Nan Desu Kan 2021 Is Coming! - An Interview With Guy Davis
/Written by Neil Greenaway
NDK 2021. Save the dates!
All otaku take note - Nan Desu Kan is turning 25, and they are planning to celebrate! The show is moving to the brand-new Gaylord Hotel in Denver, and the change in venue has them upping their game. In the last quarter of a century the Anime/Manga/Japanese Culture convention has grown from a small one-day show held at a brewery to a full weekend event being held in Denver’s largest convention space. With larger spaces for the Artist Alley and Dealer Room areas and photo-op installations for the cosplayers, NDK is poised to make a splash with this year’s show.
In late August of 2019 I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Guy Davis, one of the directors of Nan Desu Kan. He was eager to discuss the convention’s past, the growth of the show to its current size, and the exciting things in store for the future. Twenty-five years is a solid run for any convention but to hear Guy tell it, NDK is just getting started.
Guy Davis at Nan Desu Kan 2019.
Neil Greenaway: I understand that you are one of the Nan Desu Kan show directors, and also one of the people in charge of the NDK Museum.
Guy Davis: That I am!
NG: Then perhaps you could start us out with a brief history of the show itself?
GD: Ok. Nan Desu Kan has been around for 23 years. It started in 1997, in the Tivoli – which was a tiny little beer company on Auraria Campus. It started as a one-day show, Saturday only, and we started as a small anime con. It has grown now from 203 people – that was our attendance in 1997 – to our 2018 show which had somewhere around 20,000 attendees.
NG: That is impressive growth!
GD: We are now the second largest convention in the Denver area and we are the largest anime convention in the entire Rocky Mountain region (excluding Texas). That is where we are now. We are now running as both an anime convention and a Japanese culture convention. We have a Sana track, a Japanese culture track, which means that we follow things about Japanese culture. Like when you go to Bon Sai, Kendo, Kudo, things that are more cultural. In fact, last night I was having dinner with some of the guys from Sakura Square (which is the local Japanese culture group) and we had the Consulate General of Japan here to join us. So that was kind of cool, and a little unnerving. She is WAY above my pay-grade, but it was definitely cool.
NG: That is very cool! How did that dinner come about? Had you invited her?
GD: She actually asked us! And when Madam Consulate General asks to have dinner with us, we don’t say no. (laughs) She was a very cool and also a very interesting lady, and also high-ranking – but we have a lot of ties to Japanese culture and she asked to be a part of it. I understand that she is a HUGE anime/manga fan. For our opening ceremonies, she arrived in full cosplay carrying a huge sword. So that was fascinating. Apparently, her son helped her pick out her cosplay.
NG: It is awesome that she was able to attend and that she took an interest in it.
GD: Oh, it was a beautiful cosplay. It had a cape; the whole thing was just gorgeous.
The NDK 2019 AMV contest award lineup.
NG: Getting back to the beginnings of NDK, I know that it originally started as three separate fan groups that banded together. Can you tell us a bit about that?
GD: Yeah. We had three anime clubs that met separately. There was the Rocky Mountain Anime Association, the Fort Collins Anime Club, and then Denver Anime International was the one that I belonged to. DAI was started in 1988 from a different group called CFOod (Cartoon & Fantasy Organization of Denver). Back in the ‘80s we brought over tapes from Japan, and they would be VHS that had been recorded off of television. So we had these non-subtitled, non-dubbed, still-with-commercials versions of these anime - stuff that was recorded off of either morning or evening television. We always had someone in the group who knew Japanese, so they would watch the show and write synopses. You know, just a little paragraph description of what was going on, and they would print them up in these little magazines. You would read your magazine and go, “Oh, ok. That’s what is happening in this episode. OK. I get it.” That’s what we would do. We would get together on the fourth Saturday of every month at the Southwest State Bank on Florida & Federal in Denver. During one of our get togethers, someone mentioned that A-Kon (which was an anime show in Dallas) was doing pretty good. And so we thought, we could do a convention. It has got to be pretty easy, right? (laughs) It was the stupidest thing we ever said! Boy, this has not been easy! But here we are. 23 years later and we’ve managed to keep going. We have survived.
NG: At its conception, what role did you serve in the original convention?
GD: At NDK1, I was a doorstop. I checked badges. But I did such a good job that for NDK2, I was moved up to head of operations.
NG: That is quite the jump!
GD: I know! Its because at the first show, there were only 7 of us. We didn’t have many positions. But for the second show, we needed more people. I was told that I did a good job and handed something more challenging. The first show didn’t have a head of operations. The second show moved to the Sheraton (which was by the old Stapleton Airport) and it had a huge internal atrium. They had operations way up on the 20th floor – and I have vertigo. I remember that they kept calling me out of the office and it felt like the whole hallway would tilt under me. It was awful.
NG: How long was the show there?
GD: We moved the next year to the Sheraton at 6th & Union in Denver. We stayed there for 2 years before moving again to the Holiday Inn at I-70 & Chambers for a few years. Then we were at the Marriot at the Denver Tech Center for quite a while. We moved to this current Sheraton 4 years ago. And next year we will be moving again, to the brand-new Gaylord facility at DIA.
The Gaylord Rockies.
NG: Have all of these moves been necessitated by the growth of the show?
GD: Every single one. As the show gets bigger, we find new places that can hold us.
NG: So we can assume that the Gaylord will be a bigger space as well?
GD: Oh yes. Because we are packed in to the gills here.
NG: If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about the new venue for a minute. It is my understanding that the Gaylord family of hotels are rather convention-centric, being built to host such events. Did that help to sell you on their space?
GD: Absolutely! When you look at Katsucon for instance (which is an east coast convention) they have a gorgeous atrium for photos. When we look at our people, we find that they mostly fall into three tribes. One of our tribes are the cosplay tribe. And they LOVE to have beautiful scenery. And the Gaylord is gorgeous! There are a few waterfalls and they are bringing in a caboose from the BNSF. There will be an actual caboose, on a track, inside that cosplayers can pose and take photos on! They’ve got a torii gate in there. It is gorgeous, they’ve got two waterfalls and a lazy river which runs around a bit. We’ve already taken a few groups of cosplayers out there and done some photoshoots and they have just been exquisite.
NG: What about the actual convention space inside? Is it going to be a nicer space for you guys?
GD: It is a great convention space. They actually allow you to drive a semi-truck directly up onto the floor for setup. They’ve got two loading docks that have doors big enough to drive a truck in. And the Gaylord is larger (it’s convention space) than the Denver Convention Center (with the Blue Bear). So it is the largest space for a show here, and it is easier to park at. It is going to be easier to deal with (we feel) than the convention center.
Horses at the Gaylord Rockies.
Inside the Gaylord Rockies. (note the caboose, just peeking out on the left)
NG: I have seen a few photos of the Gaylord and it does look like a beautiful area. I could see cosplayers being very happy there.
GD: It is also super easy to get to. I’m really excited for it. I think that this move will signify good things in our future.
NG: Walking in to the show this morning, I could not help but notice the number of people who had their luggage with them – really driving home the point that NDK has become a destination show. A lot of people are traveling from out of state or out of country to be here. I assume that the Gaylord is also set up to accommodate those guests?
GD: Yes. The A-line train runs directly from the airport to the hotel and we have a shuttle that runs every 7 minutes from the bus station to the Gaylord. Our guests should be able to get in from either downtown or the airport. We also have a lot of parking at the Gaylord. I believe they charge for parking, but it should be minimal.
A cosplay photo-op by the torii gate at the Gaylord. Photo by @cgphotogcom
NG: Well, you have to pay for parking downtown anyway, so that should not be so bad.
GD: Exactly.
NG: Having spoken about NDK’s past, and a bit on where the future is taking the show, I would like to ask – having been here since the beginning is it odd to see how big it has become?
GD: It really is! It is really strange. Specifically thinking back to the days of DAI, sitting in the basement of Southwest State Bank. Getting together on every fourth Saturday to watch Ranma or whatever and just hangout. Then I look at today. Look at all these people here!
And even better, most of the people who were at DAI are still out there, doing things in this industry. I can meet with just about any of those folks that I was hanging out with a quarter of a century ago and just say, “Can you even believe all of this?” And no, no we can’t. None of us can. We never thought that it would be like this.
NG: Is that core group still attached to NDK in some way?
GD: For the most part, yeah. We’re all still in here somewhere.
NG: As an NDK director, but also just as a fan who has walked the floor, do you have any favorite memories or specific events that stand out? What have your NDK highlights been?
GD: I am a BIG Macross fan. One year we had Mari Iijima (who is the voice actress for Minmay), and the con chairperson said, “Someone needs to take her out to dinner. Guy, you’re doing it.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I took her out to dinner and drove her around a little. I was shocked to learn that she lives in LA. My second surprise was that she speaks fluent English. But the best part was at the end of the evening when she gave me a big hug. I couldn’t stop thinking, “Minmay hugged me!” I like to think that I stayed calm and professional, that I didn’t geek out. Calm-on-the-outside, but Minmay hugged me! That was definitely one of the high points for me, from this entire thing.
NG: That is a great memory to have. I know that on a personal level you have spent some time in Japan. Does that time fuel your love of the culture, and has that fed back into the show itself?
GD: It has helped a whole lot but strangely enough my time in Japan changed my view on the culture, and not necessarily in a positive way. I know that sounds weird. But having been a teacher in a school, now reading about school life seems like a 2-dimensional view of it. I don’t mean this as any kind of a downer, but I have lived in a school in Japan. I don’t really need to read about it anymore. It maybe changed my tastes. I don’t read anime about school life anymore. I prefer the giant robot stuff these days.
A cosplay photo-op by the caboose at the Gaylord. Photo by @cgphotogcom
NG: If you were always a Macross fan, it makes sense that your tastes would lead you back there.
GD: True. But it is odd how being there changed my views on things.
NG: I suppose that is true in any facet of life vs. literature though. Once you have lived a thing, reading the words of someone who has only written it can sound hollow.
GD: Right and anime and manga are idealized, but it has not been idealized for me. I was never a Japanese student. My time in that school system was as a teacher, so my experience is obviously a bit different.
NG: Back in the late 70’s & early 80’s, when we were kids, the Japanese pop culture influence – the anime, the manga, the movies – was all very much on the fringe. You had to know a guy who had a bootleg. It was not widely imported nor widely available. These days, the Japanese influence can be seen everywhere. And I notice that the children and teens have a much greater interest in the Japanese pop culture than its American counterpart. Middle aged and older nerds are still loving Marvel and DC, but when it comes to buying actual books, I see the kids reading manga. Why do you think that there has been such a surge in the popularity of Japanese titles among American youth?
GD: I think that it is built upon layers. In my generation, we had a core group of otaku who were there doing fan-subs so others could enjoy them. They got it started. We just keep building on that, layer by layer. People saw the fan-subs and sought out imports. Shops noticed the market for imports and official versions became available. The popularity of the imports creates the market for professional subs. It just kept building.
As for the popularity, in my opinion, Japanese manga and anime are much more finely crafted. I was talking about this just last night with the people from Sakura Square. The way that Japanese manga and anime are made using much more attention to detail. You can sense that. Anime and manga are made with a lot of care. Which is not to say that American comics are not made with care. But if you look at the comics from the 1980’s and compare them with the manga of the 1980’s, you can see that there was more care in the manga. Now if you look at a modern comic, there is much more care taken – but there was a gap and the Americans needed to catch up. There was a similar technological gap in the 70’s, where we just needed to catch up.
The Japanese were making good manga with better stories and better artwork, better everything. And America had a lag. We had things like the Comic Code. You couldn’t kill anybody. You couldn’t show nudity. You couldn’t have violence. You couldn’t do anything deeper than saying, “Oh, I’m mad at you.” Followed by, “Ok, I’m not that mad anymore.” And it made our stories incredibly shallow. That is why I got out of American comics in the 80’s and got into manga. Its exactly why. There were a lot of people in my generation that were tired of everything being so shallow.
Guy Davis with some of the exhibits at the NDK Museum during NDK 2019.
That core group of otaku left comics and started getting into manga. Then we brought other people into it until the market saw a need for us. By the time American comics caught up… Again, I am not saying that today’s comics are bad – they are good – we finally have good stories and good art. But there was a lag. And a whole generation went to the Japanese for pop culture. We lost a generation to Japan. Those fans are coming back to American comics as American comics get better, but they are bringing that Japanese influence with them.
NG: Do you feel that there is more homogenization between the eastern and western comics these days? Or do you think that there is still a pretty clear line?
GD: Maybe? I think that there will be homogenization, but the style will always be delineated. There are people like me, who are clearly manga-style artists that were born in America. Everything I draw and create comes from that style. In that same way, there will always be people in Japan who choose to draw western style art. There will always be that crossover in the art, but your locality can affect your style.
NG: I think that about wraps up my questions for you. It seems like this is definitely a place for people with an appreciation of Japanese art and culture to come and enjoy. With the upcoming change in venue, is there going to be any change in dates for the show?
GD: I think we are going to try and push the show back into September. That is what we feel our “home zone” is. We have been pushing it forward to August because of the hotels, but we think we can get back to September.
NG: If people are wanting to look into the next NDK, or read about past ones, what website could we send them to?
GD: You can find us at NDKDenver.org or by searching Nan Desu Kan in your social media, really any of them.
Nan Desu Kan 2021 is being held at the Gaylord Hotel from September 3 – 5, 2021. In addition to a large Dealer’s Room and Artist’s Alley they will be playing host to anime voice actors like Kent Williams (Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist); Dani Chambers (Black Clover, Island); Madeleine Morris (Azure Lane, My Hero Academia); Daman Mills (Dragon Ball Super, Monster Hunter: Rise); and many more!