[Anime & Yaoi] : B.L.Y.G'11

[dancing_moon]

Finally! We've got the homepage up ^_^

B.L.Y.G
Boy's Love Yaoi Gakkai 2011 ~ 17-19 June, Skogås (Stockholm)

It's time again for Sweden's one and only yaoi/BL/slash convention and, since third time's the charm, we're going for the largest and bestest BLYG ever!

The homepage can be found at blyg.eu and is rather sparse at the moment. We have a bunch of stuff just waiting to be typed down, tho, and I really think this years BLYG has the potential to be amazing

If anyone is interested in holding a panel/round-table discussion/lecture on something yaoi, slash, yuri or otherwise fandom related, gimme a shout - I'm the one booking events =D

Arranging this year are by the by the non-profits Geikai (Anime/manga inspired crafts) and Raison d'être (Jrock/Jpop)

Comments

[dancing_moon]

Oh, but I think you could have plenty of really interesting things to say! It would be great if you wanted to come and do something ^_^

And It would actually be quite neat to have a presentation in English too - we've had interest from visitors abroad, see :) Mostly the other Nordic countries, but at least one person from Germany was considering visiting

So far, the areas we know we'll talk about are: The Takarazuka company, Shopping for BL/yaoi materials, at least two panels concerning J-rock, a fanfic panel (er... which I hope someone will volunteer to hold, otherwise I'll have to do it and I don't quite have the time) and something along the lines of "the history of yaoi". If I can find a speaker, I'd love "the history of slash" too, and we're talking about Harry Potter and Buffy-femslash with some really good (and busy, alas) speakers =) And I've got some loose sure-I'll-do-it promise from people regarding round-table discussions for particular creators and canons

We're also planning to have three sizes of presentations föreläsning/lecture, workshops/minor lectures and round-table/rundabordssamtal. If you are interested in something you think might be very narrow, we could send out some feelers through Facebook etc and then decide the size based on the amount of interest?

[marshtide]

Yeah. I mean the kind of stuff I might be interested in would be eg something around gender and manga that tackles gender issues in some way (Rose of Versailles and Utena are two of the most obvious, I guess, though I could come up with plenty more! Some of which I suddenly remember are ongoing and I should be watching/reading). And I could probably talk some about the roots of yaoi and yuri, since that's tied in with my nerdy interest in 70s shojo. But then I get kind of freaked out too because I'm really not any kind of an expert.

I have, basically, about a million half-formed ideas. ;; I'm kind of intrigued, though. We keep saying we should get out and meet people more and also that if we want discussions on the kind of things we're interested in we should probably do it ourselves.

[dancing_moon]

On the first con I ran (Zagi Gakkai, general anime themed) the most visited panels were actually the "How to arrange a con" and *tadam* "Gender, Queer and Manga - A discussion". The latter was a bit unstructered - I basically asked friends who knew a lot and had a great deal of interest to partake and discuss it, but it became a really nice discussion. And lots of Utena was mentioned :)

I think this is a topic many readers of manga, especially perhaps 'female' genres, are interested in. What not everyone wants to, or has the energy to do, is sit down and read the books, study theory etc. But listen to a panel or so? Absolutely.

I am absolutely sincerely hoping that I can convince you to have a talk - or try and grab some people and make a panel, perhaps? - on any of the topics you're interested in. You know a lot, you are widely read and I just think it would be something the BLYG visitors could enjoy and gain from

Besides, it'll get you a free ticket *bribe, bribe*

[marshtide]

Aha! Hmmm, then. I really don't know people over here, so I don't know if I'd be able to get a panel together (I mean, you and Val are the only other anime fans I know in Sweden, I think), but I'll have a think about whether I could feasibly do some kind of talk-and-discussion...

I blush! I feel pretty clueless, but then, that's how I feel about most things.

[marshtide]

OK, I have a proposal: a talk on gender and sexuality focused on 70s shojo, but with excursions into its forerunners and descendents. 70s shojo is a good period to focus on because a) I already know stuff about it and b) it has a pretty high concentration of Interesting Stuff.

This might be just me or it might be a joint presentation with Val; she's pretty stressed right now so she needs to decide if she can deal with it.

[dancing_moon]

That sounds great! Really nice - I wanted to have a talk on that topic, but worried that I'd have to hold it myself. Which I really, REALLY don't have time with ^^;

Could you mail me at dancing.moon(squiggle)gmail.com and we'll talk real names (for the guest list) and other details?

[marshtide]

Sure thing. :)