Forum - View topic

Answerman - Nature Always Wears the Colors of the Spirit

I was one of the last few people who got in the line but I have to say how they handled Yoko Kanno was way more organized than Otakon's usual autograph policy. They left the line open outside and the first 100 people to get in got their tickets. As long as you lined up early you were good, there was no the usual shoving and stampede to get in the autograph line (although that one I've kind of mastered after doing it for so many years, it's never pleasant).

Oh my goodness, were you at that 4:00 screening on 23rd Street? I got the 6:30 one. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes. Watching Wolf Children for the first time with him there was an absolutely amazing experience. Not bad for my first festival...hope there will be more good times this year with Patema Inverted.

I haven't noticed any yellowing in my manga. But then, I sort of seal it up in containers, so maybe that helps.

I always thought that the point of getting an autograph, especially for such a niche thing as Japanese animation, was it was a reminder of being in the presence of the people you admired. It showed that you indeed met them. This is why I can't just have somebody get an autograph for me or buy something autographed unless it was something I got autographed myself. I mean, I would probably accept something like that as a gift, but the ones that mean the most are the ones you stood in line for.

In 2002, I had a Cowboy Bebop movie poster signed by Shinichiro Watanabe, Toshihiro Kawamoto, and Yoko Kanno, at the BAAF, where they premiered the English dub for the Cowboy Bebop movie. If I hadn't been there, at the premiere, sharing that moment with the people who made my favorite anime, an autograph wouldn't mean as much. I wasn't getting it to be certified or make a profit off it at some far flung time. I had it framed because it's just this really cool memento of that time.

I largely agree, although I do have two autographs that I bought. The first one was I bought a banner autographed by all the guests at Anime Boston 2010 at their charity auction. I bid on it because Nobuo Uematsu was a guest there, and due to BS shenanigans I was unable to get his autograph through conventional means.

The second, coincidentally was also in 2010 except this time at Anime Expo when at their charity auction I bought a CD signed by Yui Horie and Eri Kitamura whom NISA had brought to promote their first ever release, Toradora. Again, this was because despite standing in line at two different autograph sessions, and getting pretty close at the second, I wasn't able to get an autograph through traditional measures. But, in both cases, I was there, I attended the guests panels and got to see them in person, so the autographs, while technically paid for (the money did go to good causes at least) were also mementos for me of the experience of meeting them even if it wasn't quite as personal as standing in front of them stammering out something awkward that they probably couldn't understand very well while they signed something for me.

As for binding, the worst example is again from Viz - the first edition of the first volume of Battle Angel Alita fell apart the first time I read it. ... More recently the binding on the Infinity Studios releases of Blood Alone simply disintegrated when I re-read them a couple of years ago. The paper and ink used for them was as good as I've seen in a manga, so it's a bit odd that they stinted on the glue.

Maybe the Urusei Yatsura one was a bad example, as it's printed on pretty nice quality paper stock (the original English edition, not the omnibus reprint, which I also have).

Here's maybe a more "typical" example of an older manga volume in my collection, the first volume of the French edition of Kimagure Orange Road, published in 1998 (and I got it pretty much as soon as it first arrived on manga racks in Montreal), printed on cheap newsprint.



Even taking into account the cheaper paper, it's really only a touch more yellow than the Urusei Yatsura volume I posted earlier, mostly around the edges of the pages.