For the last four years Otakon marked the end of the first half of the summer for me, and this year was no exception. If you’re not familiar with Otakon, it is a 3-day anime convention held every year around the end of July at the Baltimore Convention Center, in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s one of the larger anime conventions in the country, certainly on the east coast.
Honestly I think I’m beginning to suffer anime con fatigue. 8 anime cons in 6 years (plus 2 sci-fi and 1 comic convention), and they’re beginning to lose their luster a little bit. It was still fun though! Just being in Baltimore is a blast, and seeing over 29,000 geeks together in one place is a sight to behold. That’s the best part of anime cons, having that feeling like you can just completely be yourself.
For those that don’t know what there is to do at an anime con, here’s a quick rundown: A video game room; an Artist’s Alley, where independent artists can take commissions and sell their art; discussion panels on a slew of topics; workshops that range from art to ninja training; a cosplay masquerade; a rave; video rooms showing anime and asian movies at all times of the day; autograph sessions and Q&As with guests. Every year I hit the video game room at least once. Got my butt kicked in Super Street Fighter 4. I ended up hitting the dealer’s room like 3 times! Grabbed (the outstanding) Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a couple t-shirts, an Azumanga Daioh towel and a couple stuffed animals. Dealer’s room was a bit of a letdown this year. Sure there’s like a 100 vendors down there, but they all sell the same stuff! There’s like maybe actually 20 real kinds of vendors, just repeated over and over. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some cool stuff down there, but for how many vendors you have there you’d think there would be a bit more variety going on. And what was with all the Gundam toys? There were a LOT more than usual. Vendors who I remember getting stuff from in the past seemed to be all about the Gundam this year.
And I always end up dropping waaaay too much in Artist Alley. But there’s so much good stuff!
I got a couple of fantastic pieces of Rydia from Final Fantasy IV and Terra from Final Fantasy VI from Bonnie Tang:
These two pieces from Erina:
As well as a three really awesome pieces by Kevin KY Yanwhich I can’t find images of.
As far as things to watch, I unfortunately only got see one of the movies I was hoping to, but boy was it a doozy.
That’s right, I saw Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl, which was insane. And awesome! But it’s definitely for a selective audience only. It’s basically gore comedy action. I know that’s an odd combination. Think Evil Dead, but taken to a Japanese extreme. VG vs FG is from the director of Tokyo Gore Police, so if you know that, then you should be familiar with what to expect from VG vs FG. It’s actually a little less gory than Tokyo Gore Police, but it’s actually more insane. It’s probably best not to process that.
For various reasons, I wasn’t able to get to see most of the stuff I wanted to watch, which included Welcome to the Space Show, Claymore, and Skull Man. A shame, but I’m sure I’ll rectify that soon enough.
Panels, as they have been for a couple years now, were the low point of Otakon. Which is a shame, because they used to be my favorite part of a con. There wasn’t a ton that interested me, and from what I heard a number of panels were canceled due to issues with panelists. I got a taste of that first hand. Saturday night there was a panel on “Feminism and Fandom” that I was very interested in seeing. It’s actually a panel I wanted to see two years ago at Otakon 08, but it was canceled. And guess what?! Got canceled this time too! GRRRR. But that’s alright, some of us audience members had a makeshift feminism panel in the hallway, led by Viga the Otagal (who has an excellent podcast, btw).
Also have to mention the FIRE ALARM that was pulled on Saturday afternoon (one of the reasons I missed some of my shows). Have you ever seen 29,000 people evacuated from a building at once? We SHUT DOWN Pratt Street basically. It was a very surreal scene. We were so packed across the street tons of people (me included) basically just had to loiter in the street for a while. And then it got crazier when a couple hundred people decided to try to rush one of the doors, screaming “Let us in! Let us in!” They did eventually let us in, after an hour, hour and half. And awesome note, less than 3 hours after the fire drill there was already someone in Artist Alley selling signs saying “I survived the fire of Otakon 2010″.
Also have to mention Uncle Yo’s comedy show, which was hilarious. I was falling out of my seat it was so funny. Good thing I sat at the end of the aisle. Brilliant stuff all around. Keep in mind though, you have to follow anime or at least geek culture to get any of the jokes.
Otakon 2010 was another fun one. But I’m definitely burnt out, which unfortunately colored my experience of Otakon this year. After a while every year it starts to feel more and more like the same thing. I think it’s time to take at least one year off from Otakons. For my bank account’s sake if nothing else! But if you’ve never been, I highly recommend going! It’s an amazing experience for any anime fan. Any geek in general really. So go, check it out. I’ll sit the next one out. Maybe we can hook up there in 2012.
