Anime Weekend Atlanta 2025

It seems like just yesterday that a bunch of us anime nerds were sitting in some parents' basement somewhere in the Atlanta metro area, saying to ourselves, by golly, if we don't start an anime convention in Atlanta soon, then somebody else is going to, and that anime con we don't run will invariably suck. So we'd better get to work. It wasn't just yesterday, in fact it was more than three decades ago. Three decades where we went from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray to streaming, three decades of moving from small hotel to larger hotel to larger hotel to small convention center to larger convention center to the largest convention center we could find, three decades of arranging flights and finding hotel rooms and programming panels, three decades of assembling audio and video equipment and wrangling vendors and cosplayers and entertainers and voice actors and cartoonists. 

Costume Contest at the first AWA

  

That convention, of course, was and is Anime Weekend Atlanta, the premier (not "premiere", thank you) Japanese animation festival in the Southeast of the United States. Since 1995 a crew of anime fans has been working hard to make this three and now four day gathering a unique and lively weekend celebrating Japanese cartoons, Asian culture, the art of animation, and all the accompanying cultural artifacts and practices that have grown up around the fandom. AWA has survived pandemics, 9/11s, staff changes, location challenges, date relocations, and has constantly dealt with the changing tastes of an ever-evolving pool of attendees, a rotating cast ranging in age from five to seventy-five, interested in everything from karate to Kinikuman, from Demon Slayers to Devilmen, and as always engaged in a bitter struggle over whether or not the abbreviated name of the convention is pronounced "ei-wah" or "ei-doubleyou-ei." 

This year AWA is happening December 18-21 at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta, and I will, as I have been for the past thirty years, be presenting a wide, wild variety of panels and entertainments for the attendees. Will you be one of them? I hope so, and if so please take a minute and say hello! So, what exactly am I up to?

Thursday afternoon at 4 we'll jam a room full of preloved anime and manga merchandise and let capitalism run rampant. This is your chance to peek inside the crawl spaces and attics and closets and storage units of some of the Atlanta area's most notorious nerd merch hoarders, desperate to make space for more stuff. Let the bargains commence! 

Friday at 11am, Neil "I Translated Chargeman Ken" Nadelman and myself will be taking a tour through the wacky world of Knack, the studio that Ninja'd our Wonder Boys and Sued our Cats while Astroing our Gangers. 

 Friday night at 8 Reverend Neil will be once again delivering his popular sermon on the topic of "Totally Lame Anime" and how it affects your daily life. Don't miss it!

Dave Merrill's Anime Hell returns Friday night at 10pm for a guaranteed almost two hours of cartoon madness, live-action kookery, commercial ineptitude, and the sort of amateur animation buffoonery that is neither sanctioned nor supported by any official organization.

Ryan Gavigan's Midnight Madness returns at exactly 12:02am to pummel you senseless with a barrage of anime parody dubs produced by anime fans just like you, only funnier and with more free time and some technical equipment you may or may not have access to. 

What was anime like exactly forty, fifty, and sixty years ago? What influences are still with us today and what has vanished in the mists of time? And why does everything have a robot in it? The answers to these and more questions will be fiercely debated in this event Saturday at 10:45am. 

Sunday at 10am, some of the surviving founders of Anime Weekend Atlanta will assemble to dredge up old memories, rekindle old feuds, and generally talk about what things were like before everybody had their damn phone in their damn face all the time. If you have memories of the first AWA, you should definitely attend this panel, and you should also schedule a colonoscopy. 

Sunday at 3:30, Neil and Dave will put on their radiation suits, take their iodine pills, and lead us all into the coming End Of The World as seen in various Japanese films from the 1960s and 1970s and 80s. Space vampires, earthquakes, deadly diseases and nuclear war all struggle to see who can kill us off first - and no matter who wins, we all lose! It's a great way to send everyone home from the 30th anniversary of Anime Weekend Atlanta. 

Around the South and across the world people are getting ready for AWA. I'm putting these panels together right now even as you read this! So, don't be left out, make your plans now to be in Atlanta for AWA 2025! 

-Dave M

Mecha-May and Mew-Bot and SPT Layzner

We live in an amazing age of technology, when computers and robots can accomplish the most outstanding feats. One such outstanding feat is available now for you to enjoy, as Mecha-May the robot anime fan and her long-suffering producer Mew-Bot Five Thousand explore the 1985 Nippon Sunrise mecha series SPT Layzner, thereby obviating the need for me to write about the series! Truly we live in an age of wonders. Now enjoy the video! 

1975: Anime Goes Around The World

 
A little while ago we looked at 1965 - now we're going to skip forward ten years and look back thirty years at a selection of 1975's outstanding achievements in the field of Japanese animation. And there's no better place to start than with a cartoon about a bee.
 

The 1970s were a decade in which Japanese animation cemented its international reputation as a reliable supplier of children's entertainment, and part of that was due to a series of high profile international coproductions, like this one, Maya The Bee. Raised to be a good bee, Maya's adventurous spirit leads her to defy her bee overlords and leave the hive to explore the world, meeting a wide variety of small creatures with which she learns important life lessons. Based on a German children's book from 1912, subsequent adaptations thankfully toned down the nationalist militarism of the original, and the 1975 Zuiyo Eizo / Nippon Animation series went so far as to introduce Willy, Maya's lazy bee boyfriend. This 52 episode series aired around the world in various languages, and in Saban's English dub on YTV and Nickelodeon. Since then Maya has appeared in several new animated adaptations, video games, stage plays, amusement parks, you name it, the world is buzzing for Maya.

 

Gamba no Bouken, or as we call it The Adventures Of Gamba, is one of those anime series that had a big impact in Japan but barely made a ripple in the English language market. Our hero Gamba is an adventurous mouse, and he and his friends defend the island of Yumemishima and defy the white ferret Noroi. The TMS series only ran for 26 episodes, but had enough staying power to inspire a 1984 theatrical release, another film in 1991, and a CG version in 2015 that was dubbed into English and given the mystifying title "Air Bound." The absolutely melodramatic 1975 adventure of Gamba was directed by the master of melodramatic adventure, Osamu Dezaki, and had a tremendous impact on Japanese kids, some of whom would grow up to become anime professionals. In 2006 a poll of Japanese celebrities selected their top 100 anime titles, and the winner, beating out One Piece, Naruto, Dragonball, Evangelion, and Fullmetal Alchemist, was Gamba.

Kum-Kum Wanpaku Omukashi, or "Naughty Ancient Kum Kum," is a show from the studio that would become Nippon Sunrise and is all about misbehaving prehistoric children romping through the dawn of prehistory. The series was created by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, whom you know from Mobile Suit Gundam, and directed by Rintaro, whom you know from Captain Harlock and the Galaxy Express movies. Don't expect scientific accuracy from this show, which has has dinosaurs in it as supporting characters, but the series is a lot of charming fun and the English dub was from Paramount TV and aired on television around the world, including, as I'm reliably informed, Canada.
 

As we saw last time, Tatsunoko Animation started in 1965 with Space Ace and spent the next decade producing world wide hits like Mach Go Go Go and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. In 1975 the studio would score another SF hit with the comedy Time Bokan, a 61 episode Fuji-TV show which would go on to inspire nine subsequent companion series. The story? Top time scientist Dr. Kieta vanishes after building a time machine, and his lab assistant Tanpei and his granddaughter Junko set off through time and space to rescue him, followed closely by the evil Majo and her henchmen Grocky and Warusa, who were the inspiration for Pokémon's Team Rocket. Another tremendous Japanese hit that was successful everywhere except the US, two Time Bokan compilations were dubbed by Jim Terry (Timefighters In The Land Of Fantasy) and Harmony Gold (Time Patrol).

 

Timefighters In The Land Of Time Patrol

 

Speaking of science fiction and Tatsunoko, Space Knight Tekkaman blasted the muscular hero action of their Gatchaman, Casshan and Hurricane Polymar adventures right into outer space. In the 21st century, Professor Amachi creates the invulnerable "tekka" metal and with it, builds the robot "Pegas," equipped with the "Teksetter" system which transforms space pilot Joji Minami into the powerful Tekkaman to battle the Waldarian space invaders. With character designs by Yoshitaka Amano, Tekkaman would run twenty-six episodes and find a limited American audience via thirteen English-dubbed episodes that were briefly broadcast on UHF television and sold via home video cassette. The 1991 reboot/sequel Tekkaman Blade was a popular show that appeared on UPN as "Teknoman."

 

When Akira shouts "fade in," Raideen emerges to battle the evil Fossil Beasts for the fate of mankind! Nippon Sunrise/Tohokushinsha's super robot anime Brave Raideen was the first transforming giant robot anime TV show, and also the first transforming giant robot TV show to be broadcast on American television, helping to start North American anime fandom as we know it today. Created by a top notch team of anime talent that included Yoshiyuki Tomino, Tadao Nagahama, and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, Raideen ran for fifty episodes and has never had a proper English release.

これがUFOだ!空飛ぶ円盤 aka "It's A UFO! A Flying Saucer" aka "Get That Flying Saucer" is a real space oddity that could only have come from the 1970s. If you weren't there at the time, well, believe me when I tell you that the 70s were the high water mark for all kinds of far-out fantastic nonsense. Bigfoot, ancient astronauts, ESP, Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster, and UFOs all appeared in pop culture presented as fiction, as fact, and as something in between. Japan was not immune to paranormal fever and perhaps the purest expression of Japan's singular UFO fascination is this film, a sixteen minute featurette screened in March of 1975 as a concentrated distillation of postwar flying saucer fever.

 

We see anime Kenneth Arnold spot UFOs from his Call Air model A-2, anime Captain Mantell's tragic encounter with an unidentified object, and Toei's versions of Barney and Betty Hill and their famous "missing time" close encounter on the lonely roads of Vermont. Before you ask, no, they don't cover the so-called "Roswell incident" because that was not really part of the mythos before the 80s turned it into a thing. After the testimonials, "It's A UFO" switches gears and ventures into theorizing what the inside of a UFO might look like and why these space aliens might be observing the Earth and what this means for the future of mankind. Heady stuff for a Manga Matsuri short! But it's all in the service of laying the groundwork for their next featurette.

 

Uchuu (space) Enban (saucer) Daisenso (large battle), or The Great Flying Saucer Battle, was included in Toei's July Manga Matsuri festival. Combining the UFO craze with the super robot fad, this film was a Dynamic Pro vehicle that served as a pilot film for October's UFO Robo Grendizer series, and while the characters and vehicles are different, you can see the Grendizer framework clearly, as outer space refugee Duke Fleed arrives on Earth incognito with his saucer-based Gattiger robot in tow, pursued by an evil alien repo-armada who is intent upon recovering said saucer-based Gattiger robot.

I mentioned earlier that the 1970s was the decade where Japanese animation cemented its place in worldwide entertainment. Well, UFO Robo Grendizer, the Go Nagai/Dynamic Pro super robot series from Toei that was given a trial run with Uchuu Enban Daisenso, began airing in 1975. Grendizer ran 74 episodes and was a massive hit in Italy and France and the French-speaking world, cementing Japanese animation as the go-to entertainment for Romance-language speaking children for years to come. The story of Grendizer is a mix of royal intrigue, UFO hysteria, and super robot mecha-violence that begins as the evil Vegans destroy the planet Fleed and all its people save the prince Duke Fleed, who escapes in the super robot flying saucer Grendizer. Arriving on Earth, he goes undercover as a simple farmhand, but when the Vegans threaten, he and Grendizer battle them alongside guest star Koji Kabuto from Mazinger Z.
 

By the end of the series Duke and Koji are joined by Fleed's sister Maria and local horse girl Hikaru who each pilot their own super mecha that combine to make Grendizer even more awesome. Grendizer aired in the US as part of the "Force Five" series, and the 2024 reimagining Grendizer U was partially financed by another nation full of Grendizer fans, Saudi Arabia.

The 1970s in general weren't a big time for anime feature films. Apart from festival shorts, The Little Mermaid was the only theatrical-length anime release in 1975. Toei's adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fish-girl story is a widescreen film directed by Tomoharu Katsumata that arguably is closer to the original fairy tale than the later Disney version. This release was dubbed into English and made its way to American television and the home video market and was later released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Discotek Media, and also given a comedy commentary track by the former MST3K comedians of Rifftrax. The Little Mermaid remains a fairy tale, but Katsumata frames the film like a widescreen super robot epic, complete with giant monsters.

catch The Little Mermaid Sunday on the Superstation

Economic factors, market forces, changing demographics, flying saucer sightings; they all worked to shape Japanese animation in 1975. With hindsight it's easy to see how the field was shifting towards original properties and international licensing and how the potential for massive toy sales drove anime studios into the arms of various super robots. Speaking for myself, when I look at 1975 I see favorites I grew up watching like Grendizer, I see favorites that became hits among the next generation like Maya The Bee, and favorites that never took off in the West but remain vital cornerstones of anime in Japan, like Gamba and Raideen. The groundwork of 1965 was paying off ten years later, with Japanese animation solidly in place as global entertainment, even if the globe didn't quite realize it yet. Next: 1985!


-Dave Merrill

Thanks for reading Let's Anime! If you enjoyed it and want to show your appreciation for what we do here as part of the Mister Kitty Dot Net world, please consider joining our Patreon!

Happy Halloween with Mecha-May

It's Halloween, and that means it's time to find out what classic  anime shows will scare the bolts out of a robot girl! Let Mecha-May and Mew-Bot 5000 take you on a tour of obscure spooky anime to watch this spooky season!  

America's First Manga: UFO Commander 7?

Like many amazing adventures, this one started in an antique mall. Always on the lookout for diecast Japanese robot toys, one day I found one I didn't recognize. And I don’t want to say I’m an expert or anything, but if there’s one thing that takes up too much of my brain, it’s diecast Japanese robot toys. So I bought the thing, this big-headed orange and green robot man, and found out it was “VALCAN-I” from the Shinsei Mini Power UFO Commander 7 Series, a collection of futuristic robots and vehicles sold in the mid 1970s. Shinsei was and maybe still is a toymaker, selling detailed toy replicas of cars, trucks, construction equipment and other items of interest to kids; the brand was acquired by an Indian corporation in 1985.  

The thing about diecast toys is they’re made of metal, and metal is strong. Dogs might chew on it, kids might bury it in the sandbox, they might get smacked around or thrown or dropped, they’ll lose accessories like fists or missiles, but that toy is going to last, a brightly colored artifact of somebody’s childhood that ends up with all the other childhood artifacts on a shelf with a price tag. Soon I was finding other UFO Commander 7 items in the display cases of other vintage toy stores and out of the way antique malls. That’s where I found my Jeek Tunnelins, which is not a rare skin condition, but another mecha-vehicle member of that UFO Commander armada. The Jeek Tunnelin is, as the name would suggest, a tunnelling vehicle. If your Jeek Tunnelin  works properly, pushing the vehicle forward on its caterpillar treads will engage a gear that turns the giant tunnel boring machine-style cutting head disc. It's pretty cool. 

Over the years I kept seeing various toys at various inflated price points in various antique malls, and then one day I saw something I hadn’t seen before in one of those antique mall display cabinets. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a square little View-Master sized paper pamphlet with the UFO Commander 7 logo and what appeared to be manga-style artwork of the series robots and vehicles. "That," I said, "is coming with me."

My guess was that this would be a little toy instruction sheet, how to fit the missiles into your VALCAN-I or how to operate your BRAIN-III or whatever. You've seen these sorts of pamphlets nestled in among the styrofoam tray inside the diecast toy box, if you're lucky enough to find one that still has the box. Anyway, that was my assumption. And my assumption was wrong.

What this was instead was the legend of UFO Commander 7, the entire saga behind the toy line, the explanation of the UFO "Blue Silver" and how it escaped the destruction of its home planet along with VALCAN-I and BRAIN-III. How the Earth was threatened by the Dragols from outer space, and how three Earth youngsters and a dolphin were selected to join the UFO Commander 7 crew. This isn't an instruction sheet, this is a science fiction epic!  But it's the next page that really stunned me.

This is manga, UFO Commander 7 manga. Japanese manga in English from the 1970s, starring Dr. Purron, our friendly talking, bespectacled dolphin Edison, and three Earth youngsters sporting Cyborg 009 cosplay. 

This is English-language manga, years before Viz and Area 88, years before I Saw It and Gen Of Hiroshima. This is manga in three languages all about the heroes of UFO Commander 7 teaming up to battle the Dragols, and also some VALCAN-I and BRAIN-III comedy relief robo-bickering. 

Writing about classic Japanese animation involves a bit of research. As new information comes to light on old series, we're constantly revising our ideas of "firsts." There always seems to be an older anime series or an earlier anime convention or fanzine. So I'm not going to be the guy who says what we're looking at right here is the first Japanese manga to be published in English (and French and German). But maybe it is.

For one thing, this is a toy pamphlet, not a magazine or a book - buying a UFO Commander 7 toy was the only way to read this. Not unheard of in the toy world, but certainly a difficult way to get the work out to a wider audience. 

But let's face it. These are Japanese comics, in English, being distributed in North America in the 1970s. This is a pretty rare thing for America at the time. If you aren't flipping out about this at least slightly, you probably quit reading this blog a while back.

According to Japanese Showa-era toy research blogger Bakadesubakadesu, there was a UFO Commander 7 manga serial in Terebi-Kun magazine that ran from 1976-77. It's unknown who created the manga, and I have no idea if what we're seeing here is repurposed images from that manga, or if this was drawn specifically for the toy line. What I do know is that I'm digging this artwork, this is perfect adventure manga artwork from this period, the human characters have those gigantic Star Of The Giants eyebrows and the mechanical stuff is sharp and tight, the kind of terrific detail we love to see in our mecha illustrations. 

I don't know how many super robot narratives end with one super robot throwing another super robot at the enemy super robots, but it definitely happens at least once! Maybe this needs a little notation reminding children to not throw their BRAIN-IIIs across the room, those things are heavy and could do some damage. 

Not to worry! The diecast metal from Planet Marvellous is strong, and BRAIN-III has survived the impact with only minor and easily repaired damage.

You can tell the robots are functioning normally because they're bickering with each other like always. Now let's get back to building that underground base, and you, children at home, be careful with your VALCAN-I's space razor!

The immense success of the 1970s Japanese entertainment industry, swelling to a tidal wave of comics, cartoons, films, toys, model kits, and uncounted other pieces of ancillary merchandise, couldn't help but surge past Japan's borders and into the rest of the world. And sure, it's easy to sell merchandise from a property that kids have seen on TV or in the movies. But it speaks to the genius of their toy designers that something like UFO Commander 7 can grab the interest and the allowance money of legions of North American kids without benefit of a TV cartoon. Great toys sell themselves. 

Now get out there, collect all the UFO Commander 7 toys, and help VALCAN-I save the Earth from the Dragols!

Well, maybe it IS spelled "VULCAN" after all. 

-Dave Merrill

Special thanks to Antiques On 11, Severn Ontario!

Thanks for reading Let's Anime! If you enjoyed it and want to show your appreciation for what we do here as part of the Mister Kitty Dot Net world, please consider joining our Patreon!