ARISIA SciFi Convention 2005
The 2005 ARISIA science fiction convention was held in Boston on Jan 22-23. Unfortunately for convention goers, this was the weekend of a massive blizzard. Many speakers cancelled or left early as a result.
We were only able to get out to ARISIA for the first half of Saturday as a result of the impending snow, which ended up dropping 2-3 feet of snow on most of Massachusetts. The anime room was actually a 24 hour a day affair, and there was also another room for regular movies that occasionally showed cartoons as well. A third "real film" room had an actual projector.
The event was held in the Boston Park Plaza, which has hosted many sci fi conventions in the past. Those unfamiliar with the layout of the Park Plaza will find it confusing at first - events are split between a lower basement, a second floor main set of rooms and a fourth floor set of conference rooms. Attending the event entails a lot of traipsing up and down the stairs or waiting in elevator lines.
Registration was super quick and easy, perhaps because the storm held off most one-day visitors. We headed up to the 'regular movie' room where the classic Return of the King animated movie was playing. You can only take so much of "where there's a whip, there's a way!", so soon we went over to the anime room, even though its morning schedule involved all kiddie films.
Are we glad we did! The youngest 'kid' in the room was 12, most of the watchers were adults. The showing was of Go Panda Go. It was *hilarious*! Some of us made semi-quiet comments at first, laughing to ourselves as the lead character - an 8 year old girl - merrily says to a Panda "You can be my daddy now! And I can be the mommy!" The next thing you know, the girl is writing her grandma saying, "I have a baby now!"
Once we all realized that we found this entire scenario ridiculous, our comments became more vocal, and soon we were all laughing together at what was going on. For example, a giant flood comes, covering the entire town. You might think the girl would be a little concerned about her townmates having survived, but nooooo - she laughs with glee about her new pond! "The apocolypse is so much fun!" called out one of the audience members, and we were rolling in the aisles.
There was Space Ghost on the projector, The Last Unicorn in the movie room and a collection of anime to keep an eye on. The art show had a nice variety of sci fi displays, including dryer lint pictures of animals. The dealer room had some anime DVDs and items in their mostly sci fi collection. There were a number of people in costume, including a full set of stormtroopers.
There was even a scheduled talk on an intro to anime - but insted of billing itself as a general introduction to the topic, it explicitly talked about discussing how lesbian comics are becoming popular with young girls. That seemed an unusual focus for an intro discussion!
By 2pm we had to leave, barely making it home again before the wall of storm hit the area. We ended up missing a lot of the better anime on the schedule as a result. We did enjoy the shows we got to see, and recommend ARISIA as a way to get a good overview of anime shows. They typically show episodes 1-2 of a wide variety of series, to let you get an overview and figure out which you want to go buy or rent more of.
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