Boston Anime - Part 3: Matthew meets Greg Ayers (Why your fan base stinks.)

So Sunday was my final day at Boston Anime. I was kaijued out and I found something that caught my eye, a lecture by anime voice-actor Greg Ayres. He has such a great voice so I attended the lecture called “Why your fan base stinks?” He talked about how people can horribly go to far with their fan-bases. For instance, during a lecture he talked about the Hetalia fan-base, where in the manga (comic-book), countries are personified. Germany is depicted as Nazis! Here comes the shocking part, those nutty Nazis paraded at Boston Anime and posed around for goofy photos at the Holocaust Memorial! This caused a horrible uproar and as a result, they got in trouble and the reprentatives of Anime Boston apologized.
http://hetalia.livejournal.com/6828345.html
This happened in 2010.

A few years ago, there was a problem with the Homestuck fan-base. There was this little girl who was dressed up as her favorite characters, got beaten up by other people who were fans of one character, but hated the other. As a result, the person who came up with this idea blogged about it (“real smart move” there), leading to get not only arrested by the police, but banned from Anime Boston! The little girl who got clobbered became guest of honor. Greg Ayres said, “It is like fighting over the Smurfs.” It is just art.

Then there was this brony related story. Now what is a brony? A brony is a man ages 18 to 30 (or older) who is a fan of the cartoon My Little Pony – Friendship is Magic (which is aimed at little girls). He is a fan because of the witty humor, clever writing, interesting characters and pop-culture references. To get a full understanding of it, let Doug “The Nostalgia Critic” Walker, explain.




So now you got an understanding through this video, back to the story. In the cult-cartoon (or colt cartoon), there is this character named Derpy Hooves. Think of this wonky-eyed (which was a mistake in the animation), grey Pegasus as the Clumsy Smurf of the cartoon. In her first appearance, she caused controversy for poking fun at the retarded people. The Brony Community struck back by saying that it is not making fun of retarded people, it is reaching out people with special conditions! If anyone who is reading this, I would like to say that I am not a brony.

After that, it was time to talk to Greg about anything in relationship to fan-bases that fouled up. Now is my chance to go and warn them about a new fan-base that happens to grate me. I told Greg that I was watched this series called Toons These Days. Hosted by Doggie D. Daschund (a retro 1920’s/30’s cartoon character) and Conroy Cat (a modern day cartoon character). In one episode, there was a review of the web-series Barbie-Life in the Dream House. Doggie bashed it as usual, but Conroy gave an honest review of it saying that he enjoyed it because it was inspired by Toy Story 3! He went on to say that it was the next brony fad! Behold, the rise of the Brobie! I told him told him all about it, saying it was like having a vampire convert to Christianity. Mr. Ayres joked that the communion would be weird. I told him this joke that went like this: “Did you hear about the vampire who converted to Christianity? He died.” With that bad joke aside, hearing and bringing out mad news like that is like the Destruction of the Gender Barrier. My gosh what has happened here?




Here is a link to Greg's site:
www.gregayres.com

So that is my whole Boston Anime story.  I hope you enjoy it, sorry that there was lack of updates because I was busy. Stay tuned to this site for more.