We Love Daku Con

Denver’s destination event for otaku is worth a visit

by Bob Johnson

Holy Hell, did I ever need to go to Daku Con. Nestled in the open plains of the grand city of Denver, there is an airport and a Crowne Plaza Convention Center thereby. For three days, this hotel is a mecca for weebs and weirdoes from the American West, a bishi bacchanalia at the dawn of winter.

It stands pleasantly unmoved by the trends at other cons that have turned what once were college-level cultural experiences into fluffy, insubstantive Demolition Man shells of themselves, where the organizers spout weak-tea “we have kids now” nonsense as they cancel everyone’s offcolour comedy panels. Well, just how did you hypocritical weebs meet in the first place, hmmm? Some of us still need a con that “goes there”.

In a perfect world, we would all have perfect choices. There would be an easy response to bowdlerization at the con: simply go to something else that is 18+. But there’s only a handful of cons that are really committed to staying 18+, and of these, many are in the South or East Coast, far from our neck of the woods. Yet Daku Con is in Denver, just one flight away from anywhere. It’s not so far west as to be troublesome to get to from the remainder of our continent, and it is still an easier sell than, say, Chicago, when courting a potential guest from Japan or Korea.

Wandering the halls enjoying the peoplewatching, peering at the panel rooms and wandering off when something else catches my eyes, Daku Con really strikes me as being in the Goldilocks zone: despite having a lot of Big Con energy, it also evokes this very neighbourly, small-town-but-in-a-good-way vibe. You get the feeling of being one of the Big People On Campus pretty soon, in part because the stars of this thing are lingering and mingling instead of being whisked back up to the Green Room.

There are several genres represented at the con, with anime roughly being in first place. You could argue that it is a full-blown multi-genre con with its attention to video, tabletop, and gambler-style gaming and special focus on adult entertainment. There’s a lot of comics and some wordy books being slung on the sidelines, but far less of that Marvel Movie Mook energy, and I’m 100% okay with that. The odds that the panel topics will be Hentai or Victorian Erotica are through the roof. And the primetime event is not one, but two nights of burlesque! I mean, it’s one thing to see your favourite cosplays, but seeing these wonderful folks creatively un-cosplay is a remarkable twist on a con favourite.

There’s more of course: The dealer’s room and artist alley are phenomenal and need not hide their most bountiful wares behind painter’s tape or dark curtains. As for how my con was personally spent, well “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” – but suffice it to say, by the end of each day there will be plenty of meaningful events to discuss with the entourage, whether over pink frosted Little Debbies in the manga library, or over a beer at the indoor waterfall lounge.

Thanks, Daku Con: being a nerd is cool and underground again. Hope to see everyone again next November!

Fuck Yeah, Check it out:
Daku Con 2023 anime and multi-genre convention
Returns November 1 – 3, 2024 in Denver, CO
https://dakucon.org/

Yearning for a More Complex Story

Reminiscing About a First Love
by Bolt Vanderhuge

You only get to experience having a first love once, and for me, the first anime I loved was Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I had seen other anime first, but I still consider this series to be my gateway anime, because it is the one that really made me take anime seriously as a storytelling medium. The first time I saw it was in the last part of its second season airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, way back in the spring of 2006, and even though I had no idea of what was going on, I was instantly drawn in by the drama and intrigue I saw and hooked. Thankfully, the series was re-run a short time later, and I was finally able to watch the entire series, and I soon found myself enthralled with it. Not long afterwards, I was invited to join my local university’s anime club by some friends, and I had begun my journey to become a Maximum Weeaboo. But while I have watched many animes since then, including some very good ones, this series still remains my favorite.

Based on a manga by Masamune Shirow and produced by Production I.G, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex follows the secretive and elite Section 9 of Japan’s Public Security, made up entirely of former members of the military and police and tasked with solving and preventing cybercrime. All of its members are cyborgs, running the spectrum of Togisa, the rookie of the group who only has an implant which allows him to interface electronically as well as to communicate using a kind of cybernetic telepathy with his teammates, to the mysterious and aloof leader of the group, known mainly as “The Major,” whose entire body is prosthetic.

Like Voltaire, I cannot help but wonder if it’s fully functional and anatomically correct.

While they run into a number of interesting cases that make the series semi-episodic in nature, they soon stumble upon a conspiracy that involves a major corporation and the government which begins to move into the forefront. One of the things I liked about this was that the main story arc started out as just another investigation into something kind of weird that was going on, in this case involving a super-hacker known as “The Laughing Man,” and slowly evolved into the main plot of the show.

While hackers can already be a headache thanks to utilities and infrastructure being connected to the internet, this series expands on that through the premise that advancing technology has allowed people to become cyborgs, and even become commonplace, such that most people can connect their brains to the internet, which in turn allows them to be “ghost-hacked.” This allows a hacker to do everything from altering a person’s perceptions, to remotely controlling their body. This is just one of the themes explored by this show which asks exactly what makes a human, since literally every part of a person can be replaced but their brain, and leaves them vulnerable to having their memories altered or erased, the way they sense the world around them being corrupted, or even having their minds and bodies taken over completely, and used like a puppet. There’s also a question of trans-humanism hanging there, with the possibility that humans might be able to live as a consciousness on “the net,” entirely free of a body. At the same time, AI has advanced to the point that it might be argued they actually do represent a form of life themselves.

As a sci-fi fan, this kind of stuff really appealed to me, and I can’t help but feel completely in love with this show in spite of its flaws, like how it takes a bit of time to randomly bash the United States because someone at Production I.G apparently has an axe to grind. But this aside, the series has an interesting premise and plot, with characters I can care about and root for, as well as a beautiful semi-realistic visual design. While I know some people might complain about fan service (check out the original manga sometime), it’s clear that the story is first and foremost, unlike so many shows that have come out since this one.

Fuck Yeah! Check It Out:
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (52 episode anime)
Based on the manga by Masamune Shirow
Produced by Production I.G, Licenced by Funimation

Streaming (press time): Adult Swim, Funimation

Gods, Gold, and Revenge

Golden Kamuy‘s Hokkaido Treasure Hunt

by Punch Rockgroin

Great Hunter Asirpa

A young hunter, with the greatest facial expressions known to man.

On rare occasion, I will buy a manga based on its cover. Golden Kamuy ended up being an exception simply based on the fact said cover had what I assumed (correctly) was the main character wielding some type of well-detailed bolt action rifle. Reading the description on the back cover stated the story follows a veteran of the Russo-Japanese war. Being this is a time period rarely covered in fiction, historical or otherwise, I picked it up without much hesitation. Best of all, I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent story with great art and GTO-worthy facial reactions.

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A Man and his Sword

My Love For You is Like a Truck
by Bolt Vanderhuge

If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the manga!

If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the manga!

Berserk is yet another one of those series that I’ve come to appreciate more upon later viewings.  Just as with Dirty Pair and Deep Space Nine, the first time I watched it, I just couldn’t really get into it all that much.  I suppose I could blame the obsessive yaoi fans ruining it for me, but really I’d say it had more to do with me not enjoying hack-n-slash all that much.  On repeat viewing, though, I’ve come to appreciate this show for the over-the-top action, and its story about love, loyalty, betrayal, and rape.  Also there’s plenty of joke fodder if you’re into giving anime the MST3K treatment like my friends and I are.

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Lost in Scanlation

Who will bring America’s awesomeness back into English?
by Bob Johnson

9/11 never looked so kawaii

9/11 never looked so kawaii

Dedicated manga readers seem to both love and hate scanlations. The love comes from having good new manga ready faster than official releases. The hate comes from the inconsistent or kludgy quality. Then depending on the commenter’s sense of self-righteousness, there is the inevitable white knight lecture on copyrights.

Well, I’m sure that the creators of anime and manga never, ever wanted to inspire others to be creative. That’s why there’s no word for doujin in Japanese.

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