The Tanemaki Dojo Visits The A-Kon Anime Convention

My students are big fans of Japanese Anime. While I've seen a few Anime films that really impressed me, notably Akira, my knowledge was mostly limited to television shows such as Starblazers, Battle of the Planets, Voltron, Gundam, Speed Racer, Macross and Astro-Boy (the original). When we were invited to demonstrate Japanese Budo at this large convention, I was not nearly as excited as the group was. Kuro Taka san lent me his DVD collection of Samurai Champloo, and Jeff san lent me his DVD of Princess Mononoke. I was deeply impressed with these examples of Japanese Anime, and really got into the spirit by thinking of this convention as an opportunity to learn more about the art that goes into these films.

The first thing we had to do was get our bokken (wooden swords) approved by the security staff. Thanks to the professionalism of Josephine, Wolf (Walt) - shown left, Shadow Walker, and Curtis this was an easy and painless task. Here, Walt checks the Colonial Marines' smart gun and pulse rifle. I am a big fan of the Alien / Predator franchise.

One my students signed us up to perform a martial arts demonstration at the Akon Anime Festival. He did so without asking me or gaining my permission. I didn't even know what Anime meant at the time. Nonetheless, I decided to go. My Sempai student, Kuro Taka, was my driver and assistant. When we arrived, the student that signed us up left, and I found that no-one in charge knew anything about who we were. It only took an hour and a half speaking with the ones in charge (they were SUPER busy!) and we got our all access passes.