It was just a few months ago that, while poking around AnimeCons.com, I discovered the existence of a small convention in my own backyard: ConBust, a sci-fi/fantasy/anime/gaming convention held annually by students at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Immediately intrigued by its particular focus on female fans and creators (and undaunted by a conspicuous shortage of anime-related panels and events on the con’s published schedule), I contacted the ConBust organizers to inquire about attendance at this year’s con, held from March 27th through March 29th at Smith College’s Seelye Hall. I can happily say it was a weekend well-spent.

Friday evening got off to a bit of a slow start. Coming from work, I didn’t attempt to make it to the first panel at 5:00 pm, and though registration was well underway when I arrived just after 5:30, the con’s artist and vendor rooms were practically empty with just a few tables even beginning to be set up. Nearly the only table ready for business at that point was one belonging to Broad Universe, a fantastic organization promoting the work of female writers who I, in my sad ignorance, had never heard of before that point. Fortunately for me, the members of Broad Universe were a powerful presence at the con, particularly the organization’s current president and chair of their “motherboard,” Phoebe Wray, as well as fantasy writer Lynn Flewelling, both of whom sat on numerous panels over the course of the convention.

With no J-culture whatsoever on the docket for Friday, I spent the evening in sci-fi and fantasy panels, listening to the con’s busiest special guests–five notable female sci-fi and fantasy writers who headed the majority of ConBust’s panels over the weekend. Highlights of the evening were the “YA Fiction” panel with the delightful Annette Curtis Klause and Holly Black (whose insight and effectiveness as a panelist impressed me so much, I immediately rearranged my schedule over the next two days in order to attend more of her panels), and a panel called “Hero, Protagonist” with Patricia Briggs and Phoebe Wray, where we discussed what makes a hero. Something to note about the panels in general is that none of them had moderators, which allowed discussion (especially from the audience) to occasionally lose focus. If I had any practical suggestion to make to the ConBust organizers it would be that they consider trying to enlist moderators, at least for the most heavily attended panels, to avoid putting the guest panelists in the position of having to take that task on themselves.

Though Friday was sparsely-attended for the first few hours, by 8:00 pm the panel I was in (Annette Curtis Klause and Lynn Flewelling’s “Making Believable Villains”) was standing-room only, and included quite a few cosplayers–several even in anime-related garb. By Saturday, the cosplay was in full swing, dominated by fantasy characters with a small anime presence (Fullmetal Alchemist and Bleach being the most represented).

Saturday for me began with one of my favorite panels of the convention, “Gender Bending,” with Patricia Briggs and Lynn Flewelling. Of course part of why this panel held such great interest for me was the anticipation of being able to discuss, at least to some extent, gender roles in manga and anime which I thought was certain to come up at a con like this. Unfortunately, this is also the panel where I most keenly felt the absence of a strong animanga presence at the con, especially amongst its panelists. I don’t mean to dismiss either of these writers in the slightest. They are brilliant, fascinating women and they ran a truly engaging panel. But as the discussion moved along through topics like magical gender changes, role-reversal, androgyny, and gender identification, I have to admit I longed for just a glimpse of manga or anime in the discussion–Kino’s Journey, Basara, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Fruits Basket, Your and My Secret–all these examples piled up in my head with no hope of seeing the light of day (aside from the maybe 30 seconds in which an audience member brought up Ranma 1/2). It’s not so much that the discussion suffered without these things, it’s the prospect of how much more discussion might have been born from them, and where that discussion might have gone. Regardless, this panel really was one of my favorites of the con, thanks to the insights of Ms. Briggs and Ms. Flewelling, whose collaboration on panels was especially fun all weekend as it’s obvious they are good friends.

The other big highlight of Saturday afternoon was two back-to-back panels focusing on women in fiction and women in the sci-fi/fantasy industry, which was fascinating stuff no matter the medium. Most of the weekend’s female guests were involved in one or the other of these panels (including webcomic creator Jennie Breeden–the only sequential artist of the bunch), and the discussion was honestly riveting. One of the concepts that struck me especially was the perception that if a woman writes sci-fi, it is “soft” sci-fi, and I think the reason it particularly resonated with me was that it is a perception that tends to be applied to female fans as well. There was a lot of discussion about the difficulties facing female writers in a male-dominated genre (including some disheartening statistics brought along by Phoebe Wray), which led very naturally into discussion later on about weak female characters in fiction, particularly those written by women (Bella Swan, I’m looking at you), which brought to mind for me some of my least favorite kinds of shojo heroines.

Saturday evening brought the greatest concentration of J-culture panels, beginning with Amy Gray’s “J-rock and J-pop” panel which was unfortunately under-attended (I counted two real attendees, one best friend of the panelist, and one woman who just happened to be taking a break in the room). The small audience kept the panel nicely informal, however, and left lots of room for questions and discussion. The panel focused mainly on the evolution of the Visual Kei movement in Japan, which was enjoyable for me particularly as I discovered the panelist and I have the same favorite band (Plastic Tree!), which made it easy for her to recommend new music for me to check out.

The animanga high point of the entire weekend, however, was Katherine Hanson’s Yuri panel, which was honestly the most thoroughly prepared event I attended at the con. With her nicely crafted powerpoint presentation, Ms. Hanson took us through the history of Yuri manga and anime (including common conventions and themes) from its influential early works (Shiroi Heya no Futari, Rose of Versailles) to recent popular series (Strawberry Panic, My Hime), using numerous scans and video clips to highlight her points. She even addressed manga specifically, with a “Yuri must-reads” section, including series like Strawberry Shake Sweet, Girl Friends, Aoi Hana, and Free Soul, though it is depressing to note that out of all her “must-read” selections, only one (Hayate X Blade) is currently available to purchase in English. Though the panel ran almost a half-hour over its allotted time, it was so well-done I couldn’t have imagined leaving before its end, despite the fact that this eliminated my opportunity to learn how to put on a kimono in the room across the hall. Of course, the fact that this panel was so well-done is less significant overall than the fact that the Yuri panel essentially was the “anime” in this sci-fi/fantasy/anime/gaming con, which says a lot about Smith College and the uniqueness of this convention.

On Sunday I found time to check out the artists and vendors at the con, and though there weren’t many, those that were there offered a nice variety of wares representing all the genres and media represented at the con. For manga, I turned to the booth run by local comic shop Modern Myths, which really pulled out the stops with its audience-specific manga, selling crates full of shojo and josei manga, and more yaoi than I have ever seen displayed at once in their store. I picked up the first volume of Deux Press’ Future Lovers, which was a great find for me. My Sunday wound down, ironically, with another of my favorite panels of the weekend, “Well, That Was Anticlimactic,” a discussion of “bad endings to good books” with panelists Holly Black, Patricia Briggs, and Lynn Flewelling. I’m happy to say that it was a great ending to a great con which I hope to attend in future years as well.

It would be impossible to express just how incredible it was to be at a convention of this kind, so much dominated by women, and particularly students. Working every day as I do in an entirely female-run office, being surrounded by smart women is something I’m very much accustomed to and it wouldn’t have occurred to me that this would feel any different. But there was something about being in a con setting with women so clearly at the helm that felt incredibly gratifying and empowering, made more so by the realization that these young women will eventually leave their college setting with this having been a significant part of their genre convention experience. For them, this might just feel normal. That’s an extremely heartwarming thought.

Before I wrap up, I’d like to bring up just one thing that dampened my experience somewhat and why I think it is worth mentioning here.

At a few different points during the panels I attended, I heard people bring up manga and anime in a negative light. While this is something I didn’t find particularly shocking from student attendees, I was actually quite surprised to hear similar comments made by a couple of the professional writers on the panels. In one case, a girl in the audience made a point about manga being “stupid” and its villains having no motivation (an observation she was apparently basing primarily on Sailor Moon), to which one of the panelists responded that she thought manga and anime were just really “not very deep.” Later, in another panel, a different panelist talked about working in a comic shop where girls would come in for manga (which she characterized as being entirely made up of colorless school romances where nothing more dramatic happened than two girls being interested in the same boy), at which point she would try to steer them to more interesting things, “like Bone.”

Though both of these comments are certainly insulting to manga, the first could be considered a matter of opinion (though I’d honestly like to hear the argument for, say, Monster or Mushishi or even the collected works of CLAMP as “not very deep”). The second, however, is blatantly false or at best misinformed. Not that I have anything against Bone, of course. It’s a wonderful comic, but hey, what about all that other manga, much of which is actually written by women (which Bone, incidentally, is not)?What about Mushishi and the collected works of CLAMP, or other current series like NANA, Fullmetal Alchemist, or Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden? What about classics, like Basara, Please Save My Earth or Banana Fish? All of these series are written by women, with exactly none featuring high school romance.

Obviously these are a just a couple of insignificant, offhand comments and nothing to get fired up about (which is not to say I didn’t), but hearing these things really brought home just how effective a panel or two about manga and anime written by and/or for women could be at a convention focused on female creators and fans. When I think of the fantastic volume of female-centric comics that these young women could be introduced to at an event like this, it truly fills me with glee. So instead of complaining about misconceptions about manga and anime being tossed around at ConBust, I’d really rather encourage next year’s organizers to think about including more content like Katherine Hanson’s Yuri presentation, and maybe even bringing in an outside expert or two to really build some excitement around it.

That small issue aside, I was incredibly pleased to be able to attend ConBust 2009. It’s a wonderful, unique event that I wish every young, female fan could have the chance to experience. Many thanks to ConBust’s organizers, panelists, and attendees for creating something special! I felt truly honored to be a part of it all, and I hope to do so again.