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NEWS: Crunchyroll Announces Its Own Convention After Surpassing 1 Million Paid Subscribers

relyat08 wrote:

While I am sincerely happy for you, I'd like to note that many people have to drive 5-6 hours or more to get to ANY decent Con. Now we are looking at most likely having two of the biggest and probably best cons in the Country within that distance from each other. I think it's fair to be a little bit annoyed.

I think it can easily be shown that California, especially Northern California, has one of the largest, if not *the* largest, demographic of Asians in the US. Not that I'm saying that every person who is Asian is an anime/manga fan, but you have a more receptive audience for all things Japanese in the Bay Area than you do in, say, Topeka, Kansas.

You wrote your location as that Virginia. So you have Otakon. And if you're willing to travel along the eastern seaboard, you also have Anime Boston and Animazement in Raleigh, NC. Please remind me again just how it is that you are suffering when people in South Dakota have it far worse.

For me to attend Anime Expo, I either take a 1 hour flight or drive the 6 hours to get to it. I'm not quite sure what you're considering as 'two of the biggest and best cons', because SoCal is a good 5-7 hour drive from San Francisco, and Fanime in San Jose, CA is nowhere near a 'best' con.

I think you totally misinterpreted my comment. I wasn't complaining about my situation, but rather that exact person who is in Kansas with nothing remotely close to them. Hence why I literally said "I'd like to note that many people have to drive 5-6 hours or more to get to ANY decent Con."

For what it's worth, Otakon is still not on the level of AX, or likely this CR thing, in terms of Japanese guests, and it's the biggest thing on this Coast. What I'd like to see is a Con that hosts lots of Japanese guests on the East Coast, or the Midwest, like Chicago, or Indi, or Columbus, or(ideally for me) Otakon in DC.

The second of those "biggest and best cons" that I said we would "most likely [be] having" now is the convention this entire thread is about! Hence why I framed my comment as subjectively as I did. It might be a wreck, but from the sounds of it, it will have LOTS of Japanese guests, and that is why I go to conventions to begin with. Sakuracon also tends to get a crap ton of awesome Japanese guests. I'm aware of the geographic and logistical benefits of being on that side of the country for Anime cons and getting guests, but I would still like to see something over here someday.

Have you been to AX recently? It's absolute garbage, or at least compared to how it was even as recently as 2013. Nothing like spending $250+ on a hotel room close to the con per night only to stand in line at 3 am every day in the hope of getting 1, and just 1, autograph ticket at 8 am before you have to head around back to the end of the line if you want any more autographs. Everything is a la carte. You want to attend the concert with that hot Japanese group? That'll be $60 extra. How about that Aniplex event? That'll be another $40. Masquerade? All extra, and most events requiring that you spend a solid 2+ hours just waiting to gain access to that panel. A 4 day pass does nothing more than to get you into the door and allow you to stand in line with all the other 100K attendees.

As an AX veteran, I would much rather go to a smaller con like CrunchyCon if it means that my hotel room will act as something more than glorified luggage storage. Or, you know, I can actually enjoy the con instead of spending all my time in lines.

The cons go where the money is. The money is not in Kansas. Nor is it in South Dakota.(...) if it bothered these people so much, they'd either move to areas where there are more cons, or simply travel to them. It's similar to how I can't stand Fanime, so I pay $800+ to travel to Animazement.

When there were less than 10 cons a year, people would travel cross country to go to an anime con. Now people normally go to what's close (and heck, if I'm gonna pay $1000+ to go to Expo from outside of CA, why not just go to Japan). GenCon pulls over 60,000 to Indiana, the anime industry COULD do similar if they wanted to TRY to market to people outside of CA. When there were a small number of cons the people going actually knew who the Japanese guests were, now a bunch of people don't care. They "prefer" American guests because those are the people they get face time with. "Oh, boo hoo, Japanese animators can't pay rent, who cares I dunno who those people are, lemme take a selfie with the English voice of this Toonami show"

Most people that attend cons can rattle off 5 or more English language voice actors. how many can name ONE Japanese seiyuu? How many can name any directors other than Miyazaki? Or character designers? Or mangaka? Or ANYONE from the other side of the ocean? And I lay a LOT of blame for that on the US industry. true story: I have now THREE TIMES tried to promote an anime title, two of the three I have literally brought some of the Japanese creative staff to the US. One of the times I only got ANY US involvement because I hounded them relentlessly and I still didn't get final confirmation until really late, the second time I got a "no thanks" and the third time they just stopped responding entirely. (different company each time)

So, when I talk to US anime companies about setting up things for anime titles which I've made arrangements, set the whole thing up AND PAID FOR THE WHOLE THING ALREADY and they can't be bothered to answer a query about promoting their own damn titles, or won't otherwise do the absolute bare MINIMUM to let you market their stuff FOR them, then yeah, screw the industry for saying "we're keeping it out here in Cali yo".

I've been following the Sakuracon guest list for years...and there are a TON of Japanese guests going there every year that I'd love to meet, personally. This year is featuring Urobuchi, Kubota, Yasuhiro Irie, Digitarou, Nagahayama, Sonoda, and Shiki Douji! ALL of those people are HUGE deals to me. Otakon last year got a couple of PA works staff(which was great) and a couple of producers from Under the Dog, and that was pretty much it...

Woah a lot of the comments here are negative about this news. Am I the only person here who's actually excited about this and wanting to go?

The video quality of CR is better then what the Japanese get on TV, so I'm not complaining there.

relyat08 wrote:

I think you totally misinterpreted my comment. I wasn't complaining about my situation, but rather that exact person who is in Kansas with nothing remotely close to them. Hence why I literally said "I'd like to note that many people have to drive 5-6 hours or more to get to ANY decent Con."

The cons go where the money is. The money is not in Kansas. Nor is it in South Dakota. It's in areas where there are large portion of the population who are Asian and appreciate the manga/anime fandom. You can whine all you'd like that it's not fair, but if it bothered these people so much, they'd either move to areas where there are more cons, or simply travel to them. It's similar to how I can't stand Fanime, so I pay $800+ to travel to Animazement.