Sunday, April 15, 2012

Reporting Back: Lesbian Anime and Pizza Night


In my yuri panels at cons, I show clips of different shows. To show full episodes at this event, I needed to get screening rights. Surprisingly, the guy in charge of obtaining screening rights for events at my school didn't have much luck getting responses, while I was able to without too much trouble. (I guess you're more likely to have luck if you contact the distributors as the individual holding the event instead of the institution hosting it.) I felt a little bad about usurping his job. lol But I needed those rights, damn it.

Media Blasters responded to my Facebook message by saying that it's fine as long as I don't charge admission. A representative from Nozomi kindly responded to my Facebook request with this handy link, and shortly after I emailed Nozomi and Section 23 permission requests as outlined in the link, I got screening rights from them. My school would normally have to pay an exorbitant fee to screen, say, a live movie, but thankfully, anime distributors are sane.

To promote at my school, I put up some fliers in the Campus Center, emailed faculty in the Study of Women and Gender and East Asian Language and Lit departments, asking if they could forward info on the event to students and faculty in their department, as they have done before, and announced the event in two classes where I thought it would be relevant.

Before the event started, I made paper signs saying, "LESBIAN ANIME AND PIZZA NIGHT IS TAKING PLACE HERE." My friend, classmate, and fellow yuri fan Sara helped me tape them up. The Resource Center's DVD player wouldn't finish loading the Kannazuki no Miko DVD 1, so Sara went to her dorm to get her Playstation 2. (Yay, Sara!)

While Sara was gone, my second and third guests, Erica from Okazu and her wife Pattie, arrived. I didn't tell Sara, who's familiar with Okazu, that they were coming, so she was really surprised when she came back. lol

At the point in the KnM episode when the Orochi followers attacked and Chikane rode to the rescue on her horse (something that made more sense to me than anyone else there- the horse part, that is), another friend, Andi, stopped by and I flailed to explain what was happening.

After KnM ended, I put on Marimite and ordered pizza from Pizza Amore. Then I played Revolutionary Girl Utena, then Simoun, then Strawberry Panic!

At the beginning of Simoun, a friend of Sara's stopped by, along with two students who hadn't seen any yuri at all before. I was delighted to introduce them to the genre. Then we played the second episode of Marimite, talked about nerdy things without anything playing, and capped the night off with a couple of pretty clips from the Utena movie. (Many thanks to Sara for getting it from your dorm! I'm sorry you had to run there twice. ^_^;) My favorite clip- also my favorite part of the movie- is the dance scene.

By the time we played the Utena movie clips, Sara, Erica, and Pattie were the last attendees left. Erica had also brought some manga and neat goodies from Japan to give to the different people who came to the event. After Erica and Pattie left, Sara and I did the clean-up...which was just throwing the pizza box away, unplugging the Playstation, and taking down the paper signs outside.

And, that was it! There was much fangirling (it is not possible to have a gathering of Marimite fans without at least three of them gushing about how awesome Sei is), humorous commentary and relishing of pizza. ^_^

For anyone interesting in holding a similar event, I would think that you could do it at a local library, or an lgbt community center, or a non-lgbt community center. Once I figured out how to get the screening rights, it was pretty easy to set up.

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