Otakon has been going on since 1994, and it was in the Baltimore Convention Center (colloquially the BCC) from 1999 to 2016. My first Otakon was in 2015 when I was the fifth man at the good ol’ Days Inn across from the BCC at the behest of my buddy Chris (colloquially @gokuffy). My second year was Otakon’s last in Baltimore, and my only regret is never getting the chance to see the Orioles at Camden Yards. They were out of town my second year, but I remember a couple of my friends commenting on how the Cardinals fans that were in town were very nice. For those that don’t know the area, Camden Yards is within spitting distance of the BCC, and I trotted over there a couple times during my first two years at Otakon to see the statues commemorating the players whose numbers they’ve retired, including the nigh incomparable Cal Ripken.
But this year was Otakon’s first year in the nation’s capital, Washington DC. Otakon had long outgrown the BCC, and some may have been scared away due to the Baltimore riots in 2015 (I have no idea if that’s actually the case; just me idly and recklessly speculating). But its new venue, the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, is super nice. It is much larger—Otakon isn’t even using the entire venue—and easy to get turned around initially, but I was seemingly constantly lost in the BCC whereas I found my way around WEWCC pretty soon after the first day.
But…let’s talk about the first day, where either Otakon or the convention center experienced much more capacity than they were anticipating first thing in the morning. The con opened up at 8:00 a.m. for the 9:00 a.m. panels. If you got there straight at 8, or didn’t have a bag, then you were probably fine. If you had a bag, then you were in for a wait. I don’t want to try to say this bag check was as bad as, like, my first Otakon in 2015 when the line to pick up your badge was a more than four or five hour wait, or the Anime Expo badge pick up line this year where it was the same. Otakon’s bag check line (also the first time they’ve had to do bag checks) was an hour or two total waiting. But there were several organizational issues with it as I went through everything. I was routed from outside to the underground Marriott entrance for bag check, which was fine. But I go back to the main entrance later in the day (when they had probably figured out more of what to do with bag checks) and there’s eight people there. There were two people at the Marriott bag check entrance when I finally got through, and four was the most I saw there.
This is why I say they were just unprepared rather than believing this will be a reoccurring thing. By even later in the day for the first day, the bag check line was fine. I assume it will be the same come next year’s Otakon, but problems are problems and they should at least be spoken to.
I don’t let an hour out of a three-day con, and five-day experience for me, sour the entire thing though. However, it did annoy me for several hours.
Panels
I try to hit as many panels as I can at conventions, either those run by my friends, those I find interesting, or those from guests I want to hear speak about a topic I’m particularly interested in. This year, I only got to hit three panels I really wanted to see, and missed a lot more due to perusing the giant dealer’s room and artist’s alley.
The panels I did see, though, were mostly good. I only caught the last 10 minutes or so of the Reverse Thieves’ “New Anime for Older Fans,” but it was informative and entertaining as always. My podcasting buddy and co-host Helen ran a “Shojo You Should Know” panel, to which I arrived just on time after hustling from another panel. I started a manga podcast with her, so I trust her manga instincts, and the panel was heavily manga with some name drops of “this also has an anime, just fyi.” Heard of a lot of manga I knew, and a few I didn’t and am now intrigued by, but since I didn’t take notes like an idiot I’ll just have to ask her about them later.
There was an hour or two to kill after “New Anime for Older Fans,” so we hit a Rumiko Takahashi panel entitled “Aliens, Boxing, and Curses: The World of Rumiko Takahashi.” I gotta say, that’s a pretty good title for a panel. But the panel itself could use some work. It is ostensibly about Rumiko Takahashi, but there was barely any manga pages. The host played long clips of Takahashi’s manga adapted to anime, and without much explanation. There were some good nuggets of information before they went into the clip, but nothing that couldn’t be tracked down on Wikipedia or Google, it seemed. I watched like a five or so minute clip of Urusei Yatsura, and I’m not quite sure what it was about. I think the selling point for the clip, and thus the show, was “isn’t this wacky, don’t you wanna watch this wacky stuff in context?” I ended up leaving the panel, but not out of true disgust or horror. We just wanted to get to our next panel, and didn’t want to get lost like we did on the way to the Reverse Thieves’ panel.
One presenter I always try to see is the illustrious Charles Dunbar, who did “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Fight Them” (among others) this year. First, kudos on the panel title. And second, kudos on the panel overall. They told me later at Otabrew that their computer crapped out on them shortly before the panel, and they had to Frankenstein it together from four other panels. Dunbar is super knowledgeable on the topics they speak to, and a consummate performer, so the panel was interesting as every other panel I’ve been to by them (a Kill la Kill panel at Acen a few years ago and a panel on the first anime ever at last year’s Otakon).
I attended two other panels, both run by The Slants: “How Being Asian Got Me Into Trouble” and “All Asians Are Smart and Other Stereotypes.” The former was hosted just by Simon Tam and the latter was Tam and Joe Jiang. There are too many interesting things to say about these panels, and I filled up two whole pages in my tiny notebook on what they were saying (a habit I should keep for all panels I attend, really).
In the former panel, Tam spoke about how he wanted to seem less Chinese, and how he hated being Chinese growing up, even saying so to his parents at one point. But his parents were the same, to an extent, and wanted him to assimilate. He’s even illiterate in Mandarin to this day because of that. He can’t seem too Chinese.
But he, like me, realized that he wants to see Asians and Asian Americans being awesome, just like we see so many white actors, actresses, musicians, and artists of all stripes being awesome. Kill Bill was the first time he saw Asian on screen being cool, and it seemingly awoke (or probably more accurately further awoke) a pride in him in being Asian American.
Thus came The Slants. I spoke to Tam and The Slants’ lead singer, Ken Shima, in an interview, but I hold great pride for Asian American creators because I want to see more Asian American representation in things I consume. I want to be able to fill an entire work day with only listening to Run River North, The Slants, Awkwafina, and other Asian American musicians. Or listening to Code Switch, Mash Up Americans, Nancy, They Call Us Bruce, and other fine podcasts with Asian American hosts all day at work. I’m glad The Slants have perhaps provided further avenue for Asian Americans in music.
Dealer’s Room and Artist’s Alley
Artist’s alley this year was kind of huge. It would take basically a full day of con to walk through both the dealer’s room and artist’s alley this year, which is basically what we did. We spent one afternoon in the dealer’s room and the next in artist’s alley, with a drop in to each on Sunday for those final purchases. I heard they wanted to hang up banners with aisle numbers (finally), but I heard they didn’t have the time to this year. I really hope they have the time next year, because I’m already terrible with directions and it’s very easy to get lost, or more importantly not remember where something is, in either the dealer’s room or artist’s alley.
There was an incident at the artist’s alley this year in which a lot of water fell from the ceiling during a rainstorm. I was fortunately not in the artist’s alley at this time, but several artist’s merchandise was damaged by the water.
Otakon’s official statement partially reads:
…We have confirmed with the convention center management that this was due to a back-up of water from the roof drainage system.
To be clear, the water was rain run-off, NOT sewage, or a gas leak, or any other thing that has been passed around…
…We also asked that all artists who had items damaged by this incident were bring them to the Alley’s ops booth so we could document it to report to the building. Building staff also took reports.
So that’s good on several counts, including it wasn’t sewage or gas leaking into the artist’s alley, nor does it seem the artist’s will completely lose out on the potential profits for their merchandise. This did confuse I’m sure a lot of people on Sunday because they had to move several booths due to the water. And I had no idea where their new location was.
Those are acts of god though, and not predictable by either the convention center or Otakon.
Summary
I love Otakon. I regret not being able to hit an Orioles game either of my previous two Otakons, but I did see a relatively uneventful game at the Nationals ballpark. Alas, Bryce Harper was injured, and it was a Sunday afternoon game as part of a doubleheader. Those Sunday lineups always make things a little interesting, and it was a good time with good people at least.
I do hope I can go next year, but we’ll see if money lines up (hotels are expensive!). Otakon has become a yearly pilgrimage / summer camp for all my Twitter friends, and I’d hate to miss any year. I always have a great time at Otakon, and this year is no different.
