Since I’m both a fan and a fandom journalist, my biggest challenge is making sure that my passion for my topic is helping, not hurting my ability to report the truth.

At least, that’s the theory I discussed last fall in my Otaku Journalist Manifesto. Today, I tested that hypothesis when I profiled @Bronys4RonPaul.

Last night, I reached out to this Twitter user after one of my co-workers tipped me off. I sent him a tweet with my email (it’s a bad habit, but one I have to keep at until Twitter lets me DM strangers.) And then, I sent him a picture of my My Little Pony alter ego, illustrated by Kevin Bolk.

“Here’s a picture of my cutie mark just so you know I’m a real reporter!” I tweeted. It’s a joke only fans would get; in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a young pony acquires a design on her flank once she figures out what her true calling is.

I was only half joking when I commissioned this drawing. On the one hand, I’m a grown woman, and this is a kids’ show. On the other hand, I’d be hard pressed to say that I’m faking being this happy.

In the end, it paid off. Here’s what @Bronys4RonPaul, who asked me not to reveal his real name, wrote to me:

“I’m very surprised that someone would want to interview me and I normally would not grant one to anyone but you showed me your pic with a pony drawing and I figured no harm should come from this.”

He was right to be wary. As it turns out, he has his fair share of trolls. Plus, mainstream brony coverage can be pretty snarky.

For the record, I don’t think fandom reporting has to be snarky to get hits. Fandom is already so wacky that an objective take is more engaging than belittling ever would be. I don’t get, for example, why Gawker had to be so snarky here. A week later, they had some equally fascinating brony coverage just by letting the fandom speak for itself— and got quadruple the traffic.

That’s exactly how I wrote about @Bronys4RonPaul. I let him speak for himself. Was it successful? Hitwise, it didn’t crack our top ten stories for the day. But it did get a mention from Gawker reporter Adrian Chen.

I know I got this story because I’m not just a reporter, but a reporter AND a fan. At the same time, I don’t want to become known for writing fluff pieces that make fans look good no matter what. I’m happy with this story because I didn’t give myself a voice, snarky, apologetic or otherwise. I just let the subject speak.

Last week, Bandai Entertainment announced they would no longer be releasing new titles. This week, Media Blasters announced they are laying off 60 percent of their staff. It’s a sad time for the anime industry. And, as a person who just blogged about watching fansubs last week, I am feeling deservedly guilty.

I’ll give myself a little credit where it’s due. I’ve been dutifully paying my Crunchyroll subscription for over a year. I watch Toriko on my Hulu Plus account. I never watch fansubs for shows I can get on DVD or Blu-Ray. And let’s not forget all the money I spend on conventions, figures and Gundams.

However, many are arguing that it’s fans like me that are killing the industry. Just the fact that we watch— and therefore support— fansubs is enough. Voice actress Stephanie Sheh explained the problem on her Facebook page:

“To those #animefans who say #fansubs “create” demand for anime. Ask yourself something, if a fansub wasn’t available for a certain show, but you saw ads and commercials for the show, maybe you even saw untranslated clips of the show, are you seriously telling me you would have no interest in the anime? Come on people, be honest with yourself.”

Over at Kotaku, Charlie Maib argued against fansubs for a different reason:

What digital distribution did do was create a beast that demanded that content be available on demand, without cost. It created a situation where fans no longer supported the actual companies and the people who worked to secure rights, translate, redesign packaging, and get it to market. Why pay for something when you could get the same product with pristine quality for free on your computer?

In other words, the rise of high speed Internet and the instant-gratification availability of fansubs have changed our expectations about how we should receive anime. And to that I say, what’s wrong with that? 

As a journalist, I completely understand this. As somebody who works in an industry that is also often labeled dead or dying, I realize how changing consumer behavior can significantly alter the product. People believe information online should be free, so nobody pays for paywalls. In journalism, this means that we’re swapping newspapers for news sites.

In anime, it might mean more digital streaming— like Crunchyroll, Hulu and Nico Nico— and fewer DVD releases. It might mean fewer tangible products and fewer dubs. Maybe consumers will miss those things, and their dollars will bring them back. Or, more realistically, people will begin to see instant streaming as the norm. I think many already have.

Things aren’t perfect in journalism. It’s significantly less profitable than it used to be, and it’s a lot harder to get work as a reporter. And if they ever teach computers to write perfectly fact-checked, objective stories, surely I’ll be out of a job. Maybe this means I should be more sympathetic to the anime industry. But from my standpoint, I don’t see a dying industry; I see a changing one.

But despite my bravado, I’ve felt too guilty to watch any more Mawaru PenguinDrum since this all went down. I’m thinking I’ll just wait for the release, if there is one. If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

 

You know how you can tell that I’m not a good gamer? I name all my protagonists ‘Lauren.’ In Skyrim, my character even looks like me. (You know, if I were a wood elf with facial tattoos.) So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m not exactly in my element at Magfest. Music And Gaming? I’m more of a Gunpla And Anime (GAAfest?) kind of girl.

But the DC area already has plenty of conventions like that, and nothing like Magfest. Perhaps that’s why Magfest is one of the fastest growing events in the area. According to press liaison Nick Marinelli, more than 6,100 people registered by the end of the convention. That’s not an official count; that could mean anywhere between 5,500 and 6,500. But just compare that to last year’s (capped) turnout of 3,000. Since Magfest moved to the elaborate, expansive Gaylord National, they’ve got plenty of room to grow. I was there on the busiest day of the con, but I never would have known from those open hallways. At least they gave me room to take photos of the Gaylord’s still lit holiday decor.

And that’s why I went: to experience the fandom itself. You don’t need to be the world’s most hardcore gamer to appreciate a geek-out on that level.

The Earthbound Papas, Magfest’s headlining guest, certainly did. Nick, who served as their personal attendant, following them around and bringing them their new American favorite food—Five Guys— told me they loved the fans. Good thing, too: there were 2,400 of those fans at their Saturday night concert.

“They said it was the best sounding EBP concert to date, and loved the energy from the crowd, the enthusiasm of the fans,” Nick told me.

I attended Magfest for most of Saturday, so I missed this convention highlight. For me, the highlight was finally meeting Colette Bennett, the most talented anime and games writer I know, in person. We met at the panel for Destructoid, a games journalism site where she used to work.

Patrick, Colette’s close friend (and a previous Otaku Journalist giveaway winner,) was there too.

Shortly after we took these photos, I won two games for correctly guessing the video game soundtrack a poll of Destructoid readers voted as their favorite to have sex to. It was a lucky guess; since I’m playing through Skyrim right now, it was the first game on my mind.

It was the only panel I went to. I also spent time outdoors, where my fiance and I took turns taking photos of Rich in his Samurai Champloo cosplay. (There wasn’t a lot of cosplay at Magfest, and I didn’t see another anime character aside from Rich, but that worked out for him. You should have seen this little kid’s face when Rich offered to pose with  him for a photo.)

And then Rich took a photo of us. If you haven’t been to the Gaylord, you should check it out just for this massive atrium, which contains actual houses.

John also played in a Magic draft, which made sense because even before they saw him the organizers knew I was somebody’s girl. One guy even asked me if I was familiar with the five different colors of mana in the game. It’s stuff like that which keeps me from playing drafts with people other than my friends. (I did, however, end up buying those lavender card sleeves I’ve been wanting.)

This is a far different convention review than I had planned to write. I used to try to make every convention experience a journalistic project: documenting everything I did, conducting interviews along the way. But post Anime USA, I’m a little burnt out. Now, I’m trying to recapture why I began attending these things in the first place and trying to experience the convention for the convention’s sake. I spent time with several of the people I’ve befriended through covering conventions: Patches, Viga, Tyler and Kevin and Sarah.

And no, I didn’t buy the fleece Skyrim helmet in the first picture. But if you want to, it’s handmade by The Prancing Unicorn, a pair of the craftiest bronies I’ve ever met. Here’s Rainbow Dash putting on the finishing touches.