It's May, and that means it's Anime North time here in Ontario! And that also means that I've been doing what I do this time of year every year since, um, let me check, since 2005. That's a solid twenty years of me doing panels and things at Anime North, long enough for me to sit back and think, wow, that's a long time.
It helps that Anime North is staffed by understanding folks who took a chance on me showing up out of nowhere, who have let me experiment and trial-and-error my way through a wide variety of video formats, panel topics, and event rooms. It also helps that the attendees are a kind and accepting crowd willing to put up with technical snafus, schedule changes, and every other sort of problem endemic to the world of volunteer-driven pop culture events.
Anime North is happening May 23-25 this year, mere days away as I write this, still with panel clips to edit and flyers to print. But the con will come whether I'm ready or not. If that weekend you happen to come down to the Toronto Congress Centre and the Delta Hotel over on Dixon Road out by Pearson Airport, you'll find yourself wandering through a wonderland of guest panels and autographs, the Doll North area, a dedicated show of Gundam model kits, the secondhand Nominoichi sale, giant vendor halls, gaming halls, artists' alleys, and exhibits. Vtubers, voice actors, artists, translators, guest speakers and experts hold forth on a variety of topics, while fashion shows, masquerades, late night outdoor raves and maid cafes will also distract your attention. Panel topics include Anime Northstalgia, The Food Of Spy X Family, Canadian Anime Heritage Minutes, Explaining Anime To Your Mom, Greatest Anime Deaths, and Fire Emblem War Crimes.
But wait, you ask. Dave, what are YOU doing this year at Anime North? Well, I'll tell you. What I'm doing on Friday is hitting the Nominoichi. And then I'll be in the ballroom at TCC North for another edition of Anime Hell.
It's roughly two hours of roughly edited shorts, clips, trailers, commercials, educational films, and unidentified and unidentifiable audio-visual materials pursuant to our interests in Japan, animation, Hell, or all three.
And on Saturday noon I'll be looking at three very specific years and extrapolating entire decades worth of artistic development out of them. Maybe this one's a stretch but it gives us a chance to look at a lot of different, sometimes rarely seen anime, as we speed through 1965/1975/1985: Decades That Shaped Anime.
Later Saturday it's time to explore one of Japan's most notorious anime studios and find out how they turned clunky ineptitude into viral marketing success!
Sue Cat, Ultra Granny, all the stars you know and love will be there to celebrate the unique style of Knack. All of which may in some way prepare you for what's happening 8pm Saturday night, which is of course Totally Lame.
Host Neil Nadelman will take you on a two hour tour through the lost worlds of really lousy Japanese cartoons! Worth the price of your Anime North admission alone.
Sunday noon, myself and a panel of other middle-aged white guys will do what middle-aged white guys can't stop themselves from doing, which is talking about World War Two, specifically the battleship Yamato and how the real thing differs from the cartoon that blows up entire planets.
And if that isn't cataclysmic enough for you, stick around and see Neil and myself provide live commentary to a newly restored version of the long-suppressed Toho masterpiece of apocalyptic cinema, Prophecies Of Nostradamus.
Ending the convention with the end of the world? Well, if there's a better way to wrap up a fun weekend, well, I'd like to see it. And we probably will. In the meantime, start packing your bags and putting the finishing touches on your cosplay, and we'll see you at Anime North!
-Dave M