what I learned at the Super Happy Fun Sell

2025 was my last year managing the Super Happy Fun Sell.

Now you may be asking, what the heck is a "Super Happy Fun Sell" and what does it have to do with this blog, or with classic Japanese animation? Well, I'll explain, if you get your cotton-pickin' hands off me, you barbarian. The Super Happy Fun Sell, sometimes described as the “Super Happy Fun Sale,” or SHFS for short, is Anime Weekend Atlanta's garage sale, yard sale, flea market event strictly for fans to sell their previously loved anime and manga merchandise to other fans. By definition, the SHFS is full of older merchandise from older shows, and frequently is the only place at the convention to find out of print manga, old VHS tapes and DVDs, and the occasional LP, LD, Beta tape or animation cel.


The SHFS has been a Thursday fixture at AWA for so many years that honestly I can't remember when it started. But it happened this way. Like many anime conventions, AWA began as a Friday-Saturday-Sunday show, with a lot of setup happening Thursday night and a lot of attendees showing up Thursday to pick up their badges early and avoid the Friday lines. Naturally, the convention had thought about getting some events going Thursday afternoon and evening, not only to encourage that Thursday badge pickup and entertain the early bird fans, but also to help relieve the pressure on a weekend schedule that was filling up with programming. I’d been doing some Thursday evening panels already and was always on the lookout for new Thursday things.


 

Some of the other shows were already hosting swap-meet events. The idea was out there in the world, I know we weren't the first. It's my recollection that one of AWA’s founders, the inestimable Lloyd Carter, was the person that said “let’s make this happen here,” and I believe he also came up with the "Super Happy Fun Sell" name, which is a reference to the SNL fake toy commercial about Happy Fun Ball, Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

 

My immediate reaction was, "this is a great idea, I wanna run it." So there I was, on a Thursday night in September of 2008 in the Kennesaw room of the Waverly, watching it transform into something that usually happens on suburban Saturday mornings - a yard sale. At least I think it was 2008. Details are sketchy. As a Thursday night event, it was difficult to squeeze the SHFS into a program book that was firmly and deeply committed to Friday-Saturday-Sunday scheduling. Years would pass before the event achieved full AWA print recognition, which only helped to secure SHFS’s reputation as some sort of clandestine in-crowd night-market rendezvous, and incidentally, helped to shield the event from criticism by vendors in the vendors hall, understandably wary of any competition for attendee dollars. Relax guys, everything sold at the SHFS you probably already sold at least once already.


 

the only known photo of the first SHFS

That first year, things were casual. First come first served, pay at the door and take whatever table you want, sell whatever you got, whatever. The event went like gangbusters, but immediately I realized that we were going to have to formalize things a little, if only to keep the event an actual used-goods event and not let it be over-run by arts and crafts, self-published fantasy novel authors, and wannabe vendors who missed out vending in AWA’s vendors hall. I spent a lot of time explaining the event over and over again to people wandering in the door thinking it was registration or the dealers room, or that they could just stand in a corner and hold things and sell them that way. Don’t do that.

Every year we learned from the previous year and we'd find something else we needed to make a rule for. We added rules against bootleg videotapes or DVDs, outlawing "mystery bags" and blind boxes, and preventing the sale of home-made candles, embroidery, and jewelry. The idea of “yard sale” seems pretty simple, but a lot of people seemed unfamiliar with the concept; we are providing the space for you to sell used items in, and that’s it. No, we can't make change, we don't have any carts or hand trucks, no, we can't provide wi-fi.

 

Super Happy Fun Sell, AWA 2011

After a few iterations of the SHFS and a move to a larger ballroom space in the Waverly, the event had evolved somewhat. AWA added an online registration system built into AWA's web page, we wrote a FAQ and a list of do’s and don’ts, and we found ourselves with a devoted audience of both sellers and buyers, ready and waiting for Thursday. Myself included! I love yard sales, thrift stores, antique malls, used bookstores, anywhere there's a random factor skewing retail choices towards the offbeat and unknown. I also love Japanese cartoons and Japanese cartoon-related merchandise. Creating an event where all these items come to me, rather than me having to hunt them down one by one, well, that’s not the main reason we have the SHFS, but it’s close.


 

some of my SHFS finds from over the years

Also, and this is the important part, the SHFS is an event people absolutely love. I’m talking “lines down the hall and around the corner waiting for the doors to open” love. People love the feeding-frenzy vibe, people love bargains, people love cleaning out their closets and making a little scratch, and that love is infectious. There’s something unique or fascinating or nostalgia-inducing on every table and everyone is happy to be there, smiling at even the possibility of finding treasure and taking it home. Putting smiles on faces is the best thing; in fact, that’s really why we started AWA in the first place, and who can deny we all couldn’t use a few more things that make people happy?


 

AWA 2016 SHFS

So, if I love it so much, why am I stepping away? Well, first off, the SHFS involves arranging and coordinating and organizing. Not an untenable amount of work, but it’s work that is easier and more convenient if done by people in the area, which I am not. In addition to advance promotion, table layout, and the answering of myriad questions, the SHFS has to be integrated with the convention and all that convention’s moving parts like schedules, locations, and staff. That integration happens when staffers get together and talk this stuff out. And me, well, I haven’t been to an AWA staff meeting in twenty six years. In fact they aren’t even called “staff meetings” any more.

promo slide for AWA 2021's SHFS

There’s even more to do when the event actually happens. The seller’s tables need to be set out properly, and if they aren’t, they need fixing. Someone has to work line control, or at least find someone to work line control. We have to find the event signage and that involves someone who knows where all that signage is stored, and that someone definitely isn’t me. Someone’s got to move all the tech equipment out of the room because there's usually tech equipment sitting around in the room waiting to be moved. Often a guest or a panelist or someone on staff or someone staff-related has been promised a SHFS table by somebody else on staff, and that information never gets to me until the day of the show, because, again, the not-being-in-Atlanta thing, just one more last minute curveball hurled on the Thursday of an anime con, a day already filled with curveballs.

The key to dealing with these last minute switcheroos is being flexible, that’s the key to everything about events like this. Like the old saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Treat your carefully crafted plans as if they were merely casual suggestions and adapt as needed. And let everyone else know your plans have changed, because it’s teamwork that makes the dream, or the anime con, work.

 

AWA 2017 SHFS

And that’s my advice to the AWA team that’s taking over the SHFS. To be honest, that’s my advice for the staffers who run any event like this – and to the sellers who are schlepping their merchandise through the maze of the convention center and setting up their tables. Be flexible and adjust to the situation, have your goals in mind and let those guide your actions, instead of the process. And get one or two of those collapsible wagons, or at least a hand truck!

So I’m no longer running the SHFS. But am I through with the SHFS? No sir. You will see me there next time, prowling the aisles, looking for offbeat old anime stuff, chatting with friends, and marveling at all the stuff.
 

AWA 2019 SHFS

AWA isn’t the only anime con to throw a swap meet or a yard sale, of course. Anime Boston’s swap meet is strictly barter. No money changes hands, it’s strictly for the free exchange of goods from one fan to another. Anime North’s Nominoichi fills an exhibit hall with tables piled high with merchandise and that event absolutely swarms with customers. I’m told Colossalcon holds Otaku Flea Markets twice a show, and last I heard Fanime was still holding swap meets. Even without conventions, fandom swap meets and flea markets are popping up all over the place. There’s one happening in Toronto this weekend! My advice is to keep your eyes open for a happy fun sale near you – and remember to show up early, carry along a few shopping bags, don't be afraid to bargain, and bring cash!

-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!
 

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

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what goes around

In a week or so I'll be back in Atlanta for Anime Weekend Atlanta, the Japanese anime convention I helped start and that has happened every year (with one exception) since 1995. This year's AWA is notable for a few reasons, first off being the date, which has moved all the way into December from its usual September, sometimes October, very occasionally November time slot. Another reason has something to do with the first reason, namely that the convention has relocated from its Cobb Galleria Center home for the past twenty odd years. AWA has moved to Building C of the World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta! Now I know technically the Cobb Galleria Center has an Atlanta mailing address, but let's face it, once you're on the Cobb County side of the Chattahoochee, well, is that really Atlanta?

All I know is thirty-nine years back the World Congress Center is where I was attending a thing called the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, an old-school nerd show full of comics and movies and vendors and cosplayers before they were called cosplayers. I wasn't old enough to drive, but myself and my friends, we convinced our parents to let us spend the weekend at the show in a scary downtown Atlanta that had yet to be cleaned up and made safe for tourists, just so we could wallow in comic books, model kits, and people dressed like Darth Vader, X-Men, and Elfquest elves.

But what affected me the most from that Atlanta Fantasy Fair wasn't a costumer or a comic book, it's what happened in an Omni hotel room. Some people attending the show from Florida happened to be members of something called the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization. They'd brought a VCR, some cables and a big pile of video tapes of what at the time was termed “Japanimation,” and their intent was... well I don't actually know what they had in mind. Maybe they didn’t know they’d wind up turning that hotel room into an impromptu Japanese cartoon theater, but that's how things turned out. Friends, friends of friends, and total strangers all found themselves camped out in this random hotel room for hours on end, watching Space Adventure Cobra and Dagger Of Kamui and Lupin III: Castle Of Cagliostro. This was the first place I'd seen these films, the brain-melting power of peak 1980s anime cinema imprinting itself upon my psyche.

Atlanta Fantasy Fair 1985 program book cover and map

Perhaps more important than the Rintaro or the Dezaki films, though, was how they came to me; we saw these films because some fans took it upon themselves to haul equipment across state lines and fiddle with the RF connectors around the back of a hotel TV and show foreign-language animated films to a room full of random nerds, just for the sheer pleasure of sharing these awesome things with people who might enjoy them too.

The Dagger Of Kamui

That's how I came to anime fandom. I saw people doing the work and making things happen, and I took this as my blueprint for action, as my guide moving forward. In a few months we'd have our own chapter of the C/FO in Atlanta, I'd be running the anime room at that very same Atlanta Fantasy Fair, we'd be having club meetings and publishing fanzines and screening movies in odd places and eventually we'd have our own anime conventions.

If those Floridians hadn’t had the generosity to share anime with strangers we might not be here today, and by "here" I mean "The World Congress Center", a half-mile as the crow flies from that 1985 Omni suite where we watched Jiro battle ninjas and Cobra romance triplets. Of course, these days Japanese animation isn’t hard to find. We don’t have to rely on strangers showing up from out of state with VHS tapes. We can go to the movies or turn on our streaming services or throw on a Blu-Ray disc and there it is. But that impulse to share, to present, to drop something amazing on some unsuspecting crowds, that's still with us. That's why I'm still finding myself on that institutional hotel carpeting, still telling people about some amazing piece of Japanese animation they need to see.

And what will I be doing at the 2024 Anime Weekend Atlanta? Well, Thursday afternoon I'll be holding down a table in the Super Happy Fun Sell, AWA's garage sale, swap meet, flea market, yard sale event where the previously loved anime and manga merch finds new homes. Bring cash!

Thursday at 8 Neil Nadelman brings back Totally Lame Anime from its lead-lined containment facility, where decades of embarrassingly bad animation and poorly conceived concepts rise up to bring shame upon their ancestors.

Then at 10pm Thursday it's time again for Anime Hell, the whiz-bang, anything-goes kook-clip-fest where confusion, amusement and amazement battle for control of your eyeballs!

Saturday morning at 10:15 Neil and I will take you on a journey to the beginnings of anime localization in America as we look at the pioneers who saw vast opportunity in bringing Japanese animation to America, with only slight assistance from the Central Intelligence Agency.

On Saturday afternoon we'll explore the wonderful adventures of Candy Candy, perhaps America's pluckiest orphan, as she lassos ne'er-do-wells and breaks hearts across two continents in manga and anime that you aren't allowed to see in America!

Sunday we blast off to Iscandar and parts unknown with the Space Battleship Yamato on a fifty year voyage to repeatedly save the Earth, defy any number of space dictators, and move lots of merchandise through a series of originals, sequels, reboots, and reimaginings!

It's been thirty years since we started Anime Weekend Atlanta, and the closest the show has been to downtown since that first year at the ill-fated Castlegate hotel. What was once a whimsical lark for a handful of devoted anime nerds in a few cities has become a nationwide phenomenon, locking down the largest convention centers in America's major metropolitan areas for gigantic, perhaps intimidatingly crowded festivals that make the early days of anime conventions look like a quiet Sunday school picnic. What will the future hold for this phenomenon? I don't know, but I'm exhausted just thinking about it. See you at AWA!

-Dave Merrill

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Anime Weekend Atlanta 2023

It's October and that means it's time for another annual convocation of Atlanta's premier Japanese animation festival, Anime Weekend Atlanta! Every AWA is special, it seems every show's had their own specific vibe. 2023 is no exception; this is the third AWA after the 2020 cancellations, overall the 28th AWA, and this is the twentieth- and final - convention in its present location, the Cobb Galleria Centre and Renaissance Waverly. Yes, that's right, a combination of factors have led the convention to pack it up and head out on the road, Beverly Hillbillies style. 

But first - AWA 2023! Maybe you'll be joining the thirty or thirty-five thousand fellow anime fans at the show, enjoying the full spectrum of anime-con events waiting for you - vendors, guests, concerts, panels, video games, anime screenings, cosplay, raves, maid cafes, gaming, you name it. My advice is to show up early, be prepared for lines, check the Guidebook app for events you're interested in, and maybe check out some of the events I'm doing this year. 

The SUPER HAPPY FUN SELL is AWA's yard-sale-garage-sale-swap-meet event where closets and crawlspaces and spare rooms and storage units and second homes filled with previously loved, unwanted anime merch is resold to new homes, continuing the cycle of consumerism that, ultimately, is what keeps anime spinning. Thursday at 6! 

 

ANIME HELL remains the most confusing two hours of any anime con experience, as a variety of Japanese cartoon whack-a-doodlery springs forth to amuse and entertain. It's a clip show. Friday at 10pm!

 

CLASSIC ANIME COPRODUCTIONS is a look into the world of Japanese animation productions that were conceived and financed by American studios. Find out which of your beloved childhood memories was actually animated in Japan, and thrill as I ignore your lifelong favorites! That's Saturday at 4:45pm. 

 

THE WORLD OF LEIJI MATSUMOTO hops on the Galaxy Express to tour the myriad worlds of this recently departed manga legend. From Legend Of A Honeybee to Interstella 5555, we'll visit just about every stop on the track of this man's groundbreaking, influential career. Sunday at 10:45! 

 

And of course we can't forget Neil Nadelman's TOTALLY LAME ANIME Friday at 8pm and Ryan Gavigan's MIDNIGHT MADNESS, midnight Friday! 

Anime Weekend Atlanta had a long road to the Galleria. AWA had its first year in 1995 in the now-demolished Castlegate Hotel, a unique Atlanta landmark known for events of every stripe, interiors and exteriors untouched since the 1970s, and a staff with whimsical ideas about cleanliness, security, and contracts. From there the show bounced around Atlanta from the north to the south side and back again, spending two years in Decatur and another two down by Hartsfield Airport, a year in Gwinnett and a year in Perimeter Mall. 

 

When AWA moved to the Galleria it was liberating: finally the convention had room to grow, space to move, and a location convenient for parking, shopping, hotels, and all the other benefits of suburbia while remaining (barely) within Atlanta's interstate 285, which marks the unofficial boundary between "Atlanta" proper and the hinterlands "Outside The Perimeter."

The Galleria itself was a northside Atlanta landmark, a peak 1980s upscale shopping mall full of boutique shops, luxury goods, an 8-screen AMC theater, and a space station themed arcade complete with hissing airlock doors and Apple II's for rent. If you were an 80s teen in the area you likely found yourself there on a Friday or Saturday night meeting friends to catch a movie or play some video games. 

 

The outward shock wave of suburban development moved through and passed beyond the area and the 1990s found the shine rubbing off many of the neighborhood's 80s dreams. The Galleria started to lose tenants; without an anchor store there really wasn't a reason to go there if you didn't happen to be catching a movie. Who opens a ski shop in Atlanta, anyways? In 1994 the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit Hall Authority completed the Cobb Galleria Centre, a complex of convention halls and meeting rooms adjacent to and integrated with the Galleria shopping mall, which was purchased outright by the Authority in 2000. Connected to the Renaissance Waverly, this became one of Atlanta's best destinations for mid-sized expos and conferences. Which, as the new century dawned, turned out to be a category that included anime conventions. Over the next two decades AWA watched the area rebound as malls were revitalized, new developments arose, and a new generation of metro Atlantans moved from the outer exurbs back towards and into the city. AWA's growth paralleled that of the city itself, bustling, traffic-choked, always angling for new alternatives for everything. 

 

One of those new alternatives came in 2017 when the Atlanta Braves moved from downtown's Turner Field - yes, named for Braves owner Ted Turner - to the new Truist Park, located in Cobb less than a mile from the Galleria. What was once a pleasant if sometimes overlooked backwater became a hot new zip code as new hotels, retail, and restaurants surrounded the ball field, connected to the Galleria by a pedestrian bridge across I-285. 

 

As a fall convention, AWA found itself competing for parking and hotel space with legions of late-season playoff Braves fans; suddenly AWA was in the big leagues, in more ways than one. Braves traffic and parking woes were a fact of life for the post-COVID Anime Weekends. Convention organizers weren't sure if fans would be returning to in-person conventions after the pandemic, but as it turned out returning to conventions was number one on everybody's list, and it seems like they brought their friends. What was once a cavernous empty hall now teemed with fans, what was once acres of free parking started to fill up Thursday afternoon at $10 a day. Increasingly AWA's attendees and staff began to wonder how long the Galleria and the Waverly could sustain this pressure. Would the convention finally join the ranks of other conventions and move to downtown Atlanta? Yes it would and yes it did. The convention is moving downtown. Partially because of space issues, but also because AWA has no choice. 

 

Next year the Cobb Galleria Centre is undergoing a makeover; the remaining retail space will be demolished and converted to more convention space and a new hotel will be going up in the northwest corner of the parking lot. Unless you enjoy cosplaying in a construction site (and you may! No shame!) the place to be in 2024 for AWA will be the World Congress Center downtown. 

I'm going to miss the Galleria. It's close to where I grew up and it looms large in my adolescent memories of goofing off on weekends wandering between malls and shopping centers, getting carded trying to get into R rated films, spending my allowance in the 2001 arcade. Little did I suspect eventually I'd help to wrangle twenty or thirty thousand anime nerds through the food court where I used to kill time before wandering over to Midnight Movies at the Akers Mill General Cinema (also demolished). Not that downtown Atlanta doesn't hold its share of memories for me, because it definitely does. Maybe we'll get to make some new ones there next year. See you in 2024! 

-Dave Merrill

Nobody Knows The Party Rules

You can hear it as you get off the elevator. Somewhere down the otherwise quiet hotel hallway is the muffled rumble and chatter of a crowd. Sometimes you can even smell it, the distinct odors of red wine, tonic water, off-brand tequila, lime wedges, and the occasional spilled beer. There’s a kooky flyer taped to the door, wedged open a crack with that hinged bar lock. Or maybe it’s closed and you have to knock and say “is this the place?” Either way you’re in, you’re in that milling, noisy, probably drunk crowd, it’s part of you and you’re part of it. What you can’t do is see it, because this is an anime con room party, and room parties are, as a rule, pretty dimly lit.

When anime conventions began, a lot of traditions were ported over from the culture of the SF and comic conventions that had been abusing unsuspecting hotels for decades. Nerd con standards like costume contests, vendor halls, panel discussions, badges, sometimes even entire staff departments were rebranded with new anime con colors. One such traditional if unofficial function was the room party. While at your local Chattacon, Boskone, NorWesCon or Ad Astra, you might have noticed flyers advertising various hotel room parties being thrown by various groups of fans promoting a Worldcon bid, a fanzine launch, or a new convention they were trying to get started across town. Maybe the local British SF club wanted to invite people over to watch Blake’s 7 or Adam Adamant, or the Star Trek club wanted to find out if their version of Romulan Ale was dilithium crystallized enough. Any excuse for a party, really.

I don’t want to come right out and say we just copy-pasted our room party culture wholesale from the nerd con room parties we attended as underage fans because they were reliable sources of cheap beer and weak rum & cokes, but we kinda did.

 

And thus was born the anime con room party, a mutant hybrid of frat bash, cocktail mixer, hospitality suite, and private movie screening. An event that, once launched, could careen off into any one of fifty different directions - transforming into a room full of drunks hollering at each other about cartoons, or  a full-on birthday party complete with cake, candles, and blindfolded party games. There might be a girl weeping quietly next to the sofa or there might be a girl cheerfully singing along to the boom box as she strips down to her underwear. Maybe a few consenting adults are consensually groping each other in the attached bedroom behind the door you thought you locked. Or maybe someone’s taken it upon themselves to “entertain” the room with a VHS tape of hilarious anime music videos, which they are showing on the VCR they brought, which they have wired up to the hotel room TV, which has turned a room full of people that used to be a party but is now merely a bunch of people watching something. Party disaster is always right around the corner.

Eventually, crews started setting up party dynasties around the country, and an anime con Saturday night might find you in a party crowd in Cincinnati or Chicago, in Atlanta or Austin, in Denver or Dallas, crammed like sardines into somebody’s hotel room or comfortably perched on a Presidential Suite sofa, socializing with guests, staff, vendors, fansubbers, artists, zine publishers, cosplayers or gate-crashers. And then, as quickly as it arose, the anime con party scene melted away, as organizers aged out of and were overwhelmed by the new, swelling anime-con demographic, which was not as interested in sequestering itself away from the crowds. The ephemeral nature of a party scene is no surprise; hosting a party is an art, not a science. There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of constantly shifting variables, a lot of trial and error involving the annexation of suitable spaces, the acquisition of food & beverage, and the likelihood of anyone actually showing up.

 My own con room party-throwing experience came out of necessity, more or less; our local crowd of anime nerds was at our local Fantasy Fair and we wanted to screen some anime, and the convention proper didn’t have an anime room, didn’t have anime on the schedule, and generally didn’t want to be bothered with it. So we just imitated what we’d seen others do; we brought some junk food and Cokes, we filled a cooler with ice filled one bucket at a time from the ice machine in the hallway, and we spent a good forty minutes trying to unscrew the RF cable from inside its protective, anti-theft cover on the back of the TV. Soon we were showing “Star Dipwads” and “Dirty Pair Does Dishes” to an audience of friends and strangers crammed into our hotel room.

At some point these SF/comic cons saw we were jamming the halls with people trying to get into our impromptu, unsupervised events, and we were grudgingly allowed to program official anime video rooms. Eventually we started our own anime conventions. But we still threw parties; sometimes to promote a new fan parody dub, sometimes to promote our local anime club or local con, sometimes just… just because we’re in a space with a bunch of friends we might not have seen in a while, and the innate need of humans to socialize is a powerful force indeed..

The first step on the Party Path is finding that physical space. Sure, you can just host the thing in your own hotel room. Maybe your room-mates will be OK with this, but perhaps they won’t be thrilled with the idea of a bunch of strangers hanging out where they keep their clothes and all the stuff they’ve bought in the dealers room, strangers who will be there until the wee hours, spilling drinks and Doritos all over the place. So your best bet is to somehow get a suite, or maybe two adjoining rooms with a connecting door, so that your social gathering is in one space and your valuables are in the other.

Anime 54

Jan Scott-Frazier managed the “Anime 54” blowouts, which appeared over the course of four years at a dozen or so early 00’s conventions including Ohayocon, Anime Festival Orlando, Animefest, Onicon, Katsucon and Nekocon. Their plan was to convince the convention to give them the use of the green room, con suite or other function room, which couldn’t have been too difficult as Jan was frequently a guest at those conventions. A lot of the larger, more connected parties either managed to rent hotel suites the convention hadn’t already requisitioned, or talked their way into borrowing one for the night. Project A-Kon was home to the late 1990s “Da Bar” party crew, notable for a liquor bill in the five figures and an ultra-swank two-level suite. Anime Weekend Atlanta’s Dessloktoberfest was held yearly from 1998 until the mid 2010s in everything from top floor function rooms to suites in satellite hotels, while the jacket-and-tie martini-afternoon “Let’s Classy” commandeered con suites and green rooms for a few short years. Big Fire’s Midwestern anime con parties remain Anime Central hotel suite legends decades after the fact.

Who’s going to come to this thing? Is it a private invite-only affair, or is it open to all? Back in the day when anime con attendance was in the high hundreds or low thousands, you could throw a party and be pretty sure you wouldn’t get overcrowded. Once anime con attendance crept into the twenty thousands, the old days of simply posting flyers became a bad idea. This is why this is an art, not a science, you want to hit that sweet spot of a good crowd that’s lively but not “somebody call security” lively, crowded but not too crowded. You don’t want to run out of drinks in the first hour.

 

When Space Battleship Yamato fans Carol Hutchings, Mike Horne and Kathy Clarkson came from Boston to Atlanta and threw the first Star Blazers themed “Dessloktoberfest” party at the third AWA, the only admission qualification was that all attendees had to swear allegiance to Leader Desslok of Gamilon. This evolved into custom invites and laminated party badges, but entry generally wasn’t too difficult, denied to only the obviously underage or the obviously sketchy. Anime 54 was always invite-only to avoid overcrowding and noise. Eventually 54’s party invites were numbered to foil counterfeiters. Frazier says, “The main line of defense was the door and I made sure to always have good people on door. (...)We stole stanchions and red ropes from the lobby a couple times(.) “ My experience is that flashing a convention staff or guest badge will get you into pretty much every anime con room party, one of the few benefits of being an anime con lifer. 

Liven up that party with an autopsy

Which brings us to decor. Let’s jazz that boring old hotel room up a little! Switch out the light bulbs with colored party store lights. String up some patio lights or dollar store disco balls, grab your painter’s tape and temporarily hang some posters. Borrow a video projector and splash confusing imagery on the ceiling, Carl Horn style. Wire up your thrift-store stereo or MP3 boom box or blue-tooth speaker and jam out with your custom party mix. Think up a theme and let that dictate the decorations - anything that evokes fun and frivolity, whether it’s suggestive of a backyard tiki party or the hallucinogen-soaked gonzo Vegas of Hunter S. Thompson, the theme of an Animazement party that prominently featured a suitcase full of prop narcotics. And remember, either cover that hotel room TV with wax paper for an impromptu lightshow, or unplug it entirely. You’re at a convention for people whose main activity is watching TV, and if that TV’s showing something they’re going to watch it instead of chatting or singing or laughing or eating or drinking.

 

That’s right, people want eats and drinks at these social engagements. Could be this anime con room party is in your home town and you make a run to your local grocery store or Wal-Mart or Party City or wherever it is you get bags of ice and styrofoam coolers and 2-liters of soda and chips and snacks. Paper towels. Disposable plates. Solo cups. Maybe an electric fan to keep the room breezy. Some Hefty bags for after-party cleanup. On the other hand, this convention might be in a strange city where you lack a convenient vehicle and/or knowledge of the nearest shopping center, a situation sadly prevalent in the pre-wifi days of the early 00s, requiring you to  scout up a local guide to point you in the right direction. For extra excitement perhaps you and a confederate take your cooler (and your staff badges - this is an advanced level activity) onto a trip into the hotel’s kitchen and fill up with ice from their industrial ice maker, instead of relying on the dying hallway ice machines.  

And then there’s the question of alcohol. How much? And what kind? How elaborate do you want your mixology?  Frazier says “My party drink was the Bahama Mama. I didn’t pre-mix because those were always gross to me. We free poured everything. Occasionally had Zima if someone brought it but no beer. Beer is really smelly.“ Carl Horn limited his party bartending to one signature mixed drink, preferably one involving tonic water, which, fun fact, glows under UV light. Dessloktoberfest involved everything from German lagers to the boxed wine preferred by Star Blazers voice actress Amy Howard. I always like to bring something out of the ordinary to a gathering, and this might mean a six pack of Tsingtao or one of those two-liter Sapporo cans or vodka packaged in an artillery shell. I’ll admit a soft spot for the classic, old-fashioned bathtub full of beer, ingredients consisting of (1) bathtub, preferably clean, (2) assorted cans and bottles of beer and soft drinks, and of course (3) don’t forget the bottle opener! Mixed drinks are always a logistical challenge and it’s best to keep it simple, stupid - rum and Coke, Jack and Coke, gin and tonic, tequila and somebody else, I am not touching that stuff again.

This means one thing - you’re going to need a liquor store. Yes, here’s where the fun really begins, where the wide-eyed innocence of a festival devoted to what are largely cartoons for children gets smushed up against the sleazy, degenerate reality of the adult beverage industry. Liquor stores come in two types: the modern, shiny Beverage Expo, and the harsh, stuttering fluorescent lights of the old-school strip-mall package store, where decades of mysterious stains merge with the ghosts of last century’s cigarettes and the desperate sweat of the confirmed alcoholic who can barely keep his hands from shaking as he empties his pockets for a handle of vodka and a sixer of Busch. No matter the time of day, it’s always late at night in those liquor stores. Here’s a tip, if anyone in your crew is underage, leave them in the car! Don’t let them in the door or even on the sidewalk. Laws vary from state to state so you don’t want to delay your liquor run. Those stores might close super early, they might be in distant locations across the county line, they might even be disguised with red dots or the mysterious letters ABC, as in the Carolinas.

So when a hundred lives are shoved inside and nobody knows the party rules, who’s to blame when parties get out of hand? Usually alcohol. Sometimes somebody’s had a little too much and gravity becomes unstoppable as they slide down into that negative zone between the side of the hotel bed and the wall. Scott-Frazier remembers Anime 54’s doormen and bouncers became good at bouncing problem people before they became problems, with the exception of one drunk who got into the suite bedroom, took off his pants, and fell fast asleep on the bed. Party crowds and noise might earn a visit from con security or hotel security and you’d better do what they say, because they can and will eject you from the premises. AWA’s Dessloktoberfest could go ‘til the wee hours for two or three years without a warning and then the very next year see the hammer come down at 11pm. Frazier remembers 54 “... usually got one warning then went quiet, but there were times they shut us down. There were a number of times the cops showed up. About half the time we could bribe them and I had a bartender who was a first responder who knew how to talk with them. The worst was when people lined up outside the door even though I told them not to (...) Hotel tried to shut me down twice over that.”  Ed Hill recalls a Project A-Kon “Da Bar” bacchanal in the late 90s involving an unplanned yet wildly popular amateur striptease contest. “I was probably second out the door before the cops showed up…she did strip to Du Hast by Rammstein. There were actually two ‘contestants’. The second one didn’t go very far.” I myself was in Carl Horn’s less raucous room party on another floor and heard about the impromptu burlesque when a bunch of guys burst into the room to show us evidence on their flip camera phones, a harbinger of the digital-panopticon age that now surrounds us like horny A-Kon nerds around an undressing party girl.

Chinese New Year crashes Anime 54

Eventually the music winds down, the last guests say their goodnights, and that total stranger who’s been passed out on the couch for the past two hours comes to life and shambles away. Suddenly it’s two or three in the morning and you’re surveying a room full of empty cans, half-eaten snacks, melted ice, and a few unidentifiable stains. It’s time to start filling that garbage bag, to dump that cooler out into the sink, to start drinking water you should have been drinking all along, to take the first of the Advil you’ll be never far from tomorrow. This is the Minneapolis police, the party is over. Are the parties over throughout the anime con world?

Look at anime con growth in North America and you’ll see that sharp curve upwards as the things went from regional gatherings of a few hundred to five, ten, twenty, fifty, sometimes a hundred thousand unique individuals all jammed into one confused convention center. Throwing a room party in the midst of this crowd seems…well, it’s a bad idea. Anime cons have ditched other old-school SF convention staples like con suites and program books and judging by the “no parties” rules hotels are posting lately, it seems the anime con room party is also marching into oblivion. It’s not a surprise, really; the party crews of 1998-2008 have aged into semi-responsible middle aged nerds for whom a serious hangover lasts days, not hours, and who learned committing to serious room party action is itself serious. That party is your whole weekend; you can’t be distracted by paneling or running events or staff duties - which is why we’re at these conventions to begin with. Ever try moderating an anime con panel after a night of serious drinking? It’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds.

wild shore leave for the Yamato crew

Room parties have lost any grass-roots marketing power they may have had. Your club or convention doesn’t need to promote itself by entertaining fifty people in a hotel suite. The potential party-goers themselves are a new generation, one that drinks less and is less interested in making small talk in a dark room full of strangers. Anyway, they’re busy at one of the myriad 24-hour programming tracks and late-night official supervised activities that the modern anime con provides. Why sequester yourself in a room when you could hit the rave? After seeing the chaotic damage that unsupervised, disengaged, maybe inebriated anime fans can cause, many shows partnered with their host hotels to host adults-only cash-bar mixers in convention function spaces, giving attendees that private party, alcohol-fueled, meet & greet & make new friends opportunity without having to ride the elevator up to the tenth floor and enter a room full of potential weirdos.

Of course, people will still gather in their hotel rooms to shoot the breeze and listen to some tunes while knocking back a few brewskis. But full-fledged con room parties aren’t the public displays of drunken revelry they once were. Like every other aspect of anime fandom, the late night socializing has become organized, supervised, and commodified; part of a weekend package deal of entertainment that might be less wild and more focused, but perhaps less harmful as well. Once the reputation of being a “party con” spreads, the actual anime con itself becomes overwhelmed by stumbling fight-hungry dudes tripping over themselves while sniffing out their latest assault victims. Convention organizers suddenly have to deal with cops, liability issues, safety concerns, and all the other problems that seemed far, far away from anything they expected to have to deal with when they said “hey, let’s have a convention about them Japanese cartoons we like.”

 

Aim For The Ace-themed AWA event

The heyday of the anime con room party may have passed. And that’s OK. We can spend less time in liquor stores and more time at, you know, the convention we traveled hours to, that we booked time off work for, the convention about the thing we’re supposedly fans of, which is anime. Not worrying about cleaning deposits while we mop spilled margaritas off hotel upholstery… there aren’t many fans of that.

 thanks to Jan Scott-Frazier, Carol Hutchings, Kathy Clarkson, Carl Gustav Horn, Ed Hill, and the brave members of all the party planning committees throughout anime fandom!

-Dave Merrill

 

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