Earlier last year I attended a convention with few friends. This convention was Otakon, located at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland. I’ve been there a few times over the years and always enjoyed it. This was its last year in Baltimore, and in 2017 Otakon will be moving to Washington DC. I plan on going there too. Before I begin this subject will be divided into 2 parts, this being the first one.
Now for those unfamiliar with it, Otakon according to their faq is: “An annual convention held in the summer months to celebrate Asian pop culture (anime, manga, music, movies, video games, etc) and its fandom.” It runs from Friday to Saturday, and closes around 2am. There are always tons of things to do and this year was no different.
Video Game Room
As usual the game room was full of home console and arcade games to play. I played Dead or Alive 5, and Mario Kart (I have the game on wiiu and still haven’t played yet due to work.) and a tiny bit of Street Fighter V. They also had some pretty interesting japan only arcade games I’ve never seen before. Didn’t have a chance to stay there long. Maybe I’ll try my luck and enter a tournament next time.
Panels
The Panels are something I always look forward to and this year didn’t they disappoint. A panel on classic anime on the first day was enjoyable. There also seemed to be what looked like a Shinto ceremony going on in one of the main stages which was very interesting. I think it was done by Kimono Consultant/Shinto Priestess Kuniko Kanawa (anybody correct me if I’m wrong).
There was a Sailor Moon Industry Panel that talked about the new re-dubbing of the classic Sailor Moon S season completely unedited. No more Uranus and Neptune being “cousins”>_>. They debuted the episode where Hakura and Michiru meet each other for the first time and discover each others identity. Really fun to watch and funny too.
There was also a panel on Steven Universe references to anime. About 90% of them you could recognize but a few were stretching it. I still haven’t watched the show yet. It’s in a increasingly long queue of mine.
Anime’s Craziest Deaths panel was also there again. The panel’s title is self explanatory. Hosted by Daryl of AWO its always a good laugh. Here’s a video I took of the panel a few years ago:
My favorite panel I went to was “How To take better Cosplay Photography”. I found out about this one at the last minute, and I’m really glad I went. For me as someone who’s really getting into cosplay photography it was great. He did a little Demo on photography in general, took some pictures of a cosplayer who happened to be there and we also had a chance to review our work. The panel room was small and filled with mostly photographers. It was great talking about techniques and reviewing each others work. Made me want to work harder to improve my skills especially for cosplay photography.
So thats’s part 1 of my time at Otakon. Part two will be coming up shortly.
