2009 Otakon –where does the time go!?-

The saying goes that time sure flies when you’re having fun. What a very true statement to say because this con disappeared in a blink! In a very simple and quick way to say what Otakon was, it was fun and smooth this year. Attendance was very high, the weather wasn’t all that bad in the evenings, and a few more food choices this year (if you like street vendors)!

Attendance was higher than expected this year in which that’s always a great thing. What truly makes anime cons fun are the people. Who doesn’t love hearing shouts and echos of “Buttscratcher!” all weekend? Granted, the registration lines are always a bit of a nightmare (long lines are long) but I can understand there’s not really much Otakon can do about that. Part of the convention center was under construction (the outside platform in the middle building, second floor) and I’m sure this didn’t help the spacing and stuffy hallways. Still, part of the glamour of Otakon is that the con is just filled with tons of people so it’s part of its unique charm.

Like last year, only con attendees were allowed into the convention centers. They would have staff members check badges. No problem with that though and it works out quite well except this year, seems some non-con goers snuck in and was going around taking pictures. Luckily, it was nowhere as bad as a previous Otakon (right after the end of a baseball game, many drunken tourists hassled several people).

The layout of events hasn’t really changed much since last year. The dealers’ room still occupied the whole giant part of the downstairs, lots of photo shoots in the waterfall area, etc etc. The escalators actually ran all weekend though sometimes they were randomly blocked by staff and sometimes they were free for all. However, the whole layout can be fairly overwhelming for anyone new to Otakon. A simple look in the map will tell you how to get to places but it would be extra convenient if the staff members also had the maps and showed you how to get to places (a lot of people did not know where the masquerade was even being held at).

For future reference, the new Hilton hotel that opened right next to the convention center (fully accessible through the beautiful skywalk) is a fabulous hotel. Not only was it very convenient (never even have to step outside), but the hotel was beautiful (plenty of spots around for some great photoshoots), the rooms were very spacious, and the staff was courteous. They actually had staff guarding the elevators, checking to see if you had a room card. At first this was annoying and it didn’t help that they were a bit rude about it. However, this did seem to keep the elevators going nice and smooth.

Onward to the events of the convetion, this year was blown away with the guests performing at the convention. Kanon Wakeshima played on Saturday to satisfy the crowd with the cello / dark music and Mell to kicked in with the techno type / jpop to make the crowd jump up and down.

Other guests came VAMPS (JRock group), Becca (Singer), Kikuko Inoue (voice actress) who’s known to play Belldandy in Ah! My Goddess, and Noboru Ishiguro (Director/Producer) known for works on Battleship Yamamoto and the original Macross. Unfortunately like many other US anime conventions, not many Japanese guests showed up, must’ve been the swine flu epidemic.

Otakon is not Otakon without the industries releasing information on what’s going to go on in the near future. Some of the round ups is Funimation licensing some anime including, Spice and Wolf (First Season). Spice and Wolf is about a merchant who finds a wolf deity on his travels and then after some story about the village and a bargain, the two set off to travel to several of places.

Bandai has raised its Bandai flag by announcing that they acquired Kannagi ~Crazy Shrine Maidens~. Of course that means it’s coming soon to a store near you. Later in the year the second volume of the series (episodes 7-14) will come out later this year. What better way for Bandai to announce the US release of Kannagi than at Otakon? You have the industry, large convention, and the director Yutaka Yamamoto who directed Kannagi and a handful of other known series, Haruhi, Lucky Star, Full Metal Panic to name a few.

No anime convention is without a masquerade and once again, Otakon throws one in the 1st Mariner Arena. As usual the amount of people attending was larger than any other main event during the convention, bringing in forty skits. The amount of good skits for the crowd to cheer for was more than last year’s; however, not much more. Some of the surprising ones would be the Spice Girls Sailor Moon mix and the Naruto Taiko Drumming caught attention of the audience, merely because a lot of people thought it was going to be bad but turned out to be exceptionally well done. Since it is an anime convention, there was the occasional current day joke, including Michael Jackson thrown in there. Too soon.

Of course there’s the Sunday drag, or was it? It was like /b/ in Otakon with the “Awesome,” Santa, bagpipes, “Buttscratcher,” and well… just madness. There was just no way to explain what happened on Sunday except it was exceptionally interesting. Okay the entire weekend was something, like the Billy Mays and Vince battles, or was it team work? Oh well, well both cosplayers made the convention a little more interesting. Either way the convention was well done this year.

Finally this year, the lights were turned off in the rave. Thank you thank you. This really changes the whole rave to a different level. Great music and with the lights off, the rave was off to a great start. But for such a huge con, the spacing for the rave just isn’t enough for everyone. Without too much space, the bad odor really reeked this year even more. Here’s hoping that they could find a giant space somewhere to host next year’s rave.

There were tons of other events during the weekend, but like every convention it was pretty hard to go to. The Baltimore Convention Center is a large venue to house over 26,000 people so a lot of calories was lost during transit that needed to be replenished. Other events included the game show, the Bleach Panel that was rumored to be a 4chan panel in disguise, art auction, and many more.

All in all, Otakon went very smoothly. Even with the recent hard drives with the economy, its great to see everyone get together and just have a great time. The best closing words for Otakon? “Buttscracther!”

Anime Expo 2009 Photos

We finally got photos from this year’s Anime Expo on the site, so go over and check it out here!

Bagpipes….

A little taste of Sunday at Otakon:

Otakon 2009 is over……

The departure of the quadrain.com team, from the heat, to the “awesome” window design, to the bag pipe, we finally got photos up. Next up is the report and maybe a few other things….maybe.

Few words from what was remembered at Otakon before we left; “Bag Pipes,” “Butt Scratcher,” and “Awesome”