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Ami-Chan meanwhile was attending several cultural panels, including ones on J-Rock and J-Dorama.  For those unaware of the term, J-Dorama refers to live-action Japanese TV drama series, a medium that is growing in popularity in the West.  It was the first time in our convention "career" that we have came across J-Dorama being featured as an event, and the panel itself was presented by Frances Barber (Arisu).  At first the presentation began with the basic description of what J-Dorama is, what it is based upon and where the source material originally came from.  She then went on to describe the many different talent groups responsible for providing the actresses \ actors for the shows.  It was interesting to find out that often the stars of J-Dorama series are of famous in their own right.  For example, members from the leading Japanese pop band Kat-tun have appeared in several J-Dorama series, including My Boss My Hero and Ichi-Pondo no Fukuin (One Pound Gospel).  The panel finished with the last 5 minutes dedicated to "J-Dorama Oscars", which was a fun concept that saw awards being given in categories such as Strangest Love Story!  It was unfortunate that the panel ran out of time before this was finished, as the Oscars provided a brilliant introduction to the different and varied J-Dorama available.  There were numerous J-Dorama screenings throughout the weekend too, including the live-action Nana film and My Boss, My Hero, but unfortunately they always seemed to clash with something else so we ended up missing most of them.  Hopefully we'll have better luck next year.
 

A rare shot of Sensitive Pornograph where the characters have all their clothes on

 The Yaoi Panel was one that Webmasters Tom and Rich gave a miss, but for Ami-Chan it was one of the highlights of the weekend!  Yaoi is a genre of anime and manga which focuses on same-sex relationships between men, but are conversely aimed at women.  The panel was hosted by Ehryn and Samantha who spoke about what Yaoi is and what themes are found in it, as well as discussing individual titles and suggesting series for beginners to watch.  They were good hosts, and had some funny anecdotes about the perils of being a Yaoi fan.  Apparently you have to be careful when buying it in Japan as confused clerks can instead direct you to anime titles featuring young boys that

would probably be banned here!  There was a fun and friendly atmosphere at the panel, and an impromptu Yaoi Pairings game made for plenty of audience participation!  The panel rounded off with screenings of a selection of episodes from Yaoi anime series, including Sensitive Pornograph and Junjo Romantica.  Much of the anime shown was fantastically cheesy, but sadly an equipment failure meant that the screenings were cut short.  However, it was probably for the best considering one explicit scene included the line 'it hurts dad!'...

The next panels Ami attended took in some more reserved aspects of Japanese culture, as convention regular Akemi Solloway presented a marathon set of demonstrations and lessons.  During her 4 hour stint the tireless Akemi explained the importance of the Kimono and demonstrated how to wear one, as well as describing the history and process of the Japanese Tea Ceremony.  She also gave lessons in Japanese language, calligraphy and origami, as well as and explanation of Japanese traditions and customs.  Akemi's demonstrations and lessons were then followed by a demonstration of traditional music played on a Japanese stringed instrument called a Shamisen.  Akemi Solloway is a good and extremely knowledgeable lecturer in all things Japanese, and her lessons were fun and interactive.  The insights she gives into Japanese culture, traditions and customs brings an extra dimension to a convention and Alcon was no exception.  Unusual as it was to have all of her lessons back-to-back on the schedule, she seemed to take it well in her stride and keep everyone interested.  It's always good to see that conventions recognise that anime fans are often fans of Japanese culture as well, and there's no better guide to Japan than Akemi.
 

 Continuing on the cultural theme we all attended the Japanese Cooking Workshop held in the Bede Hall Accommodation block.  Unfortunately however, we got there after it had finished!  The cooking workshop was one of the only missed opportunities of the weekend, with it's only mention being a small note at the foot of a page in the convention planner.  This meant that a lot of people didn't seem to know it was happening and the kitchen used for the lesson didn't really have the best layout.  Marius did the best with what she had, but wasn't supplied with the cooking equipment she was expecting.  It was a shame, as she made for an enthusiastic and

able teacher when we spoke to her, and was cheerful and happy to talk about her cooking.  It was interesting to see that many of her recipes were self-created and also focused on simplicity and speed, proving that Japanese Cookery isn't as hard as people believe.  Hopefully next year she'll get better publicity and we look forward to seeing her panel in full.

Our final panel was the Committee Q&A, which is, in our opinion, one of the most important panels you can attend at a convention.  The panel gives you the chance to talk face to face to the convention organisers and discuss what went well, what went badly and what should be done at the next event.  Despite this the committee panel at Alcon was very poorly attended, with just a handful of people taking advantage of the opportunity to talk to the committee face-to-face.  Nonetheless, the panel was a very interesting insight into the running of Alcon, giving background on the logistics and difficulties the organisers faced.  Chairman Mike Towers (aka FreeSaiyan) talked at length about the issues they had experienced in the build-up to Alcon 2008, including the last-minute change of venue which was forced on them by the University.  It was good to see that the committee recognised the issues that had occurred last year and had worked so hard to sort them out this time.  It was also good to see that most of the issues that we were going to raise the committee were already aware of and pre-empted us!  The only disappointment was that there wasn't many people there, as the discussion could have been a lot more varied if there were.

The panels at Alcon 2008 were some of the best we'd been to, and it was great to see so many aspects of anime fandom covered.  There was a real willingness to cover new things and give people the chance to host panels, even if they hadn't previously done so.  We're especially thankful of this, as it gave us the chance to host our very own panel...


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