It's fair to say now that a college education these days is futile. Students at pricey
universities/academies/institutes/whatever rack up hundreds of thousands of
dollars in student loans, now at jacked-up interest rates, all to earn a
diploma and degree that will never get them work able to pay down the huge
sum. They will slave in permanent debt at miserable minimum-wage Mcjobs (if
they are even lucky enough to find one of those at all in Ohio). Or default in
bankruptcy - and slave away in permanent debut at miserable minimum-wage Mcjobs
without a credit rating. They will never get out from under the crushing
expense of so-called higher education. College took it all, picked their
pockets clean and stole their futures. And it was not worth it, unless one
counts paying bloated salaries of the faculty and elite administrators riding
this gravy train-con game.
But that is not
the fate of the students at glorious University of Akron, oh no! They will NOT
face a bleak future owing money that they will never earn back in a climate of
low-pay hopelessness and no-benefits malaise.
No, they will
face a bleak future owing money that they will never earn back in a climate of
low-pay hopelessness and no-benefits malaise...WITH the pleasurable memory of
having enjoyed the annual Saturday anime marathon, Zipcon.
This is a full
day and evening of Japanese animation and tie-in events, only in its second
year and in full bloom like the cherry blossoms at the foot of Mount Fuji,
grasshopper.
Zipcon will bring
to the Summit County campus some of the latest and hottest Nippon cartoon
theatrical features, TV serial spinoffs or direct-to-video releases (or "OVAs," in the language of the
"otaku" fandom). The schedule mixes them with trivia contests, panel
discussions, Japanese food, Japanese-style sketch comedy, Japanese-language
lessons, cosplay and live musical entertainment with anime themes (yes, karaoke
included).
And there will even
be anime royalty in attendance, in the form of English-language voiceover
celebrities Amber Lee Collins (HELLSING ULTIMATE, DEAD ISLAND: EPIDEMIC, DUST:
AN ELYSIAN TAIL) and Daman Mills (the latest Pokemon TV series, LADIES VERSUS
BUTLERS), and `Kerry the Kimono Lady,’ proprietress of Toledo-based Ohio Kimono,
the state’s only conduit of authentic Japanese kimono, direct from Kyoto.
While much of the
presentations are family-friendly, well, anyone who has been exposed to anime
for any length of time knows that there is something called “fan service”;
better watch out. FYI, panel discussions on the actual truth of “geisha girls” and
“yaoi” (gay-themed Japanese comics and cartoons) are rated 18 and over.
Anime being screened include some much-hailed theatrical cartoons. WOLF CHILDREN is a modern fantasy-tearjerker
about the last two semi-human offspring of Japan’s last werewolf, being raised
in the rural countryside by their widowed human mother. SUMMER WARS is a blockbuster
about a high-school senior math genius framed for a virtual-reality sabotage
actually committed by a dangerous software intelligence.
Events all happen
from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. at 303 Carroll Street in Akron. The entire day is free
and open to the public. Unlike college itself, which is ruinously expensive…but
we’ve gone over all that.
For a full
schedule and more goodies, http://zipcon.weebly.com/
has all the
information.
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