This weekend, I went to Soonercon, my state’s oldest surviving convention, operating since 1986, meaning next year will be their 40th anniversary, albeit the 34th year for the event as it went on a hiatus for several years. The event has coverage of pretty much all the stereotypically “geek” hobbies, anime, sci-fi, fantasy, video games, and the like. Soonercon tends to be more of an educational convention, with the panels being mainly local hobbyists providing informational discussions about certain aspects of a certain fandom. Every year since 2023, I have been involved with these panels. This year’s theme was “Gateway to the Galaxy” with sci-fi being the main theme for the year. The guests this year were Ethan Phillips and Garret Wang from Star Trek Voyager in celebration of the show’s 30th anniversary. For anime/video game voice actors, Jad Saxton, Emi Lo, Allegra Clark, and Brian Mathis were special guests. Knightmage and Susie Creates were the cosplay guests.
It was a fun event as always and I got the opportunity to get Ethan Phillips’ autograph as I think Neelix is a fun character even if other people don’t “get” him. As I said, I spoke on three panels, anime and sci-fi opening themes, fanservice in anime, and the social themes of the Star Trek franchise. The first panel of which I got to speak alongside one of my idols, famed anime Youtuber Red Bard, a local to the area. I hope everyone enjoyed these panels. As for the other panels I went to, they were mainly the actor Q and As.
The actor Q and As revealed lots of interesting things about the anime and Voyager actors. Let’s start with the Voyager actors. Garret Wang was a huge fan of the original Star Trek, but missed out on The Next Generation because every time he attempted to try out the show, the episode airing always turned out to be infamous episode “Code of Honor.” Because he wasn’t super familiar with the then newer versions of the franchise, he believes it was divine intervention that allowed for him to not be overcome with nerves of living up the the Next Generation cast and being able to land the role of Harry Kim. Wang acknowledged that his character struggled with romance and promotions, and acknowledged that some Trek fans made a drinking game about Harry Kim failing at something. Ethan Phillips had a lot of previous experience as a theater actor and acting on the sitcom Benson. When he auditioned, he had no idea that he was going to be a hedgehog like alien. His makeup took three hours to put on and an hour and a half to take off. He hated watching himself in his film and television roles as he tends to nitpick his performance.
The anime voice actors also revealed interesting details about themselves. Allegra Clark and Emi Lo were already huge fans of anime before taking up their respective roles. Jad Saxton was originally a theater actor before doing anime, but immensely enjoys getting to do comedy roles such as Chika Fujiwara from Kaguya-Sama, Love is War. She is not a fan of everything she’s been in, particularly gory stuff, but surprisingly , she wishes she could have had a role on Attack on Titan. She auditioned for all the main female Fairy Tail roles, but finally got the role of Carla after auditioning for tons of roles. Emi Lo originally wanted to be a detective before learning how much STEM is involved. Her interests in detective stuff is obvious in her role as Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries as said character is able to use her skills to detect poisons. Allegra Clark also talked about her love of anime, staring with Voltron and Sailor Moon on Toonami. She watched lots of shojo on DVD and believes that both feminine “loving” characters and tough “action” characters are both valid ways to write a female anime character. Clark mentioned the previous stigma anime historically had and is glad said stigma is in rapid decline.
It was great to see some friends and their cool costumes. It was a fun event and has lots of history behind it. The closing ceremonies revealed that next year’s theme will be High Seas Adventures.
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