I planned for last year to be my final Otakon. It would be bidding a fond farewell to Baltimore and the summers of college, taking a final chance to go to the aquarium, and just a final coda to my relationship with east coast conventions.
Then I had so much fun seeing my friends and hanging out with interesting people that I said, “Fuck that” and booked a hotel room for next year.
And then. And then! Anime Fest announced that Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsuro Kubo would be guests, and I had sworn to myself years ago that I would hop on a plane to any convention that had Yamamoto as a guest. And it was the weekend after Otakon. So my extended weekend turned into a week and a half.
I’m very excited about these cons, not just because I’ll be seeing friends and visiting the Smithsonian and interviewing guests that I’m so amazed by that I’ll be surprised if I can get a sentence out without it turning into a garbled mess.
No, I also get to put on a TON of panels, which I love! Including Awesome Women Making Anime, Romance and Abuse in Shoujo Manga, Isekai Shoujo of the 1990s, and Is This Feminist or Not?
None of them are brand new, but they will all have new, spiffed-up content – including VIDEO CLIPS! – plus for some of them I will experience the magic of friendship with copanelists. The biggest overhaul will be my Abuse in Shoujo panel, which will include:
- Spiffed up presentation instead of the ugly Google Slides format
- Discussion of episode 9 of Kiss Him, Not Me
- Video clips where I previously just had screenshots
- Replacing images of illegal scans with my own images from legal releases
- A segment about talking about media literacy with young adults
In order to keep improving these panels, I’d love to see some feedback from all y’all! Including:
- Are there any series I should try to incorporate? Any I should specifically remove or avoid?
- Should I include video clips of the assaults for Abuse in Shoujo, or does that run the risk of being too triggering?
- What points carry especially well, and which ones did I fuck up?
- Will you be attending?
I Have a Heroine Problem 
I think you should also talk about how anime portray women in categories for “Is this feminist or not” panel. For example kuudere, tsundere, yandere and all other stereotypes.
LikeLike