Beryl and Addie: An Unexpected Delight

Of course, I wasn’t dreading their visit or anything, but I definitely did not expect to sit through two hours of immensely entertaining storytelling. I was all ready to ask Beryl and Addie about their most unusual experience as staff members at the anime convention, but obviously, it would have been like asking a mother to pick her favorite child. It was very reassuring to hear Beryl confirm my theory of the power of “mega-subcultures” being derived from the nature of their various intersections, as well as from the celebration of the minority. As Beryl said, “if we learn about each other’s differences, we start seeing our similarities…and all of a sudden those guys don’t seem so strange anymore. A-Cen in itself is going to be about the celebration of a foreign culture that people find cool. Our facination with Japanese culture is a direct expression of American culture…we’re open to see what’s good about people outside our world. As Americans, we’re always looking for the next fresh thing.” Evidently, the anime culture has persistently leaked into the American mainstream. From my experience at the convention, it is apparent that, as with”the geek,” the otaku has unashamedly embraced its own creation, took back the power of their name, and declared their rightful foothold in the world of “the mundanes.”

Indeed, “art is in the hands of the people now.” We no longer have to be elitist and selectively chosen artists to create.

Nostalgia..

All of these posts about Nori and RubberTIT/tari&MASA make me wish that it were still the beginning of this quarter! It was awesome getting to know Nori a lot better when we were showing him around campus. I can’t believe he’s gone through so much at such a young age… To think that there is only a few years between us is crazy!

MASA’s saxophone performance during one of our class dinners was a definite highlight. I was so blown away by her playing! And then a week or so ago I went to the university’s Jazz X-Tet performance and watched them perform. They had a female trumpet player and she was great.

Overall, the Celebrating Protest Series brought in amazing speakers… And it was awesome to meet people who have done so much and are so passionate about what they have fought for and do for a living.

I really enjoyed Kiku’s presentation on techno and post-techno in class. That was truly a treat… I remember my jaw dropping the entire time because it was all so new to me.

Emi’s visit was great, too. We all remember the snail mating story, don’t we? Haha.

And, of course, Beryl & Addie. American otaku unite! That was a very fun class period as well.

Beryl, Addie, & ACen

Having Beryl and Addie come to our class and talk about the anime community in general and ACen was really interesting and fun. Beryl has all of these great stories to share and they were both really interesting speakers. What struck me most was how knowledgeable they both were about the anime and manga community. Beryl was practically a historian, giving us a brief overview of the rise of anime popularity in the US. I thought it was interesting that he seemed to consider Chicago at the center of it all, and at some  points in the 80’s it was the city with the most easily accessible anime. Being from Chicago and an anime fan, that makes me pretty proud of my city. Addie knew a lot about the community from the artists’ perspective and the differences between American comic books and Japanese manga.

I think it’s really cool that ACen is hoping to become more immersed in Japanese culture in general. Bringing more bands over and including the drift cars has the benefit of allowing anime fans to understand more pop cultural references and appreciate them more. It was totally surprising to learn that it’s completely volunteer run and that NO one gets paid. Now that’s dedication. I think it also allows for the people in charge to retain  complete control over what they want in ACen and it keeps the idea of the earlier anime days alive. At the core of this large community is still the exchange of information and entertainment between friends, and if that community gets bigger I think it benefits everyone more. I hope that ACen and other conventions can continue to expand and offer more for their fans.

Globalization of Pop Culture

I was really interested in what Beryl was saying about pop culture from Japan and America blending together. He did not see it negatively, and more important, he saw it as inevitable. I think on some level it is inevitable that when a person from one culture experiences another culture, they approach the new culture with a dominant cultural perspective; in interviews that I conducted for my final project, one interviewee called it a “lens.” I think there is definitly value in attempting to eschew these lenses, though, inevitable as they may be. It’s valuable, I think, to attempt to experience new cultures as authentically as possible. I guess what I think is that authenticity should be strived for despite the inevitability of globalization, with tons and tons of qualifications and exceptions to that rule, of course!

Beryl & Addie

I think the most interesting part about talking to Beryl and Addie was the fact that both of them are part of the “older” anime crowd.  At the convention and even online, I get the feeling that most anime fans are in their teens or early twenties, and it’s some sort of phase people go through and leave by the time they’re thirty…but that definitely isn’t the case, obviously.  Beryl in particular knew all the ins and outs of anime conventions, and on top of that he really knew about cult-fandom in general in the U.S., which I found really interesting.  I know this sounds like I’ve built all sorts of stereotypes about “typical” anime otaku, but I think I kind of forgot that they have real lives.  While there are some fans who make their fandom their life, Beryl isn’t one of those…and I get the feeling that Beryl’s closer to the norm for an otaku than the stereotypes I have in mind.  He rides his bike regularly, he has a regular job, he can hold a normal conversation about something that does not have to do with anime/sci-fi…and then if you happen to share his interest, he’ll talk about.  He separates out those two aspects of his life.  I really found that enlightening.

Beryl and Addie: Straight Outta Acen

I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of people at Acen, but none of them actually were staff members who worked behind the scenes to make the convention itself possible.  Luckily on the last day of class, who should happen to show up but the chairman of Anime Central himself, Beryl Turner, with another staff member, Addie, in tow.

 

It was great to hear the story of a lifelong otaku, from the first illuminating moment of fandom to the present day, going on twenty years or so.  He gave us a history of fandom, starting from the underground to the mainstream, which was quite interesting.  He’d been with Acen from pretty much the beginning, and told us of the way they planned and ran the convention.  I had no idea that Acen only employed unpaid volunteers, and it made me realize how committed you had to be to be a part of this convention, if you were doing it just out of love and not money.  Even better, Beryl had a lot of great stories to tell us, like the run in with the Atlanta police that made him stop cosplaying, and the hilarious story behind Sailor Bubba. 

 

One thing I found interesting was how he explained that anime had a “simplistic style” that everyone could learn to draw, as opposed to the strict “Marvel” style of American comics.  Although there are more and more experimental American graphic novels being released, I have noticed that in America, comics are usually drawn by committee, in that there are lots of people involved in the whole process, from writers to inkers to letterers to sketchers and whatever.  Whereas in Japan it’s usually just the mangaka and maybe one or two assistants to help him.  This really does suggest that creating manga is a more intimate and personal process than working on a traditional American comic.  It was great that Beryl managed to bring that up.  

 

Overall, I had a great time with these guys, and although Beryl and Addie didn’t manage to guilt me into going to next year’s Acen, I wouldn’t rule out going sometime in the future…given a proper subsidy, of course.  

     

Beryl and Addie’s Discussion

I liked the discussion yesterday with Addie and Beryl Turner.  Beryl, in his discussion of his own personal history with anime and manga and how he got into the con culture, seemed to really reiterate the classic stories we’d been told through Otaku Unite and a number of readings.  I especially noticed it in his and Addie’s description of “the early days” when a bootleg VHS tape of some anime was coveted and small groups of friends huddled around televisions to watch original Japanese TV shows. 

 

I also was really interested in how Beryl got his start in the con circuit, and especially given Lily’s response (at least I think it was Lily…) that the con culture is not just about whatever the object of the con is.  In other words, ACen isn’t just about anime and manga, as Beryl said it’s about “community” and “making it a smaller world.”  There’s a community at conventions of all types, be they science-fiction, anime or gaming, and it was through this community that he managed to climb the ladder and end up chairing this year’s ACen.  I think the parallels in the different cultures of conventions are interesting (if I were in a sociology course I would probably talk about social and culture capital), and I think it was really helpful to talk to the two of them about their experiences. 

 

I, as did many other I see, really liked the notion of the “mundanes” as opposed to the otaku, and I liked how JK Rowling co-opted and extended its meaning to become “muggles.”  I’m not really a Harry Potter fan, but I like seeing how aspects of these seemingly fringe social groups become mainstream.

Beryl & Addie – Thoughts

It was great to have Beryl and Addie come visit our class.  For some reason I didn’t expect such enthusiasm on their parts, but I guess it makes sense – if you love something enough, talking to others about it isn’t so much work as it is fun.  And he must definitely love doing it; I can’t imagine working as chairperson of such a huge convention for free!  It’s amazing that nobody gets paid to do any of that, it really adds a whole new dimension to the fan-driven aspect.  It was nice to talk to people involved with ACen’s production, and it was great to have Addie there too – I hadn’t really thought about artist communities here in Chicago involved in anime and manga.  I think the best part about talking to them, though, was to confirm what I initially discovered when attending ACen: the normalcy of the “otaku”.  Beryl has no qualms about labeling himself as such, and he’s just a really cool, outgoing guy, not at all the introverted socially-awkward supernerd that the academics paint the otaku as.  It was funny hearing him talk about his issues with the label at first, because he knew he wasn’t like that kind of person either, even though he was really into manga and anime and conventions.  It’s just strange how there are so many different levels of misunderstanding and how this one identity can mean so many different things to so many people.  You have the academics who see them as like another species, choosing the worst stereotypes to represent an entire community.  You have the general public (the “mundanes”) who just don’t get it, like Beryl’s mom.  And then you have the fans themselves, who seem more often than not to be completely normal, outgoing, fun people, who just happen to enjoy manga and anime.  It’s very strange the levels of disconnect between so many people.  But it was great to have Beryl and Addie there, not only from an “academic” perspective, but just because they’re cool guys and it was fun talking with them.

Prototype World Citizen

Given the increasingly global presence of anime/manga, especially in America, I had to ask week 10’s guest Beryl Turner—the head of ACEN, anime/manga aficionado and historian extraordinaire—whether he sees anime and manga in America losing its Japanese connection and become totally subsumed into mainstream American pop culture. His answer? Absolutely. According to Beryl Turner anime and manga will be a prototype for what globalization is touted to do in the best sense—create a sort of world citizenry. He believes that manga and anime as an art form will eventually lose its nationality, and I am inclined to agree. The one issue, however, is the nature of anime/manga fans in America in the past and at present. Even Beryl acknowledged, giving this breakdown of the road map to mainstream status—innovation/discovery, dissemination through the underground as a fringe movement, (re)discovery and tentative investment from Big Business and the explosion—that anime and manga has its roots in the underground. Furthermore, considering that anime/manga fans while extremely inclusive of fans of other genres such as science fiction, still refer to the collective other as “mundanes.” It is hard to see this group of people forgetting the history behind their beloved art form.

I suppose then, that the key to transforming anime/manga into a global commodity sans national boundaries, lies in the unwitting masses who never touch the underground and never make it to a convention like ACEN, those who flip to Cartoon Network and get their first glimpse of Bleach, then head to a bookstore like Barnes and Nobles or Borders and pick up a copy of the manga along with a title by an American author and never bother to dig further. Is this positive? Negative? I can’t say. I am all for the more prevalent exposure of anime and manga in the West and around the world, but then I am also one of those people who likes to stick to the facts, and for me one of the facts here is that manga is Japanese. Still, I would hate to see an authenticity debate rear its head in this quarter. Maybe I should say manga was Japanese, but today and in the future it can and will go in whatever direction its progressively more global fans pull.

Photos with Beryl and Addie