Ryan Kopf's Blog

Today I write to you about organizing anime conventions - it's not always so easy, and there's growing challenges. You might think that I would celebrate seeing failures from other conventions. After all, doesn't the chairman of Coke smile whenever Pepsi stock goes down.

Fossil fuels, like coal and gas, have been the backbone of our electricity supply for decades. Despite the environmental harm they cause, the owners of coal mines and gas plants have claimed that there are no viable alternatives or that such alternatives are too costly to implement.

You don't have to be gay or queer to understand that restrictions on the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community are not only unfair to gay people, but they are fundamentally dangerous to every person who lives in our democracy.

Normally I write about anime and anime conventions, but I want to talk today about something that affects everyone and is getting to be a bigger and bigger issue. A lot of people who attend my conventions are young people who work retail or other part-time jobs that don't provide health insurance coverage.

I am incredibly fortunate to be able to do what I do. As part of AnimeCon.org, I get to travel to Japan every year to connect with members of the anime industry and work on bringing them to our events in the US.

Hey fellow nerds. It is almost time for the next anime convention, Anime-zing., in Iowa. But I wanted to take a moment to share another project with you. Learning a new language has always been a passion of mine, but I often found myself lost in endless vocabulary lists and complex grammar rules.

I went to a ton of conventions before organizing my own. I think one year I went to a record of 22 different conventions in one year - a couple of them were even on the same weekend and 5 hours drive apart.

I started organizing anime conventions almost 15 years ago. Back then it seemed like they were just these nerdy little gatherings of a few hundred people who like anime. Now they seem to be everywhere and bigger than ever.

As the world's population continues to grow, the demand for energy is also increasing. Fossil fuels have been the primary source of energy for decades, but their negative impact on the environment has become increasingly apparent.

Have you ever questioned why we continue to rely on non-renewable energy sources when renewable alternatives are at our fingertips. Or why we refer to methane gas as 'natural gas' despite its devastating impacts on our environment.