Kit Con, a conference organized by the University of Wyoming’s very own Anime Club celebrating manga, anime, games and Japanese culture, begins Friday morning with a manga legend and continues all day Saturday.
Students can attend a Q&A by manga translation legend Frederik Schodt on Friday at 11 a.m. in Business 111. Schodt is an award-winning writer, translator and conference interpreter based in San Francisco who writes extensively in the field of manga translation and wrote over a dozen books on the topics of Japanese popular culture, technology and history. His work in translation includes such legendary pieces as Astro Boy, Pluto, Phoenix and Ghost in the Shell. He can be pointed to as one of the forces responsible for the rampant popularity of Japanese comics in English-speaking countries.
Shodt plans to give a lecture at 4 p.m. in the Business auditorium about his recent translation work as well as the influence Japanese manga has had on popular culture. Noah Miles, the Japanese Program director and faculty sponsor for the Anime Club, has expressed how excited he is to have such an illustrious guest visit the campus.
“He is the most renowned authority on manga in America,” said Miles. “There are going to be people who are interested in manga that might want to come talk with him, because he’s involved in that industry and has received awards from the Japanese government.”
There will be a banquet hosted at 6:30 p.m. in the Union Family Room catered by Niko Sushi & Steak that will serve premiere Japanese cuisine to all who show up with a ticket that can be acquired for free at the main Union information desk. Miles said he is eager to share something like this with university students and have them partake in a rich, and delicious, section of authentic Japanese culture.
“I like feeding people, so I’m actually really happy to be able to feed all these people Japanese food,” Miles said. “Introducing people to Japanese culture is what I do for a living. People are excited, you know? It’s cool, it’s amazing.”
Those interested in tabletop gaming will be glad to know there will be a Magic: The Gathering tournament starting at noon and games of Dungeons & Dragons played at the same time. The Go Club will be teaching people how to play the ancient game of Go, a two-player strategy board game that originated in the Chinese Zhou Dynasty over 2,000 years ago and is played by more than 40 million people all across East Asia and the world. For those interested in modern games, a LAN party of PC gamers is also planned and will be at one of many different rooms across the Union that will be hosting all of these events.
A cosplay costume contest is starting at 3 p.m., showcasing some of the creative outfits students put together to show their love of the anime community. Winners will receive gift certificates for the bookstore. UW student Christopher Plasencio said he wants to see how skilled these cosplayers are and how they measure up to the professionals.
“I’m really excited to see what Wyoming students can do for cosplay because at Denver Comic-Con they do some pretty amazing costumes,” Plasencio said.
Following the catered dinner a cosplay dance is set for 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. UW student Samuel Brackett is excited to see people dance and socialize together to round out the night.
“I think it’s really cool that I know a bunch of people are going to show up in costumes and a bunch already have their’s made,” said Brackett. “I think that having a huge room full of people in costumes will be awesome.”
The generous people of the ASUW, the Honors Program, Humanities Institute and the university’s Department of Modern and Classical Languages funded Kit Con.
