7PM. This is the kind of panel that can really only be done at PAC - it will cover basic drink recipes, basics on stocking a bar for your room party, keeping things under control yet interesting… yeah, this sounds pretty rad! Jeni promises us that “these simple pointers will help you throw a party that your people will be sure to remember… for all of the RIGHT reasons!” Sounds good to me! Be sure to check a schedule at con to see when you can see this panel (but I can confirm that it’s on Friday)!

One more panel that didn’t make it to the program guide in time is “Samurai, Yakuza, and Schoolgirls: Stereotypes and the Problems of Promoting and Collecting Manga in Libraries and Schools” to be presented by Robin Brenner. She describes: “One of the hardest things to contend with, as a manga and anime fan, is the preconceptions people have: that they’re full of sex and violence, that they’re not ‘real’ reading, and that they’re going to rot your brain.” How true. In this panel, local librarian Robin Brenner will discuss how you can sell manga as a necessary addition to the local public or school library that is high-quality and exciting. She will give tips on educating skeptical parents and librarians on how reading manga doesn’t mean that kids are going to start rocking out to Judas Priest or playing Dungeons and Dragons. You know, bad stuff.

Also from Robin is a panel on the ladies who dig the man-on-man love. You know, dudes getting rude with each other. As a lady, I somehow feel like I am letting down other ladies everywhere for not being all into the hot cups of man chowder (the only nerdy fangirl thing that I will openly cop to is being all moe for Solid Snake), but I know that many ladies dig this sort of thing, so go check out “Fujoshi Librarian: Yaoi, the Comics Industry, & Libraries” on Saturday at 9PM. Right after that is my husband’s bootleg identification panel at 10PM, so you’ll probably see me there, trying not to fall asleep or possibly trying to heckle him. See, he’s not just my husband, he’s also the con chair.

Time to go do something else. Take it sleazy!

Anime World Order (AWO) played a voicemail that I left them last year on their most recent podcast. Better late than never? I would tell you about how much I enjoy this podcast personally, but I would have to give the disclaimer that the views and opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Providence Anime Conference or the New England Anime Society nor do they constitute an endorsement, so I just did. It’s good, though. Good and fun.

The program guide was submitted to the printer today, and I also got a look at our t-shirt art and badge art, and it’s all outstanding. It’s getting exciting (though also chaotic) as we get closer to the Day of Reckoning. Lots to do! Lots of little strings to tie off and snip, lots of things to resolve, but I’m also happy to see lots of stuff accomplished, too. Lots of late nights getting things done (mostly the program guide’s responsible for that). Someday, someday I will have some great stories to tell about this con. But not now.

We’ve added a couple more panels and confirmed a couple more videos to premiere. Should I tell you what? Probably. But I won’t. Haw, haw! Okay, okay… Funimation is going to have some stuff for us that’ll be shown Friday night (hint: one of these titles is Ouran Host Club) and we also added another panel to the roster about surviving a zombie attack based on information garnered from literature and visual media. Boffo!

Time to answer more e-mails. Take it sleazy!

Hi there, Mara here again. For those of you familiar with Anime Hell, we are going to have Anime Hell at our event. “Wow! Great! But I am not familiar with Anime Hell! What’s Anime Hell?” Indeed, what is Anime Hell? I queried David Merrill, who shall be running Hell for us at PAC, and he says that “Japanese Anime Hell is a free-form video-collage experiment featuring short animated films, clips of transgressive, inept, or otherwise out-of-contextually entertaining anime, fake commericals, real commercials, movie trailers, educational films, parody films, and audio/visual material culled from amateur and professional worldwide media. Not for sissies.”

In other words, this event is what the kids might say is “made of win.”

My first experience with Anime Hell was at Anime Weekend Atlanta 5 (AWA) in 1999. Incidentally, it was also my first anime convention. I wasn’t sure what to expect beyond seeing people in costumes and anticipating my first panel (I am no longer that blonde or that slim, but I am still friends with all the ladies who were on the panel with me, as well as the young lady in the front row in that first picture who happens to be my BFF) and looking forward to spending money on loot and hanging out with friends. Right, Anime Hell. I was getting there! It was Friday night and we were told that we must attend Anime Hell if we really wanted to say that we’d been to AWA. We piled into main events which was packed to near capacity. The room was dark, and con chair Dave Merrill sat at the projector, throwing in all sorts of tapes. Old videos, fan movies, badly dubbed anime, Heino… wow. I LOLed a great deal, I tell you what. Anime Hell is a fine tradition for any con hosting it around the continent thanks to a secret network of friends who have vowed to keep the faith. This show always fills a room to capacity and pretty much has something to make even the most cold-hearted bastard have a good chuckle.

Our Main Events room isn’t going to be set up for video, unfortunately, but we will probably have it set up in our largest panel room, as it’s got a good amount of space. Part of the Hell tradition means that there’s standing room only, anyhow. I can’t tell you when it’s going to be happening (that’s Pat’s job, and I leave these important decisions to him because he is like twice my size and for all I know, he’s not above hitting fat girls with glasses - I mean, he’s not above committing acts of violence upon my discarded Sailor Moon dolls that end in maggots). Stay tuned.

Hey there! I’m Mara! I’m the vice chair of this crazy shindig and right now I’m also your source for communications. That means I will communicate things to you, the two or three people who read this blog! Har, har! Anyhow, right now I shall extole the virtues of our video programmin’ schedule.

This schedule was put together by millionaire playboy anime translator Neil Nadelman. You  may recognize Neil from such projects as Odin or Dog Soldier.  You may also associate his name with titles like Macross Plus and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Oh, and most importantly, he has a posse. Anyhow, he also happens to be my former housemate and good friend. When we needed to find someone to run video programming, I thought to ask him, as he’s done such things for other events, like Arisia. He also is in possession of a lot of totally awesome stuff as he is a seasoned anime fan from as far back as 1923. I ask you, fellow anime enthusiasts, when is the last time that you saw a video program that included so much awesome. Metropolis, Giant Robo, Utena… now, that’s like level one awesome. There is LEVEL FIVE AWESOME on this list. First of all, there’s Fist of the North Star, which is the most romantic story ever told about a man who loves a lady so much that he makes dudes’ heads explode. There is Marvelous Melmo, the OG magical girl. When’s the last time you saw Aim for the Ace on a video programming schedule at an anime con? Amazing 3? Force Five? I don’t think I’ll actually do any work all weekend. This is what I envision:

Angry congoer: I want to speak to the chairman!
Me: Dude, it can wait - Kenshiro totally jacked that mohawked punk!
Angry congoer: What’s wrong with you? I just got my arm chopped off by that rusty door!
Me: WA-TAH!
Angry congoer: You’re so negligent! Oh, wait, wow, he just gave the ringleader ten seconds to repent for his sins! This part is so great! Ha, ha, that guy’s hat just caught fire!
Both: YAAAAY!

And that’s how that will roll. Oh, okay, I won’t be that careless and irresponsible. Besides, I never call anyone dude. Unless I am referring to The Dude, as in “The Dude abides.” Anyhow, yeah, for  more evidence of awesome, I urge you to chiggety-check out our video programming schedule. There is quite literally something that should appeal to everyone on this list. Millennium Actress? That’s only like my favoritest movie ever. Metropolis? That’s like another favorite movie of mine. Cutey Honey is on this list. Rose of Versailles is on this list. It’s like finding a calzone with everything in the world that you love, like teddy bears and tacos and a nice day that’s not too hot and not too cool, all encased in delicious bread. Just awesome.

Anyhow, there’s still ample work to be done before the third of October. Or should I say ROCKTOBER?!?!? The con’s going to be different than the original plan (as has been noted on our forums!), but in the end, I think it’s for the better of all involved. We realized that we’ve pretty much ended up being a conference in name only. We are a ways off from hitting our attendance cap. We didn’t issue a call for papers, no local academics (as we found out to our chagrin that they’ll all be another academic event on the evening of the 3rd), no assembled cast of Code Geass.  On the other hand, less bodies on the floor means less stank opportunities and more face time with your fellow attendees! Woo! A nice thing about preregistering less people is that we have the resources to take memberships at the door! We’re keeping the $65 price point, hopefully to make it a little easier for people to come. It’s a cruddy time with gas still being pretty expensive and inflation sending prices for commodities sky-high. Still, everyone needs a treat sometimes. I hope that people give us a chance in spite of this and take some time to come down and check out the con.

Time to get back to work. See you later!

After a fun weekend at Anime Next’s convention row, we’re back in New England with a new guest announcement. As you may have heard, Tom Wayland–noted voice director, voice actor, and the man (some say “genius”) behind the infamous Hentai Dubbing panel–will be joining us at Providence Anime Conference as a guest of honor. Of course, there will be Hentai Dubbing. And at PAC, you won’t even have to get carded to get in. For more information, visit our Guests of Honor page.

We have some new panel listings, too–including a plethora of panels from another guest of honor, Kevin McKeever! Ever visited the China International Cartoon Festival in Hangzhou, China? Kevin has, and he’ll tell all in Anime in China. And if you’re anything like us, you won’t want to miss Do Anime Conventions Have a Future? (Well, maybe it’s not too late to diversify with the help of his Introduction to Independent Filmmaking panel…)

Featured panelists the Comiku Girls will also be presenting a variety of cultural and how-to panels. Artists in particular should get a kick out of Life Drawing for Anime Artists (with a live model, so bring some art supplies!) and Color Theory for Anime Artists, while cosplayers can learn how to don and sew Kimono & Yukata.

Visit our Featured Panels page for more panels from our featured panelists, and keep checking back because we’ll have more updates in the months ahead!

You can’t plan a convention without working out a budget: it’s not glamorous or fun, but it has to be done. For executive staff, the big budget meeting is their cue to kiss loved ones goodbye, grab a 2-liter bottle of something caffeinated, and lock themselves in a conference room until everyone passes out or the budget is blocked out, whichever comes first.

Here at PAC, one of the main budget issues for us was the registration rate. Like many of you, we also regularly attend anime conventions of all shapes and sizes, and while the biggest conventions are now up to $60-65 for at-door admissions, we knew that isn’t the typical rate for most events. But our goal for PAC has always been a combination of the best of both worlds: the ease of access and friendly atmosphere of a small convention, with the amenities and programming you’d find at a large event. We want you to relax, participate, and have fun—in style! However, first we had to book a facility that fit our needs.

Patrick Delahanty, PAC’s Director of Programming, explains it best:

We looked into other function space in Providence. We also looked into having the event in a hotel. Believe it or not, that was even more expensive than the Rhode Island Convention Center!
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