I hosted an anime festival!

Dennis Kininger · Post by **Dennis Kininger** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:29 pm

I don't know how many fellow anime geeks are on this board but I thought I'd share my interesting afternoon here.

I work as a Reference Librarian and the Children's Librarian recently approached me for some advice about an anime event for teens.

I've been butting heads with this woman about having comics in the library pretty much from the day I was hired here (12 years ago). She's been grudgingly buying manga and graphic novels for her department for the past 5-6 years (because the kids ask her for it), so times seem to be changing for the better...though she still has little interest in this material.

Anyway, she's well aware of my interest in comics, so I'm the one always hit up for information when she has a question.

I suggested an anime festival.

This was how I became addicted to this material back when I first met Fred and her friends, the Coe Twins, at the ORCA comic book club meetings once held at my library.

At the time (1998-99), I knew this material existed but I knew very little about it.

The club held two anime festivals and I got to see a batch of anime, I'd never seen before.

I doubt the girls made any other converts, but I succeeded in getting hooked on this stuff and enjoy it today.

Anyway, my festival seems to have been popular. The Children's Librarian did all the publicity, all I had to do was pick out some anime.

I had two hours and there were a few technical glitches here and there, so I selected three half hour episodes from my collection:

Episode one of RUROUNI KENSHIN
Episode one of COWBOY BEBOP
Episode one of the READ OR DIE OVA

Yeah, I was a little nervous at first but the kids were into this stuff and it's always easy to talk about stuff when the interest is there.

12 kids came to the festival and they were pleased to see the library finally offering them programming to enjoy...most of the programming is for small kids.

Yes, I got paid to watch anime with teenagers today!

I had fun and the kids liked it so we're going to hold another festival in the near future.

My job is cool sometimes!

Dennis

Redtail · Post by **Redtail** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:21 pm

i kinda wish i still lived in the area, i would have come too! sounds cool. none of my friends around here really like the kind of anime i do. my friend josh likes the horror stuff, but i like stuff like kenshin & inuyasha.

Dennis Kininger · Post by **Dennis Kininger** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:11 am

Well, this was intended as a "teen" program for my library but I'd certainly make an exception for you if you were able to attend. I'd be like, "Yay, Redtail's here!"

And the kids would be like, "Who the hell is Redtail?" (LOL!)

As you can see, I even showed an episode of KENSHIN to the kids, who were mostly familiar with it anyway.

I also like Kenshin and Inuyasha and lots of other stuff. We're planning a second festival and I'll probably show some Inuyasha, Hellsing and I'm not sure of the third one yet.

The kids were pretty cool though. One girl said that she liked anime and nothing else...liking anime is all well and good but I enjoy being well rounded too. Many other things interest me. This one kid was into anime and that was it.

Dennis