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Worst thing I've seen anime fans do at a con is encourage species of the male population to attend YaoiCon, since YaoiCon apparently seems to be attended by "girls getting horny watching porn all day". Thus members of the male population are 'guaranteed to get laid' by attending YaoiCon.

Also, you didn't read a "news article", you read something on some terrible forum or blog site written by an idiot.

Try telling him that. "All they do is talk and never move" Blah.

I gave it a masterpiece =/

The worst thing I've seen somebody do at an anime convention was a blatant act of racism.

It was at a Fanime, in 2000 I believe. We were in the convention center area, near where the entrance to the masquerade usually was. It so happened that at the same time, there was a Muslim-oriented convention going on, so during certain parts of the day there would be many people from that convention sharing areas with Fanime - many of whom were in traditional clothing. There were a number of audible groans from the milling anime fans, and one girl said something like "This is an anime convention, not a towelhead convention!" loudly enough for everybody to hear. Not everybody laughed or reacted to what was going on, but that it was more than one person was enough for me. I was mortified.

I like to think that anime fans in general are fairly open-minded when it comes to a lot of things. They're usually the ones mentioning (though only partially true) Japan's somewhat more open policies toward homosexuality and toward what kind of material their children are exposed to, yet here in the thick of a group of fans, there were racist jokes being made.

I realize that those people didn't reflect upon the fandom as a whole, nor am I concerned that those being yelled at thought so, but it's still by far the most insensitive thing I've ever seen people do at an anime event.

I like to think that anime fans in general are fairly open-minded when it comes to a lot of things. They're usually the ones mentioning (though only partially true) Japan's somewhat more open policies toward homosexuality and toward what kind of material their children are exposed to, yet here in the thick of a group of fans, there were racist jokes being made.

Quote:

I like to think that anime fans in general are fairly open-minded when it comes to a lot of things. They're usually the ones mentioning (though only partially true) Japan's somewhat more open policies toward homosexuality and toward what kind of material their children are exposed to, yet here in the thick of a group of fans, there were racist jokes being made.

That's actually not quite the case, surprisingly. I know, you would think that, considering that art often reflects life, a country that actually has many mainstream media properties (not even necessarily anime and manga) that positively depict homosexuality (or sexuality in general) and such would be more open to it, but it's not really. Japan's stance towards homosexuality and other sodomic relationships may actually be less progressive than the United States'. At any rate, gays can get legally married in some places in the West; it is not so in Japan.

Also, concerning general open-mindedness, I would be very hesitant to say that Japan is any better than the West. Japan's population is very homogeneous, and there is often prejudice against other East Asians or gaijin in general-- it is not unheard of for skilled gaijin to have more difficulty in procuring better jobs, simply because they are "outsiders".