Every year the Atlantic Anime Alliance throws a picnic party, to which anime fans are invited to come, eat grilled burgers and hot dogs, and discuss, face to face, obscure topics related to anime, Asian culture, and bad martial arts movies.  The picnic is organized by Alliance co-founder and reigning president Steve Pearl.

In 1998 this picnic was conducted on Sunday, July 19 at Johnson Park in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  We took the opportunity to celebrate the Alliance's 6th anniversary,  which we took to be particularly auspicious in that it demonstrates that the Alliance itself is a stable entity even if most of the individuals comprising its membership are not.

Picnic events included gobs of food, a martial arts exhibition at which no one was killed too badly, and a renegade supersoaker commando, and Distinguished Member Amy Chan-chan immolating herself in protest over the sad plight of  picnic charcoal.

Some debate was had over the relative merits of  vegetarian cuisine for the non-meat eating attendees.  The dilemma was solved when the carnivorous Alliance members graciously consented to  devour the vegaetarians present.

These pictures, and many more of the picnic, were taken by Seth Robertson, Keeper of the Sacred Webserver, who doubtless savored the opportunity to show off his digital camera greatly.  You can observe the events in greater detail at http://www.baka.org/AAA/Picnic-1998/.