Flash/Showcase

Animation Preserving snapshots of subcultures

Daicon III and IV
These works showcase cameos and nods to the various shows and works that fans of the convention were likely to have seen and be discussing in the process. As such, it preserves a snapshot of the subculture at the time

The team that would form Gainax began the modern culture of anime otakus, for they created a culture they wished to join but was not yet a viable subculture.

Nightmare City, Japanese Flash Renaissance
In a similar way to the burst of animation after the formation of GAINAX, a strong subculture of Flash animation was gaining ground in Japan in the early 2000s.

Unlike the cel shading of the past, the Flash animation tool, once paired with a Wacom tablet pen (primarily developed to make Kanji handwriting input recognition possible), was an inexpensive yet high quality method of vector animation, thus bringing the art down to the masses. And these animations were not only computer aided for more advanced effects, but also interactive to produce games. There has not since been a tool that brought together art and programming so elegantly.

Unfortunately, while Flash was an insecure, proprietary cancer on the web that had to be abandoned, there simply isn't a viable vector animation framework that can replace it. Adobe's attempts at converting Flash Animator into an HTML5/JS/CSS compiler have been lackluster and late, as HTML5 was built for the purpose of replacing some, but not all features of Flash.

However, the modern Flash Animator tool continues to regain its lost footing, and Flash animations prior to Flash 9 can be decently played with the open source viewer, Gnash.

4chan City, /v/ Rage
NCH made a special parody of Nightmare City, one of the award winning Japanese flash