Forum - View topicNEWS: James Kaposztas, Veteran Otakon Staffer Who Made 1st Known Anime Music Video, Passes Away
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Gem-Bug
 Posts: 1334 |
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That's some pretty cool history!
Rest in Peace, dude |
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lucio542
 Posts: 295 Location: Brazil |
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1982??? thats when the first macross was still airing.
Rest in piece legend. |
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AJ (LordNikon)
 Posts: 518 Location: Kyoto |
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We met many times over the past forty years and news of his passing hits me hard. My friend will be missed.
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wilson_x1999
 Posts: 183 Location: Monterrey, Mexico |
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Godspeed good sir.
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KlarkKentThe3rd
Posts: 108 |
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Only last year I heard him as a guest on Anime World Order.
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3981 |
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It’s kind of surreal seeing an article about a person that I’ve been friends with for almost thirty years here on ANN. We were both members of the Philadelphia Animation Society, so I often got to hear about the various projects he was working on both as his hobby and his profession.
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Beltane70
Posts: 3981 |
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One of the first videos of Jim’s that I saw was a Macross parody where he made a Zentradi recruitment video for the “Zentradi Reserve Corps”. |
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Amy M.B.
Posts: 1 |
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For added context, the AMV DocuSeries is a mini-doc series that is meant to complement the first feature-length documentary about AMVs called “Synced Together: AMVs & Their Editors”. Last year, the AMV Filmmakers Association screened the feature at conventions across the U.S. This year, they are working on more screenings and working towards an at-home release. For more information, visit syncedtogether.com or follow the AMV Filmmakers Association on social. James was a part of the docuseries and the main film.
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MFrontier
Posts: 14258 |
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RIP James Kaposztas.
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Rheinhard
 Posts: 30 Location: Pennsylvania |
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I've been a friend of Jim's for over 30 years. He had always been one of those fairly unassuming individuals who are so necessary to fandom -- the ones who mostly work quietly in the background, keeping things running, and not trying to hog the spotlight and accrue fame (at least such fame as one can get in fandom) to themselves. Without people like that, the now giant conventions that many of the legions of young anime fans enjoy today could not and would not exist.
I've seen several articles that highlight his contribution to fandom in the form of the first known American Anime Music Videos (and deservedly so); I'm glad to know that his contributions in this area have been getting some attention over the last few years, what with interviews on the Anime World Order podcast from nearly one year ago, and other venues. It is also worth noting that in his "real" life outside fandom, he decades ago "turned his hobby into a job", and spent many years working professionally as a video editor and tape operator (but in this case we're talking professional TV U-Matic tape, not VHS) for a number of media companies in and around New York. He worked for many years for the A&E network, which also ran the Biography Channel, and he once told me about the times when he would be on "Reaper Beeper" duty -- when some noted celebrity was in hospital or at death's door, Jim and his co-workers would have to have the video footage edited for the ready-to-go posthumous biography special to be broadcast if worse came to worst. And in the days before cell phones, this meant somebody had to be "on call" with a pager device, which they sarcastically named the "Reaper Beeper"! As far as fandom, in addition to AMV, Jim also participated in early cosplay. He was cosplaying as "Captain Avatar" (Admiral Okita) from the show that got so many of us of that generation into anime back in the very early 1980s, "Star Blazers" (Space Battleship Yamato), at least as early as 1983, as the image in this tweet from Helen McCarthy, from the Worldcon in Baltimore that year, attests (as does the group photo seen at the top of the Anime World Order page linked above). Jim performed in this outfit in the masquerade show back at Anime Expo 1992 in San Jose (which I organized and emceed in my own cosplay as Lord Gargoyle of NeoAtlantis, from the then recent GAINAX anime, "Nadia of the Mysterious Sea"). Luckily I found recently that someone had uploaded the camcorder video of this masquerade to youtube, with Jim's parody skit, "I'm a Gamilon and I'm OK" starting at the 28 minute mark. At the end of the skit, he is shot by Gamilon Leader Desslok, as portrayed by Robert Fenelon (another stalwart of early East Coast anime fandom, and publisher of the first widely distributed American anime magazine, Anime-Zine). |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 800 |
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Thanks for your post, Rheinhard. I'm sorry to all of you who lost such a longtime friend.
I've been watching some of my favorite AMVs over the years tonight as a sort of tribute. Thanks for all the memories, sir. |
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ebronstein
Posts: 45 |
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Just found out about the man and his work. We're from the same state. I wish I could have met him. RIP.
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prime_pm
 Posts: 2375 Location: Your Mother's Bedroom |
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Truly a pioneer and an inspiration. Rest In Peace.
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Rob19ny
Posts: 1976 |
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Respect for being cultured ahead of time. RIP
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