NDK 2023: Day 1

Friday of the con started off like most con Fridays. The con didn't really get kicked off till later in the day, but I got there early to get parking and to get set up for the con. There was a little bit of issues with our press access since there was another similar named group that our stuff got mixed with, but after that got cleared up I had a nice slow start to the con.

Some things were already set up like most of the cars from the Itasha Alliance were already out for people to look at.

Many of the vehicles I had seen before at other shows, but I do like seeing what they can do on other vehicles like the above motorcycles. Many of the cars also had filled the insides with items like anime statues and plushies.

Before the first panel of the day we grabbed some food at the hotel from the Mountain Pass Sports Bar. I will say it was some of the best food that I have had at the Gaylord, but it still wasn't that good when compared to even fast food places. I will say if you do go here, the best thing on the menu is the buffalo chicken dip. At least our server was nice.

The dealer's room/artist alley was once again large and nicely spaced. Near the adult only section they had a table set up where you could show your ID and get the special adult badge instead of having to always break out your ID for both the adult shopping area and the adult only panels. I really liked that they were doing this, but I understand that some people my not like wearing the plastic medical like bracelet all weekend.

I was only able to make it to one panel on Friday, but I made sure that it was Dr. Freeman's panel. If you like learning I really do recommend that you make it to one of her panels. 

Powerful Women in Japanese Popular Culture

Notes: 

-Same sex marriage is still not legal in Japan.

-Okuyama Reiko worked in the early animation industry.

-Kadono Eiko wrote more than 2000 books.

-Hibari Misora was a famous jazz and enka singer.

-Yoko Ono (when she was talking about her she did point out that Yoko is one of those people that you either love or hate). She was the first woman accepted to study philosophy at a Japanese university.

-For the song "Don't make me take off my sailor uniform" she said that it was interesting to look up the lyrics because they show some of the complexity around feminism in Japanese culture.

-She talked a lot about AKB48 and the standards that its members had to uphold in relation to males in the music industry. It was a girl band that was most popular before covid.

-Little Miss Sumo, this was interesting to see how even now a days males in Japan still see the female body as polluting. Like if a female steps into a sumo ring it has to be purified. 

-Takarazuka Revue is a female play group where female actors also play the male parts.

-Anime actually white washes or removes race from the characters. This is one of the reasons why it is weird when people have issues with white actors playing anime characters. Unless the character is supposed to be from a specific country it could be played by anyone with no limitations. Anime characters do not need to be played by only Asian actors.

-Even today there is still a lot of discrimination against people that are half-Japanese. There is still the push to keep the Japanese race pure even though their they are having issues maintaining their population numbers. (This has been going on for awhile. I actually did a capstone project on Japan's negative growth rate back in 2009).

Overall:

This was another great panel by Dr. Freeman. Even though I have done extensive studies on Japan, many of the women she talked about I was not familiar with. This is why I love attending educational panels at cons.

After this we decided to call it an early night since we had to get back to the hotel super early the next morning to make sure we could get parking. When we left they had staff out in the parking lot to collect $12 for parking instead of the higher rate that had first been advertised. Still waiting for the hotel to get a real parking structure to help with the volume of visitors they get for major events like this. I did hear from a staff member that there is a plan in the works for a parking garage, but it could be 5 years before it is in use. I'm hoping the con doesn't stay here that long. Waiting on something that should have been built when the hotel first opened is kind of crazy. Whoever runs the Gaylord really doesn't know what they are doing.

Top Picture From: https://ndkdenver.org/