Charles Dunbar & Katriel Paige

Lex Winter has been doing this for a very long time. After deciding (on the road back from a con, no less) to study con culture back in 2008, they have spent the next 14 years of their life devoted to not only Japan (and its history, monsters, and culture) but to building their own base of knowledge from which they can draw and teach others.

Since then, they have lectured at many cons, libraries, and universities on all manners of fandom, history, culture, and folklore, and anything else that strikes their fancy, in hopes of bringing new perspectives and points of view to the appreciation of Japanese animation, and everything else associated with it.

And when life threw them a curveball in 2020, they pivoted that love into designing tabletop games that reflect the same. Who knows what the future holds for them, but it has been one wild ride.

Katriel Paige has been interested in the religious cultures of Japan since 2002 and the days of the Shinto ML on Yahoo Groups, and has shared their knowledge and resources since 2004. Since then, so much has changed - fandom, how we access information, and the increasingly available English-language resources!

Katriel possesses Master's degrees in Intercultural Communication as well as Disability Studies. They also like coffee and cats.