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 Convention Report: New York Anime Festival 2008
Written by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane
This past weekend I headed down to the New York Anime Festival, now in its second year. By now all of the actual news is already all over the web, courtesy of the usual suspects (some of whom I saw live-blogging during panels), so this is more of a personal write-up of the event.
ANN is reporting that there were at least 18,399 attendees (up 24% from last year), but the Javits Center only felt totally packed on Saturday; Friday and Sunday were both busy and full of stuff to do, but things were moving at a comfortable pace. I only went to a handful of panels, mainly manga-related, and what struck me most was how confident all of the industry folks seemed about manga's current status in North America. (Not just in the US, which is how it's usually described; I'm Canadian, and the bulk of our manga comes up from the US--unless you go to Quebec, where you can buy noticeably cheaper French manga.)
The "Art of Translation" panel on Saturday was of particular interest to me; my Japanese is limited enough that I can't imagine ever being in a position to translate anything, but as an adapter, my own work is entirely dependent on the translators who create the scripts I rewrite, and I'm always keen to hear them talk about what they do. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I didn't get all of the panelists' names written down, and I wish I had. We had Toshifumi Yoshida (currently a Bandai Entertainment producer, formerly attached to VIZ), along with the translator whose company is working on the Haruhi novels and a staff translator for ANN. There was a fairly lively discussion, but one of the main points that they came back to again and again was the importance of turning to experts and other translators to double-check fine details and technical points. They also reiterated something I remember reading about after a panel last year: the sobering fact that manga translators these days are paid less than the people translating in the early 90s. Mr. Yoshida, who's been in this field since its early days, described how manga used to be translated by people who were already widely respected as translators in other fields, and rewritten by experienced comics writers--people who could command a higher fee than many freelancers working on manga now.
The other Saturday highlight was the Del Rey Manga panel. I went in with high expectations, having heard that their panels are always a lot of fun, and I wasn't disappointed. Alas, Dallas Middaugh wasn't there (something about his honeymoon taking precedence. Some people!), but Ali Kokmen, Tricia Narwani, and Mutsumi Miyazaki (Manga Marketing Manager, Editorial Associate, and Director of Licensing and Acquisitions, respectively) made up for his absence. (And I'm missing someone. There was definitely a fourth person up there, but I didn't catch her name, and she was busy manning the slideshow.) The important things I took away from this panel, other than the new license announcements, were that Tricia and Ali play off each other very well, that Ali's ties live up to their reputation, and that Ali greatly enjoys lobbing mini rubber gavels into crowds in honor of Del Rey's new Phoenix Wright book (translated and adapted by Alethea and Athena Nibley). These are people who have fun with their work, and it shows in their panel and in their books. Del Rey Manga is awesome, and I have a tiny gavel to prove it.
(I was probably the only person in the audience who was happier about the second Tsubasa Character Guide than anything else--especially given how exciting some of the new series are, like Moyasimon Tales of Agriculture--but humor me. It's the first time I've ever been there to hear a title I've adapted being announced.)
Sunday kicked off with the State of the Manga Industry panel, which was moderated by ANN's Editor in Chief, Christopher McDonald, and included Ali Kokmen (see above), Michael Gombos (Dark Horse), and Kurt Hassler (Yen Press). It was a great panel, but I wasn't one of the people in the audience making a recording or taking notes, so for details I refer you to, say, Deb Aoki at About.com. What I do want to say about it is that it was a very interesting conversation between people who approach the business from very different angles: Dark Horse is first and foremost a domestic comics company which also deals with selected licensed properties, while Yen Press and Del Rey Manga are divisions of book publishers. What they have in common is that they all have smaller manga line-ups than VIZ or TOKYOPOP (neither of which had an official presence this year) and all have reputations for eclectic mixes of quality titles. While I enjoyed the entire panel, I was particularly pleased by the air of camaraderie even when they were hashing out their (sometimes very) different takes on things. Again, do check out a more detailed report.
The last panel I attended was Yen Press', which was unfortunately slotted against State of the Anime Industry. Since cloning technology is sadly behind the times, I stuck with the manga side of things. The Yen staff in attendance (again, I didn't manage to get everyone's names written down, but ANN tells me we had Rich Johnson [co-publishing director], Kurt Hassler, Ju-Youn Lee, and Tania Biswas) kept things fairly brief, talking about their new licenses (the Spice and Wolf novels got the best audience reaction, I think) and their anthology, Yen Plus. All of that was overshadowed, however, by the appearance of an entire box of vol. 1 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which they proceeded to distribute by asking trivia questions. And so the important question is this: do I have a copy of the book, which isn't due for release for a few weeks? Yes, I do indeed. Did I acquire it by cleverly answering one of their questions? No. A copy made its way into my hot little hands because I have world-class puppy eyes. True story. Melinda Beasi and I sat together and looked utterly desolate over our lack of Haruhi, and the good people of Yen Press took pity on us. (Bless you!) With luck, I'll have a review written for next week's update.
Outside of panels, I did the usual con things: admired artwork in the Artist's Alley (and without buying any prints, sadly, for fear of destroying them in my luggage), met new people, and saw old friends. My one great regret was hearing that the first DVD set of Ouran High School Host Club will be available a couple of weeks early...at another con. Alas. But that's good news for other people who aren't me, at least.
And that's it for my con attendance this year, establishing my new personal record of two whole conventions. Maybe I'll be able to improve on it next year.
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