Otakon 2010

Some things about conventions never change, mostly the tradition of just being crazy, and Otakon was no exception. From last year’s vandalism to this year’s evacuation from the Baltimore Convention center, there are many reasons why passes were so much; however, the show must go on. More people attended the convention this year, accumulating 29,274 people for the weekend. New and old guests showed up at the convention including some musical guests with two members of X-Japan, the Yoshida Brothers, and Home Made Kazoku to name a few.

Immediately arriving at the convention, some things changed. There wasn’t a huge line for the Thursday’s pre-registration pickup, but there were lines at almost every main event. The process of the pre-registration pickup was sped up with printed out barcodes to be scanned and approve the attendee which with that many people at the convention, a few seconds per person expedited the pickup process. Another change with the convention from last year was that the terrace on the third floor of the convention center was finished and added a lot of scenery in a small area. Even though the weather was still humid, some parts of the day was tolerable for the outdoor photo shoots or a walk to the local food joints. More precaution for the convention attendee showed throughout the weekend, including prepared EMS services located outside the convention at random times and contracting security team from CES Security and the Baltimore Convention Center Baltimore Special Police.

During the evening dances, there were more DJs playing at the convention this year. With more DJs there were of course more people. It was to the point where the amount of people inside of the dance floor was capped and a long line was formed. The line would occasionally stretch from the entrance of the dance to the registration (measuring about 300 feet or so).

The people cosplaying at Otakon did a good job with the quality and the variety of series out there. Anything from Angel Sanctuary to Vocaloid, it was all there. There wasn’t much of a majority either at Otakon for one particular series, but there were groups of Vocaloids, FFXIII, and Touhou noticeably wandering around the convention. There was partying with the usual Pedobear and Domokun walking around partying with random cosplayers.

In particular with partying, randomness is a tradition at Otakon. There was the usual pointing and shouting of “Buttscratcher,” a noticeable amount of boomboxes, and instruments (looking at you flash mob Trombone).

Down to the main events of the convention, there were plenty. From the concerts to the masquerade, there were quite a few things to do. Musical guests included, Homemade Kazoku who made a few works for Bleach and Eureka Seven, Yoshida Brothers who came to fame from a little bit of Nintendo (with their classical Eastern mixed in with some modern western), and of course a little of X-Japan (quite literally little). The Yoshida Brothers and Homemade Kazoku had their own events scheduled during the convention; however, X-Japan only had two of the members to do some acoustics at the end of the Masquerade. For those who will be in Chicago August 8th, check out X-Japan at Lollapalooza.

With the masquerade itself, it the entertainment was a bit better from last years. With about forty skits in line for the masquerade, there was a lot of dancing, pokemon, and less skits. Things have changed over the years from actual acting skits to more of a musical on stage.

There was no mistake that a large event like Otakon was in town from the fire evacuation that happened Saturday afternoon. After the alarms went off, it took a while for people to evacuate since people unsure of what was actually happening. After a while security and staff started to evacuate everyone from all parts of the convention center. No matter the circumstances, people will enjoy the convention in or out. One moment near the Charles St. lobby, technicality played a role since people were ordered to be pushed back 20 feet from the building, oddly someone had a measuring tape to help with the moving the mass of people. Light Street was completely blocked off at times with attendees since people were again ordered back even further from the convention center. During the time there was the usual wondering, at the same time there were jokes with people carrying around dry erase boards with, “Con’s closed due to aids” (4chan reference). The heat also helped the local venders on the streets by buying a lot of fluids from them.

In the end the convention ended as normal with many goodbyes from attendees and a vocaloid miata parked out front of the Charles Street lobby.

Otakon’s End

Another convention has passed by of course the memories will go on (just no my heart). Just some quick notes:

Official Attendance (Including Staff and Dealers): 29,274
Next Year’s Date: July 29 – 31, 2011

I will be updating the site over time with photos and a another general post of the con.

Otakon…X Japan

For those in the JRock field, X Japan will be performing at Otakon this year.

Animazment 2010

Animazement 2010

With another Animazement over, it’s hard to see a convention where the nearest one is three hours away end because it’s home to many. Being the thirteenth year for Animazment, it was a fortunate lucky number for them. Even though stories of changing roles and a lot of mishaps prior to the convention that is best kept underground, many continued to support the convention.

Many changes happened to this year than the rest, one of the noticeable changes was the lack of twenty-four hour convention, line system at the masquerade, but the better was the amount of people attending Animazement.

For the guests of honor at the convention, many known faces were back after the swine flu epidemic that resulted many cancellations from the Japanese guest last year. In the list of Guests comes, Chika Sakamoto who voiced for a few shows such as My Neighbor Totoro and Sailor Moon Stars; Kazuhiko Inoue well known for roles in Gravitation, Fruits Basket, Junjou Romantica, and more; Keiko Han for Mobile Suit Gundam, “Pocket Monster,” and a few others; Noriko Hidaka shows up for both old school and new school fans ranging from Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, to Death Note, and a lot more; Yusuke Igarashi comes with his skills being an artist and musician; Richard Ian Cox for American roles in Mega Man, Gundam 00, Hamtaro, and others; Trish Ledoux who is a Magazine Editor / Voice Actor / and Translator who worked with Animerica and other works; Chiho Saito, the Manga Aritsts / Author who is known for a well known work in Revolutionary Girl Utena and many other works; Spike Spencer, an American Voice actor or many shows from Nadesico, Evangelion, Battle Angel, and a ton more; Kiochi Tsunoda who worked as an animation director or classic works of Galaxy Express 999, Yamato Forever, Star Blazer, to name a few; Cristina Vee a voice actress, Kappei Yamaguchi a voice actor also in Gravitation, Cased Closed, Ranma 1/2, and a crap ton of others; another returning guest is Yasuo Yamaguchi is is a producer for a some classics like Ge Ge GE no Kitaro; Toshifumi Yoshida who is a producer / Translator for different works and companies such as Ranma 1/2, Negima, Eureka Seven, and many more.

Of course there’s the musical guest Uchuusentai Noiz returns to Animazement to blow people’s ears out. Animazment is known for bringing guests back and they did with Noiz. This year they came back being louder than before with people from the artists alleys (one room over) saying their merchandise were bouncing around. The stage was a little different with the lack of extending out to the crowd, but there could have been reasons why; however, the most interesting part was the déjà vu where most of the people who were at the Noiz concert last year were back in almost the same location relative to the stage. Truthfully last year I was taking pictures of the concert and I survived about two to three songs being at the front of the room; however, this year I could barely even hold being up there for one song, show how much they can rock on.

With the new site up for Animazement, they kept with the theme of “Horror” since it was the 13th Animazement. There were hints about the theme; however, there wasn’t much notice.

This year with the amount of people, there was a lot more cosplayers than last year. It could have been that more people wanted to cosplay, recessions took a turn, or whatever, it was just a buffet for all the photographers at the convention.

Along with the cosplay, Animazment kept their promise (or most of it) to run the escalators, but at your own risk. Each of the escalators there was a caution sign about using the escalators at your own risk.

Down the masquerade (Cosplay event) it was really hard to say. Sure the cosplay relatively on time this year, but the performance was almost lack luster. There were notable ones from the Pokemon PETA moment, Turks employment, FMA, and a few others that kept people from completely falling asleep. For the event itself, it was strangely different for many people who have attended Animazment in the past and other conventions. There were few categories and few awards for the performers, such as Judge’s awards, or fan favorite.

Before the masquerade a noticeable change was noticed where the line system changed from the last couple of years. What use to be the Anime Expo line system where people would be able to get a group number earlier in the day then line up 30 minutes prior to the event and enter, went back to old school where a line formed at a certain time. This caused some confusion where people lined up in front of both Ballroom A and B, but the line officially formed IN Ballroom B about 5:45 Saturday evening. In Ballroom B people immediately saw the problem with the line system since the line started off being in a zig zag formation to uncertainty towards the end. It was a good way to get people out of the hall; however, the old system seemed to have worked better.

Returning this year was the Cosplay Chess with the theme being Old School vs. New School. In the packed room that possibly broke nine hundred people (amount of people that attended last year); many verbal fights broke out in a fun way. The two players on the Shrek board threw out old and being too young jokes to hype up the audience, with words of Apple Sauce, and telling each other to hurry up made the game quite interesting. In the end, the new school team beat the old school.

Back in the game room it was pretty much the same except a little more spread out from last year, but it still had all the same games. The room even had an eight player Bomberman towards back of the game room.

Through out the convention there were flash mobs with mobs from time to time. One would be able to catch them coming down from the left stairway in the lobby, or someone may dance on the walkway / bridge above the right escalators in the lobby.

Ever since the beginning of time, conventions always had panels run by fans for fans. Every thing from Vocaloid to classic anime, people were coming in. Some of the room seemed empty before Friday; however, after time people filled up the rooms.

For the dances, Animazement does not do the formal, but keeps with the tradition with having two regular dances. Friday night catered towards the regular folks; but then came Saturday with DJ Speedycake to bring out some music that makes people go, “Oh man they played ‘x’ song.” Both night seemed to be a success and Saturday people were there until early in the morning when the convention had to shutdown for the night.

Overall the convention was another success with a few minor things to fix from the line system, cosplay judging, informing staff members on critical information of what things are happening and how, and there are probably other things that may show up on the forums; things worked out this year and hopefully the best will come for next year, since Animazement is moving out of the “lucky” number year.

Animazement is Over….

The convention is over and it’s time to still continue to work. In the next few days the photos will be online because of the movement from Gallery 2 to Gallery 3 system for photo viewing.

Katsucon 2010 – Keep on Going

This year’s Katsucon was a year of “the show will go on” no matter what. Before the convention, the “Snowmageddon” hit the area pretty hard, but since it’s DC, they can also recover pretty fast. The convention assured the convention attendees that they will be cared for if they can make it to the hotel; after all, Katsucon went though a snow-in during 2003.

By the time of the convention, the roads were clear enough to drive on; therefore, even though many people were warned to not come to the DC area, there were troopers who made it to the convention on the clear highways of Maryland and Virginia.

Katsucon really did show that they could push through and keep an anime convention running by dealing with many mishaps. The major issue for the convention was that the badges for everyone attending the convention did not arrive on time. Because of that, there was no Thursday night pre-registration pickup. During the following Friday, everyone from attendee to staff were given paper vouchers as temporary badges to enter some of the events going on Friday morning until the actual badges made it in. This caused some issues for the registration room because those who have already waited in line for their vouchers had to wait in line again to get their badges. It did not take long for the staff to realize this and made a separate line for those with vouchers to pick up their badges.

The venue itself was one of the most unique of the anime conventions of the Mid-Atlantic. In the National Gaylord Hotel and Convention center, it was a sight to see just entering the hotel. Live classical music, an Atrium full of vegetation, dancing fountain, and just things that are just classy. For the convention side, Katsucon took up two floors of the convention center, being the first floor (Atrium Level) and the third floor (National Harbor rooms). This seemed odd for the layout, but it seemed sufficient. Some of the issues of Katsucon and the convention were that some of the events that are not in the exhibit halls were quite cramped. Some of the events were closed due to capacity and others were going on with some security having to help out with the crowded rooms.

With some of the problems of rooms, there were also some issues with scheduling too. For the most part, the convention went on as planned; however, the Temp concert was moved from Friday to be combined with Saturday due to the band being a no-show. This caused some of the Saturday events to start later, in the expense of some of the events for Friday to start early.

Even with the scheduling, the events did go pretty smoothly. From the maid café to the dances, everything seemed smooth. Like many conventions, the formal was a big hit as many people showed up in formal wear for the formal dance. Following the formal was the more upbeat portion of the night with the rave. Oddly with Katsucon being known for their rave / dance music, this year seemed a little disappointing with the music. There was people dancing, but the results from many people seemed disappointing.

Down the maid café made an appearance at Katsucon inside the Gaylord National. Sadly the sports bar was taken over for the maid café and the nice burgers were put on hold for the weekend in place of extremely expensive food. Prices ranged from $3 for a drink, $9 for less than a handful of chicken skewered, $6 for two small onigiris, and more money to play games with the maids. The maid café itself was a mixed result for many people, some people adored the scene, others…they were not so impressed with the atmosphere, adding on with the food, and the list can go on. One thing the maid café did do pretty nicely was first, they offered reservation with a maid prior to the convention (via katsucon.org) and second credit card is a form of payment.

So the food at the maid café was pretty expensive, this doesn’t mean food around the hotel was any cheaper. The National Gaylord is in National Harbor, Maryland, where the nearest McDonalds is a drive away; so all that are nearby are restaurants on the National Harbor grounds. Some of the restaurants ranged from Pot Belly where you could get a sandwich for a decent price, to $15 burgers at the Cadillac Grill, $20 meals at the Mexican restaurant, and of course there were the restaurants in the hotel. Food in the hotel ranged from $12 burgers to $30+ buffet. The hotel at some point did offer food services throughout the days in the atrium and in the Ballroom level portion of the convention center.

After filling up on the food, there are the main events. The usual components of an anime convention filled up the schedule, including the AMVs, Artist competitions, and concerts. For the concert, the band Unicon Table was making an entrance to the Mid-Atlantic with their JRock / JPop. During Thursday night, you would see people walking around advertising for Unicorn Table and asking people to attend a single release party offsite from the hotel.

The Masquerade is a must at any anime convention (alright maybe not Sugoicon) for the cosplayers to put out some talent. In exhibit A of the convention center housed the event, where a good variety of genres showcased. Darth Vader did not stay to host the masquerade, only to the kicked off by two Dead or Alive Beach Volley Ball cosplayers to host the event. Can’t really go wrong with that since they did do well hosting and on the spot photo for twitter. Again each entry showed that the masquerade doesn’t have to be boring, from mocking Anime convention staff, YMCA parody (YAOI), to singing sensations. Guess the only problem was 1) Part of the audience could NOT see the stage 2) Another year where they shove press into a pit on the concrete floor with half of them being blocked by the judges (not cool).

Katsucon also had a big emphasis with maids, from the maid café, to the professional maid cosplayer.

The hotel proved a good environment for the cosplayers as the atmosphere on all parts of the hotel added to the cosplays. From the marble floors of the ballroom level, to the plants of the atrium, everything seemed nice. The cosplays where even coordinated, as there was a lot of group cosplays to go around.

From the oddity of an Anime Convention at the National Gaylord, other events happened at the same place at the same time. Raytheon had a seminar through Thursday, a Military event happened (which some seemed to have made their way into the rave Saturday night), “A weekend to remember” marriage conference gave a nice mix to the scene. There were a lot of open eyes from those who were not attending Katsucon.

Overall, this was another success from Katsucon. Even though staff didn’t seem to know each other, it seemed everyone got along with each other. The excitement was there even though Valentine’s Day came around and many singles were around.

Katsucon Reports and Pics Coming Soon

Photos and reports will be up after the crew gets some rest and items in order. We WILL report back ASAP.

Ichibancon 2010

This was one convention where it makes a person appreciate good small cons again. Aside from the lack of information on their website prior to the convention and what looked to be disorganized with their DNS, the convention itself came to be a first year success it seems. One of the main advantages of Ichibancon was location and the support of Collosocon that has been going on for eight years now.

Ichibancon’s first year was held in an unusual place called the Great Wolf Lodge in Concord, North Carolina (up the road from Lowe’s motor speedway) which is a resort geared towards family fun deal. I will admit the first time I walked into the lobby of the hotel to check-in the back of my head went, “Uh oh…” Fortunately when checking in the staff told us the convention was held in the furthest end of the hotel, which was a bit secluded from the rest of the hotel activity.

Speaking of the hotel, this was an interesting one for an anime convention on the east coast. The Great Wolf Lodge resort is a family resort with children activities and an indoor water park. Over the course of the weekend, there was a big divide between con goers and the hotel. For one during the day around the lobby area and the floors above, there would be kids running around with wands with RFID tags in them playing “Magic Quest” throughout the hotel. Then there is the water park itself where if you get bored with the convention there is 400,000 gallons of water to play in.

For the convention itself it was pretty unique since it was small. Not meaning that there weren’t many people, but the space was small. There were two panel rooms, dealer’s room, and main events room. Jokingly we said the video room was out in the lobby area since there was a LCD TV with some couches around it. Also with the layout, there was the “Business Hub” that was taken over as the video game room, so it was truly a small convention.

There were a lot of people for that size convention, especially during Saturday. This was probably one of those conventions where there were more cosplayers than non-cosplayers running around the convention. Notably there were the usual mainstream cosplayers; however, there were a good number of cosplayers from animes that have not been released in the US yet.

During the entire weekend the lobby area served a multitude of events. Some random fun from the con attendees come from what seems to be a combination of Who’s Line Is it Anyway and LARP, to the random projectors and consoles brought out at random times by the convention. In the lobby were the registration area and the Artist Alley.

There wasn’t a formal 24 hour video game room; however, Saturday night, one of the panel rooms was converted to a video game room until the late night.

Dealer’s Room wise, it was expected to be small with not many DVDs for sale. A lot of random tidbits and plushies, but that was about it.

Ichibancon’s main events had almost all the usual events such as masquerade and the rave, but also a few other things that was unique this time. Earlier Friday was a ramen eating competition where mostly cosplayers would outdo each other in eating two cups of ramen at a time. There were of course “Name that anime” where contestants would hear an anime tune and in a similar style to “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” (minus phone a friend and 50-50 chance) would have to figure out the anime. There was also the formidable Cosplay Chess that was Anime VS. Video Games as their theme.

The same goes for the panel rooms where just various fan based events were held. Some of the notable ones that stuck out were probably the Pictionary and some of the 18+ such as Hentai Pictionary and Don’t Be That Otaku. Every panel at the Ichibancon looked a bit packed as they were enjoyable or had good stories from the host.

For the masquerade, the main events room was packed. There was a slight rush getting into the main events room at the time, but with the size of the convention, it really didn’t matter. During the masquerade, there was about eight skits and a bunch of walk-ons for the event. Like a small con, there would be some interesting skits on the stage and it showed.

Down to it, the convention was a first year success and hopefully the second year show that Ichibancon can be a future success.

Happy New Years!…from Magfest

One hell of a decade so far and it’s still going. I take a toast with a couple of friends with a flaming B-52.

More stuff from Magfest soon, not really much press work since this trip was last minute, but hopefully there will be things.

Anime USA 2009

This year’s convention was a great way to end of the year for many people. From the day it started, the convention seemed to be the slow cooking stew that was cooked to perfection. All the ingredients were in placed and slowly made its way to perfection. This year’s Anime USA seemed to have less people than last; however, the same ol’ Hyatt was still crowded and the elevators jammed packed.

From every event, it started off very slow. From the concerts to dances, it felt a little lack luster until sparks finally lit up the entire scene.

Friday’s events seemed a little slow as only a few panels or events were really an eye popper. The usual Formal Ball and Formal Dance lessons were a big hit and no one can forget the rave afterwards. More notably, the panels are the events that kept the convention moving when there wasn’t much to do. Things from Ask a Ninja, world cosplay summit, Quaff Concert, and worst of the internet. But again most of the eye popping events did not start until the evening.

Saturday had a little more of a kick to the day as everything that a weekend of a convention can do was pretty much jammed pack into Saturday. Cosplay Chess, Cosplay Fashion Show, AMVs, Geist, and of course Kaya were just shoved into one day. This was a good thing as there was a lot more people attending Anime USA on a Saturday compared to the Friday. Most likely this was because of the amount of students getting out of school Friday and arriving Friday night.

One of the most formidable events for any anime convention on the east coast is the Masquerade. This year at Anime USA came with a big surprise. Typically a masquerade would have about thirty to forty skits and walk-ons; but this year there was about fifteen. It was probably one of the shortest masquerades to date. This helped with remembering most of them too since most of them were actually good. Everything from the Gundam and Kanye West skit, Ah! My Goddess, Resident Evil stand up comedy, it all went well. Since there were not many skits, some of the skits showed there was not much of a time limit. The skits seemed to just stand out from each other too by not having a repeating skit of one series or one joke. Even the channel surfing was well done too. Since the theme for this year’s convention was steampunk, there was a steampunk fashion during the masquerade as the judges went to their hideout to choose their winners.

One of the most anticipated events during the convention was the Maid Café and the Host Club. Up in the Cinabar restaurant of the Hyatt Hotel located the Maid Café where there’s not other way to explain it than Maids are waitresses, but with a little more finesse. The system goes arcade style, where you exchange money (even credit cards) for tickets that are worth $2.00 each down by the bar area. You then can redeem those tickets for ordering food on the menu. Along side the menu you could also purchase playtime of certain games such as Hungry Hippo, Jenga, Uno, and other various games with the maid that’s serving you and/or with your friends at the table. Of course the prices are paying a premium for the hotel food; however, whoever was the cook making the food that day, I personally tip my hat to you for making it worth the money. Personally I did feel bad that some if not many of them did not get to sample the food. It would’ve probably helped them with explaining how the food is in a personal point of view. Overall this portion of the convention seemed orderly, minus being able to obtain more tickets at the spot to get more food. This was a bit unavoidable as from what the head of the café explained; the point of sale machines were down to be able to get more tickets at the restaurant and it’s against contract to work the café like a normal restaurant. Hopefully this will be resolved by next year.

Then there’s the Host Club all the way on the 19th floor of the hotel in the restaurant. I did not personally go to this one; however, I did go up there to see what’s going on. For being a male, it was just too weird. As you walked into the restaurant, you meet the host who stands next to a poster with pictures of various hosts that’s working. From what that was told, you go in and merely it’s a lounge where you buy single drinks or bottles to share between your friends and host(s). Bottle varied on prices from $20? and up to much as $75 and more. From the stories that had leaked from the 19th floor, some of the hosts did get drunk and had to be pulled from the floor to the back to be fed rice. This is to get the starch to soak up alcohol that was consumed.

So on forth to the concerts. Two of the three bands that people wanted to see were Quaff and Kaya. Can’t go wrong with a jrock band and a metro performing on stage. Both of the bands were surprisingly good and were decent to hear, if not the audience. During the Kaya concert, people shoved themselves as close to the barricades as possible. Like all standing concerts, it was definitely hard for the shorter people to see what’s going on stage.

Back in the tech crew area was a whole different story. Crews were just in the zone when an event happened, since every second counted to keep the performance going. Everything from the video to sound was synchronized with thousands of feet of cable running from the back to the front.

Overall the convention was a success, as typical of the convention of Anime USA is. Probably the hardest part of the convention was taking pictures of cosplayers.