Animec No. 22
Daicon III Opening Anime Final Presentation Materials
The opening anime feature in the previous issue was well received, so this time it’s a series of bonuses focusing on characters that didn’t make it into the film!
Opening anime and afterward
3D Challenge will be on hiatus, and we’ll continue with the opening anime that was well-received last issue. (-Ma)
Back to Osaka
November is the season for school festivals. After the weekly Radio Animec public recording in Nagoya, I flew back to Osaka where I was enthusiastically welcomed by the Osaka fans. I would like to continue that sentence, but the reality was harsh!
A complaint from an Osaka fan
“What kind of misinformation has the editor-in-chief of Animec written?”
“Eh?”
“It’s true! It wasn’t the Kansai University Association that did Daicon III, it was the Kansai S Ren.”
‘Kansai S Ren’ is an abbreviation for the Kansai Student SF Research Association. It is an organization formed in 1977 by the SF research groups of four universities and one high school for the purpose of communication and friendship! They organized the 4th SF show (in Osaka) in 1979, and cooperated with the Osaka Philharmonic Festival planned by Sakyo Komatsu.
“Please make sure to write that the core group that organized the 20th SF convention in 1981 was the Kansai Ren.”
“Sorry…”
This was a total mistake on my part. I messed up… Kansai Electric Power is KEPCO, and Tokyo Electric Power is TEPCO. I got the pattern mixed up. It was a similar typo, and Jutland was not involved. I apologize to all parties.
(Kansai Ren is an abbreviation for “Kanto University SF Research Conference,” which was established in 1976 and organized the 5th SF show in the summer of 1981.)
Reader response
A survey revealed some surprising facts. Usually, 50% of readers answer that the best feature was the first one, followed by the second and third. But in issue 21, over 95% of readers answered “Opening Anime.”
That page was edited entirely by the editor-in-chief based on his own arbitrary and biased opinion. I tried to feature it in the spirit of “If it’s interesting, why not?” But I guess serious topics are not accepted after all? To be honest, I thought that was also part of the first feature.
As an example of readers’ thinking, I will introduce a part of a letter I received from Noriko Yamaguchi of Osaka Prefecture.
An anime was screened in the main hall of a science fiction convention. The hall was filled with science fiction fans, and the excitement was so intense that you could feel the heat. It’s suggestive, but I somehow felt like I had a glimpse of the future; endless conflict between science-fiction and science-fiction anime.
Interesting anime is interesting to anyone who watches it. I can’t help but laugh at the pointless question, “Is that opening anime really SF?” Animec is strange, isn’t it? On the one hand, they talk about “SF vs SF anime,” and on the other hand they publish about an anime from an SF convention in color…
Until recently, I thought Animec was in the same category as Animage and OUT. But that’s not the case. As a commercial magazine, Animec is a complete loser, isn’t it? It doesn’t have a set “magazine policy,” so it can’t become as major as Animage, and it can’t create its own unique world like OUT. It’s just half-baked and shaky…
I felt a sense of resentment about that, and I even complained, “Why isn’t it interesting?” But I liked the fact that the readers’ column was so well-developed. Isn’t that exactly what Animec should be like? Until now, it had the character of a doujinshi [fanzine]. But by introducing the “There’s more to enjoyment than just watching” project, I feel like the direction has become clearer.
Commercial magazines can’t exist if they’re not interesting, but Animec was aiming for something outside of those rules. It’s one of the few magazines where readers can feel opinions, contradictions, and opposition in the articles. By reading Animec, I feel like I’m participating in a doujinshi, which is very valuable.
Anyway, now that I’ve realized this (!?) the next thing to do is to give my own response to the editors of Animec, so I sent my first letter.
Actually, the SF anime feature in issue 20 was edited in the hope of getting a backlash from anime fans. However, perhaps because it was a strangely rigid structure, there was almost no response.
In issue 21, we tried to get a reaction from anime fans by including a simple (?) story called Nanime [What? Anime?] but it seems that “Opening Anime” played a bigger role. We are grateful to this short article for correcting the discrepancy in editorial policy, and we would also like to thank the readers who responded to our incomplete message.
With the sudden increase in readers who, like Yamaguchi-san, are writing letters for the first time, Animec seems to be taking a big step forward. We will use the opinions we receive as valuable reference material. We also apologize for not being able to include all of them.
After the Opening Anime
As you saw in the previous issue, the Kansai Geinin, or rather, the chairperson of the executive committee, was talking about the premiere of the “Opening Anime,” seemingly a world of 1,200% energy. But according to the staff involved, it was much more serious than that.
(※ In Kansai, 50 steps is 100 steps, and 50 space kilometers is 100 space kilometers. The energy charge rate of the wave gun is also 1,200%, not 120%. Of course, the original source of this story is “Chinese” Battleship Yamato. I would like to reprint it in the magazine if possible…)
“Komaki-san, did you know that there was a pilot film for that?”
“In the opening anime!?”
“That’s right, Gomora appears with a Thud! Boom, boom, boom, and the screen rotates and there’s a spurt. Daicon III.”
“Then you should have put it in front of the Daicon field as an eye-catcher…”
“It’s strange that even the people involved didn’t know that such a film existed until now. Today (November 3rd) was the last day of the SF convention report session, so it was shown…”
What a surprise. The “20th Japan SF Convention Report Session” was held in Engineering Building 8 at the Osaka Prefecture University. Unlike other SF conventions, the staff did nothing but work and did not watch the program at all. For that reason, the Daicon III Executive Committee recreated the SF convention using video, 8mm, and slides, calling it “for those who could not attend the SF convention, and those who attended but missed various programs.”
As expected, the most popular part was the opening anime. I wonder if students all over Osaka were involved in that anime. I’ve received a lot of letters. They appear one after the other…
“I colored that wavy thing”
“I was the one who traced that XX”
It’s just like the Phoenix incident in Tokyo. (Actually, there is a legend that the production of Phoenix 2772 was delayed and all the assistant manga artists and potential animators were mobilized. However, the drawings were too rough, so they were all redone…)
I’m not saying that all of SF fandom is good, but I think anime fandom can learn something from the fact that SF conventions are decided by the opinions of fans all over Japan. Whether it’s Comic Market in Tokyo or Comic Carnival in Nagoya, it’s like anime fans are renting out space at manga doujinshi events! (It’s not nice to always see anime fans at the center of a conflict.)
It’s inconvenient that there is such a large anime population and yet there is no national organization. It’s only natural that there are talks about the manners of anime fans, since there are no proper leaders. However, it would be better not to have a strange organization. The SF world exists because writers who truly love SF have nurtured the fans.
Anime fans, like movie fans, may be individualistic (?), and watch over anime according to their own opinions. Animec is not a textbook, but I hope it can be a point of reference. In this interview about the opening anime, we received a lot of opinions from fans, but we were not able to reflect all of them here. The only thing I can promise is that we will increase the space for Animec reader submissions. Since it is a world without seniors, it seems that the only way to open up is for middle-class people to compete with each other. (- Ma)
P.S. I am dissatisfied with the fact that the reports of Diacon III in SF magazines are so tepid. in a cold manner. Can’t they accept a convention that doesn’t involve so-called “big-name fans”?