From: pearl@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Starbuck)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Re: A SERIOUS new newsgroup suggestion...
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:23:32 GMT
Organization: the Worlds Welfare Work Association, Rutgers Anime division

In article <38855@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> rnlee@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Profess'nal Agitator) writes:

> Doesn't group history play any role here?
> 
> r.a.anime was *first*.  r.a.animation came into being after several
> irked anime fans started complaining about the growing presence of
> non-anime topics showing up in r.a.a.
> 
> Anyone been here since before 1988?
> 

Yeah I was. (I posted article #10 way back when) But Mark Crispin
posted an excellent history of the group a few months ago.  Thanks
again to Mark, Ann, and Eiji for making raa a reality!

Here it is:

From ANIME-L@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu Wed Jul  1 16:15:28 1992
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Date:         Wed, 1 Jul 1992 18:10:30 GMT
Reply-To: "Japanese animedia and other animation news."              <ANIME-L@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu>
From: news@vtserf.cc.vt.edu
Subject:      Re: Call to r.a.a "old-timers": history of the group
X-To:         anime-l@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list ANIME-L <ANIME-L@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu>
Status: R

    Ann Schubert was never at Stanford.  For a while, she worked at
DEC Palo Alto, but not Stanford.

     There may some confusion with me.  I founded the URUSEI-YATSURA
mailing list on April 11, 1987 on Panda, which was then the name of my
home DEC-20 mainframe.  I worked at Stanford at the time.

     The URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list was, to my knowledge, the first
real attempt to have a means of communication between anime fans.  Ann
and I were friends and co-conspirators in the `disorganized fandom'
movement (see below).

     Ann was the `president' of the A.N.I.M.E. club, which office
basically meant that it was her house that got trashed by 100+ rabid
anime fans each month.  Ann would walk around wearing her happi (a
type of Japanese jacket) and try to keep some vague semblance of
order.  Everything was very informal; VCR's, LD players, and monitors
were strewed around throughout the house, hooked up in complex ways
that would amaze the designers of the Internet.  Soda was on the honor
system, with a cup nearby to collect the cash.

     Often, after most people (in particular certain under-aged
individuals) would go home, we'd break out the Creme Lemon or similar
material.  We spent a while trying to determine the original of
`Brothers Grime X-Rated Cartoons'; I had picked it up via mail order
since the anime origin seemed obvious.  It was clearly anime, of
1970's vintage, although re-cut to fit the 1980's US porn standard
(e.g. the same sequences shown about 500 times...).  I don't think we
even figured out what the original was, but it seemed vaguely familiar
to Ann and some of the others.

     Ann's house was interesting.  She lived with a few other girls --
I never quite figured out how many -- and what seemed to be a zillion
cats.  Anime posters, books, and video tapes were strewn throughout
the house, a fair number of these of the bisho^nen and bisho^jo
variety.  We'd swap ribald comments, and more, on various of the
characters.  Let's just say that I have some nasty pictures of Lum
that Takahashi Rumiko never drew!  ;-)

     Those cats were something else.  They were feral cats that Ann
had taken in, or rather that were hanging around for free food.  They
were otherwise completely wild.  I remember a freezing cold winter
night (or maybe it was just a Bay Area summer night -- not much
difference) with several of us were huddled together under a blanket
for warmth in the living room until we got the bright idea to turn on
the heat.  The heating was electric under-the-floor.  About 30 seconds
after the heat was turned on we realized what a horrible mistake that
was.  Apparently, the cats had decided that the heating grills was the
perfect place to piss, and the entire room filled up in short order
with gaseous cat piss!  We're talking serious poison gas here!  ;-)
It's funny to laugh about it now, but it sure wasn't funny then!

     A.N.I.M.E. at that time was very disorganized.  This was one of
its beloved features.  Many of us were fans who were totally disgusted
by organized fandom and its power-tripping Secret Masters (and
mistresses) Of Fandom in general and by C/FO and Randall Stuckey in
particular.  A.N.I.M.E.'s was a departure from organized fandom -- it
was disorganized fandom.  It was great!  I hope the new leadership
have kept this in mind, including the recognition that the main
function of president is `pick up the mess afterwards.'

     Ann initially brought up the idea of an anime newsgroup on
September 22, 1987.  The original suggestion seemed to come from Eiji
Hirai.  At that time, the idea was to create an alt.anime newsgroup.
Eiji posted a call for votes for rec.arts.anime on October 31, 1987,
with votes to go to Ann.  By November 3, Ann had received 13 votes,
and started lobbying.  I don't have any records of the subsequent
progression, but by January 1988 rec.arts.anime was a reality and in
February 1988 there was redistribution of rec.arts.anime to JUNET and
BITNET.

     All good things do come to an end.  I moved in October 1988 in
the wake of a messy divorce.  [How Ann and Chris aided me by, among
other things, deflecting my vindictive but stupid ex's attention from
my girlfriend is another story.  I won't go into here.  Suffice it to
say that I owe them an amazing debt of gratitude that I won't forget.]
Panda and its mailing lists were shut down at the time, and packed on
a moving van.  I stayed at Ann's house for a few days winding up my
affairs in the Bay Area.  Ann's cats were utterly freaked out by my
dog!  Then I left for parts unknown (including to me).  Ann and Chris
headed south for LA about a month later, marking the end of that
household and that stage in A.N.I.M.E.'s existance.

     I heard very little from or about Ann since that time; I received
a report that she had returned to the Bay Area along with an address,
but I couldn't get a phone number.  The next piece of news that I got
was that she had suffered a stroke.  I've tried on and off to find out
how I can get in touch with her once she's in a state to `get in
touch', but so far it's been limited to an exchange of greetings via
third parties.

     With the shutdown of Panda, the traffic that had previously went
to the URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list went to rec.arts.anime.  Panda
rejoined the land of the living for a few months in the late spring of
1989 until that fall, but there were hardware problems that prevented
Yuuyuu (it's new name after more computers joined the Panda zoo) from
operating with any vestige of reasonable reliability until a complete
replacement of all its disks was made until 1991.

     By that time, the URUSEI-YATSURA mailing list had become little
more than a dim memory.  I became convinced that Yuuyuu would never be
reliable enough for a mailing list or for the central Panda.COM mail
machine, and in 1991 I moved both to Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM, a 68040
NeXT.  However, the DEC-20 is running as I speak; it just doesn't have
much to do these days.

     Since that time, the URUSEI-YATSURA list has moved in fits and
spurts; many of the oldtimers are gone and there are a lot of FAQ type
questions.  But the membership has been growing steadily, and I hope
to see it reach its promise as a low-noise alternate to rec.arts.anime
just as rec.arts.anime was originally intended as a low-noise
alternate to rec.arts.sf-lovers.  ;-)

     Anime hai!

-- Mark Crispin

		      ---End included article---


Steve
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