I attended Bakuretsucon two weekends ago. It's a small anime convention in Vermont. Although they are a smaller convention (attendance this year was 529) when compared with conventions like Anime Boston (17,236) or Anime Expo (44,000+), Bakuretsucon is the convention I look forward to every year. They always have amazing industry guests, and the attendees are very respectful and nice, which sadly isn't always the case at many conventions. However, other than this, one of the things which Bakuretsucon prides itself on is that it's dealers room is free of any anime bootleg DVDs or merchandise.
Remember the interviews for KeepAnimeAlive.com that I hinted at in a previous post? When I went to Bakuretsucon, I was expecting to maybe get an interview with Greg Ayres, if I was lucky. However, once the other guests and the convention chair heard about what I was doing, suddenly there was no shortage of people to interview. In the end, I was able to interview Greg Ayres, Chris Ayres, Chris Cason, Scott Melzer and Jon Miller of NoNDE Fanfilms, and the Convention Chair Valerie Tatro. All of these interviews, and video of Greg Ayres' Bootlegging and The State of the Industry and You panels, will be available at KeepAnimeAlive.com when it launches next month.
Greg Ayres is, of course, the big name in the industry for speaking out about anime piracy, and I'd like to talk a little bit about him for the rest of the post. It was only after hearing him speak at Anime Boston in 2008 that I started my work against piracy. Immediately after hearing him speak out against piracy, I stopped watching fansubs and became more conscious about buying legal anime DVDs and merchandise. As is probably obvious at this point, Greg is someone I respect and admire very much.
One of the things he says when you hear him speak at his anti-piracy panels that really spoke to me, was that he runs these panels as a fan, and not as a voice-actor. Greg Ayres loves the anime industry. He left a very high-paying job in order to become a full time voice actor for anime, and not because the pay was better. As a voice actor, he makes "less than the lady that greets you at Walmart."
He was also the first person to really speak out against piracy in anime industry. He first started after seeing many of his friends who work in the industry, both in Japan and the US, have trouble finding work. When he started speaking out against piracy, everyone else in the industry tried to ignore the issue, afraid that if they spoke out, there would be a negative backlash from the fans. Indeed, when Yana Toboso recently voiced how upset she was with "fans" downloading her work illegally, she was essentially crucified and flamed by the so-called "fans" reading he work. Greg Ayres himself comes under fire a lot on online communities, but he choses not to care and pushes forward in his struggle against piracy.
Greg was once described by someone as the perfect person to speak out against anime piracy, because he was "the only person I know who could walk into a roomful of people and give them the finger." Now, while quite unprofessional, it does show the strength of his convictions. This is something that people higher up in the industry, like the executives of Viz or Funimation can't do because they have to maintain that professional attitude. Greg wants to see the anime industry survive, even if he has to estrange himself from the rest of the industry in order to do so.
Please look forward to the video of his panels at Bakuretsucon and his interview once KeepAnimeAlive launches. I'm not able to post them until I get confirmation from Greg that everything is in order with them. In lieu of them, here is a video showing one of his Fansub panels at Sogen Con 2007.
Remember, don't be a parasite.
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