Convention season is fast approaching, and that means it’s time for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Genericon, an annual student-run anime, sci-fi, and gaming con in Troy, NY that is, by some counts, the oldest college anime convention in the United States! Plus, considerably less importantly, it’s my old convention; as a student at RPI, I served as PR Coordinator and later Convention Chair (in 2013).
This year I’ll be back in Upstate New York for Genericon for the third time since graduating RPI, and for the second time as a featured panelist. That means the convention is reimbursing me for my flight, thus enabling me to inflict the following four panels on the attendees of Genericon XXIX (that’s 29, since the con historically uses roman numerals):
- A Video History of Anime (Saturday, 4–6pm, Panel 3): Scheduled for two hours this time (phew!), this is the history of anime told through a commentated clip show. The clips will probably take up roughly an hour and a half, so the remaining half hour is left over for buffer time and questions, since I’ve run over in the past. Mostly unchanged since AnimeNEXT 2015.
- Intro to Studio Trigger (Saturday, 7–8:30pm, Panel 2): A returning classic, now extended to an hour and a half to cover all the new stuff Trigger has created in the past year, including three Animator Expo shorts and two TV series!
- Beyond Miyazaki: The Directors of Studio Ghibli (Sunday, 11am–12pm, Panel 3): An overview of the works of Studio Ghibli NOT credited to Hayao Miyazaki. Mostly unchanged since Otakon 2015.
- Anime Burger Time (Sunday, 1–2pm, Panel 3): The premiere of my hour-long anime hamburger clip show. BYOB (Bring Your Own Burger).
David will be there too, so we’ll hopefully have a podcast and a few panel writeups for you guys next week. If you live in Upstate NY and want to come by for a low-key con with a surprising number of great panels, stop by and say hi!