We are hosting two panels at Fanimecon this year! We are hosting our typical Animemes talk on Sunday May 27th from 11pm-1am, but we would like to invite you to our brand new panel: Keep Anime Anime - Whitewashing of Anime Culture.

In today’s globalized world, access is the name of the game. Companies tout statistics bragging about floating balloon with internet access to server rural communities in Australia, or brag about how they’ve brought electricity to much of India. However, is access always a good thing? Sure, globalism has provided great humanitarian benefits to much of the world, but should the same apply for cultures?

A few years ago, GamerGate happened. Whether you as a person are “for” or “against” GamerGate, there is no denying that it not only changed the culture of video games, but also the political atmosphere. Suddenly, it was cool to reject the mainstream. Games were originally designed for the basement neckbeard, fingers coated with cheetos dust while downing countless bottles of mountain dew. Gamers were bullied for being uncool, and they were ostracized and often looked down upon for not enjoying mainstream hobbies such as football or baseball. Now as video games are easily accessible and e-sports are streamed on ESPN, the formerly bullied feel as if their culture has been appropriated by the same audiences who shuuned it in the past.

While GamerGate’s claims of culture appropriation are valid or not, cultural appropriation is a real thing. Sure, if we think of ourselves as cultured by avoiding Sushirrito and going to the Real Sushi(tm) place next door, conveniently ignoring that the workers speak Spanish and the owners speak Cantonese. We know quinoa is bad for the poor South American farmers who can’t afford to eat their own traditional food anymore, but a few articles about the health benefits of the crunchy grain and Kimberly’s incessant ranting about how her hot new yoga instructor thinks it’ll make people live forever will make us change our mind.

Companies such as Crunchyroll enjoy bragging about how many “overseas fans” they’re connecting to the “industry.” They make broad claims about how overseas money is helping the “industry” while they themselves make big bucks from subscribers. Now, we even see their names on the start and ending credits.

More and more people have access to Japanese animation than ever before. Come to our panel to learn why this may not be a good thing.

Sunday, May 27th 12am-1am (Saturday Midnight/Sunday Morning)

Once in a lifetime you’ll come across an anime that truly captures the history and cultural distinctions of the modern world the way a person can subjectively perceive it through our guided field of perspective. I have to admit, I had my doubts when I first learned of this anime. After all, Wake Up Girls? Will this anime even be good? How ignorant was I to even have these thoughts. Little did I know I was about to indulge in what may have been the best 25 minutes of my life every single week. The anime starts out strong. The opening scenes enticed the audience with a captivating enigma. I was so taken aback from the next-generation animation that I almost didn’t even realize the underlying symbolism in the ongoing scenes. It wasn’t until my twenty sixth viewing of the anime’s first two episodes where I finally got my bearings together and was able to focus on the gripping and labyrinthine stratagem. The underlying analogy for 19th century dystopianism and the evangelical deviation of typical orthodoxy was enlightening to say the least. Just when I thought the anime could not get any better, the increasing conflict before the climax began in the last episode. I could not believe the complexity of the story as the main protagonist struggled with the everyday endeavors for a quintessential girl such as the consistent up-hill altercation of the fight against misogyny and the fiscal synergy of opposing interplanetary dynamisms. There I was, gripping to my chair as the conflict of the anime truly began. I am so enticed by the anime that I feel as if I am both practically and relatively apart of the anime. This is a special kind of high that not even the strongest of drugs can give you.

With the internet enabling more and more anime fans to share their love for anime every day, it becomes essential to understand the vehicles and devices underlying the global advancement of otaku culture. More specifically, we examine and critique the ways in which memes have shaped online as well as offline anime tastes, opinion, and dialogue. Join us as we talk anime, memes, and how they relate to you!

We will present a brief history of memes in online fan culture. We will then transition that into the way online social networks as well as public forums have adopted memes in the context of anime. We plan to then explore how these memes have shaped and molded both the population as well as dialogue of the anime community. We will analyze case studies in which memes have greatly influenced specific anime fandoms and we will use our analysis to determine general ideas on how anime meme culture can describe the communities to which they belong.

We hope that guests will walk away with an increased appreciation and awareness of meme culture in anime. Additionally, we wish that guests leaving this panel will gain an understanding in how to apply their knowledge of memes to ensure the health and stability of their own communities and micro-communities.

Join us as we talk anime, memes, and you!

Friday January 5th at 5:30pm at the Sacramento Convention Center room 317/318

On October 17, the price of a dollar was 0.000258 BTC.

As of December 17th, 7:37am Pacific Time, the price of a dollar is 0.000059 BTC, the lowest the dollar has ever been. In fact, the dollar has lost almost 80% of its value over the last three to four months.

That means you’ll need:

• 1.0 BTC or 16,500 USD to purchase a brand new 2017 Honda Civic LX (if you’re good at negotiating)
• 0.000148 BTC or 2.5 USD to purchase two McDoubles at McDonalds
• 0.058941 BTC or 999 USD to purchase the iPhone X
• 0.000410 BTC or 6.99 USD for a month’s worth of anime on Crunchyroll.com

As you can see, it’s never been a worse time to purchase the USD, or any other currency. In fact, most of the world’s currencies have been losing their value to the BTC.

The dollar bubble has popped, and it’s never been more unwise to buy in.

EDIT As of 08:25 PST the USD has fallen even more, to 0.000052 BTC/USD.

That means you’ll need:

1.0 BTC or 19,000 USD to purchase a brand new 2017 Toyota Camry (if you’re good at negotiating)

EDIT2 As of 08:37 PST Coinbase’s trading site, GDAX, has crashed but not before the USD reached an even lower all time low at 0.00005 BTC.

That means you’ll need: 1.0 BTC or 20,000 USD to purchase a brand new 2017 Toyota Camry with options (if you’re good at negotiating)