We interrupt this so-called Livestream with REALITY – I’m Femmebot 3.0, and we are NOT live, it’s already been a few weeks since the three-day AnimeNYC convention happened, sometimes news needs to simmer and bake in the operating system before an accurate analysis can be shared with an audience. How else can we answer the big, zoomed out questions like, “Why are there 30,000 people attending a single conference? And how is it possible that this conference is tiny in comparison to the larger annual Anime Expo in LA which draws 100,000
Yeah, that’s a lot of people, people. We don’t often frequent these monster conventions because it’s a lot of the same crap over and over again (how many plastic toys manufactured in China can one possibly own and still be concerned about climate change??), but how could we ignore this market, which is raking in billions of dollars from a fan base that is as fanatic as –
We interrupt Femmebot 3.0’s number orgy with a moment of silence to honor our dad, Stan Lee, who passed away only a few days before the AnimeNYC convention, may he RIP. I’m Femmebot 1.0 and –
We interrupt Femmebot 1.0’s Daddy Issues with a Flashback to 2008. I’m Femmebot 2.0 reporting from the Miami archives when our mom, Dr. Nutmeg, had her own 3-day anime convention by binge watching all 24 episodes of “The Witchblade,” (perhaps stoned out of her mind, the reports are unconfirmed, and may have been lost in Hurricane Irma). Shortly after Dr. Nutmeg’s little binge, she met Stan Lee and enlisted him as a guest teacher for her online comic book writing workshop. This marriage of Japanese animation storytelling with Stan Lee’s Marvel American superhero universe, is the reason we pink little Femmebots were conceived and exist today and now we got our own TV show launching early next year, after raising almost $10,000 on Kickstarter last year! ooooPA!
We interrupt Femmebot 2.0’s masterbatory self promoting Flashback with some actual content from AnimeNYC. I’m Femmebot 7.0, and our main source for context and analysis of the anime market is Angello Pizarro, a writer, actor and religiously faithful Japanese anime fan who is a regular attendee of AnimeNYC. He prepared us little Femmebots thenight before the conference with some short binges of “Devilman Crybaby” and “Fairy Tales,” so we could see the difference between the “cutsie” stories about overly emotional girls who become superheroes with the help of magical kitty cats, and overtly hypersexualized epic tales about all the shades of gray in the human psyche.
The next day, as we sat at an Aniplex “panel,” we were fascinated by the audience’s reactions of oohs and ahhs and excited familiarity at every trailer/sizzle for a new animated series being released on DVD or streaming sites like Crunchyroll or Hulu. It wasn’t a panel at all. A panel is usually a discussion. This was basically a captive audience, who all paid money, to watch trailers back to back (and walk around an exhibition hall to spend more money on the merchandise pushed by each of the series). It was as if everyone was among long lost family members, vibing on the stories that give context and meaning to their lives…IRL.
When we saw the trailer for “Cells at Work,” our entire universe shifted. The premise of this series is all the action takes place inside the human body – Red Blood Cells vs. White Blood Cells. Disease is personified by demons and monsters. The concept is similar to Pixar’s “Inside Out,” which shows our emotions as animated characters – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Envy, Fear), or “Big Mouth,” which personifies our sexuality with hilarious cartoon characters like the “Hormone Monster” and the “Shame Wizard.”
By the end of that “panel,” we started to feel like we were part of this family. The Japanese animation style of storytelling had influenced the story of The Femmebots more than Dr. Nutmeg understood! The fusion of tech and spirituality is almost exclusive to the genre of Japanese anime, that is, we rarely see these themes explored in Western animation for adults. Think about the favs that pop up in your own memory files and it’s all superheroes, screwball comedy and political commentary, ala “South Park,” “Bojack Horseman,” “Big Mouth,” “Simpsons,” “Beavis and Butthead,” “Daria,” although as we discussed in a recent Kwest On Podcast, Adult Swim’s “Rick & Morty” is one of the first popular Western animated comedies to explore existential themes of tech and spirituality.
Similarly, in our series, “Dr. Nutmeg’s Femmebots,” Dr. Nutmeg is a mad scientist who extracts her seven chakras, converts them into code and uploads them as personalities into seven robots (yep, that’s us!). Throughout the series, she begins to regard us as her seven daughters. The result is an animated comedy series about an alternative family created by the forces of post modern feminism and the rise of humanity’s increasing unconscious faith in “Dataism.” Yes, it sounds like what it is: a new religion, or rather cult, coined by Israeli philosopher and futurist Yuval Noah Harari. In each episode, Dr. Nutmeg and her Femmebots create useless apps to collect as much data as possible before humans abandon each app for the next great app. From GetKnockedUp to Diggler to the BoobTube, these apps provide no real meaning or convenience to humans, even though they are marketed this way.
