Every year, Baltimore denizens welcome (whether they like it or not) thousands of screaming, sometimes rabid, otaku to the largest anime
convention on the East Coast: Otakon. This year, Anime Secrets was able to send a few intrepid field agents along with the flood to the
Baltimore Convention Center (BCC) to cover this annual three day orgy of cosplaying, impulse spending and Japanese culture. The experience
was unforgettable, for a myriad of different reasons and Anime Secrets was glad to be able to be part of it all.
Thursday, August 3rd - Pre-Con
This being my first Otakon, I was naturally very excited and anxious. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite enough to keep me from having
to go into work that day. I toiled away at me desk until around noon, when I hopped into my car and made my way down into New York City
to pick up Anime Academy alumnus Tyrdium, who had taken the bus down from Boston. After rendezvousing with him in uptown
Manhattan, we finally got underway for Baltimore around at around 2:30 in the afternoon. Armed with MapQuest directions, we made
excellent time down the Garden State Parkway, making the trip into Maryland in about two hours. Once in the general area of Baltimore,
however, MapQuest failed us utterly. An hour and several wrong turns later, we finally pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn
Express where we had lodging arrangements (which had been arranged by our very own Administration Officer, sohryu), only to find
that our reservations were not for the Holiday Inn Express, but for the regular Holiday Inn at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Thankfully, the hotel staff seemed to get travelers making that mistake frequently, and they gave us easy directions to our actual hotel.
Tyrdium and I quickly dropped off our bags in the room and hopped back into the car to pick up our membership badges at the BCC.
Being a veteran New York driver, I was able to weave my way though the mucky downtown Baltimore traffic, fortunately avoiding hordes of
jaywalking bums and cosplayers alike. After parking at a rather expensive underground lot, we navigated ourselves to the BCC, which at
first sight is rather impressive and daunting, especially with masses of ravenous otaku lined up all around it, waiting not-so-patiently
to be admitted entrance. Luckily, we only had to wait outside in the humid August heat for a relatively short time. Once inside,
Tyrdium went to join the maze-like line in front of the registration booths while I headed over to pick up my press pass at the
aptly named Special Needs booth. I was surprised when they simply processed my pre-registration and sent me on my merry way, leaving me
to try and figure out where to get my press pass. With some help from an usher, I found the press room, which was locked for the day,
meaning I'd already missed the press orientation meeting. So far, my first Otakon experience was turning out quite lovely.
Tyrdium and I piled back into the car and as we headed back to the hotel, got a call from the other half of our group, fellow
Agent Lady Sage and some dude she met on the Internet, I think he called himself Le Bread. They were supposed to be
arriving from Washington, but as it turns out, Le Bread's car had broken down right outside D.C., and as such, they had no way
of transporting themselves to Baltimore. I briefly entertained the idea of going to get them, but the darkening sky and my grumbling
stomach told me otherwise. After figuring out logistics for the next day with our stranded comrades, Tyrdium and I returned to the hotel, had a quick dinner, planned our itineraries and got some much needed sleep.
Friday, August 4th - Day One
Being out the door by 8:15 AM wasn't quite enough to keep us from being waylaid by confusing roads and inconvenient detours,
so Tyrdium and I pulled into the same overpriced lot from the day before around 40 minutes later. Trekking to the BCC, we
observed the still humongous line outside the building proper. There were, of course, many cosplayers among them; I noted a few of
the more popular ones being Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy VII, which was unsurprising. Once inside, I flitted off to
the Press Ops room to pick up my press pass, as well as a ticket for the Nana Kitade/MUCC Concert later.
It was then I spotted a short, bespectacled cosplayer wearing far, far too much pink. Working on a hunch (and a previous phone call), I
walked up and introduced myself and was promptly glomped by Mana, fellow AS agent at the time. She had a rather impressive
entourage from Anime Academy with her, including Kain, Mugs, Eek, Roark and Alex. After some quick
and dirty introductions, Kain proceeded to give a tour of the BCC and its various amenities, which was quite helpful to an
Otakon first-timer such as myself. The tour ended with a trip out side to the nearest ATM, as the ones inside the convention center
had already been sucked dry by the hordes of otaku. It was there we encountered Mira, another fellow agent as well as director
of publicity for Sakura-con. More introductions were made and meet-ups planned, as I was starting to wonder just who we would run into next.
After returning to the BCC, I made my way to the OverClocked Remix panel at around 10 o'clock. It turned out to be their first
Otakon panel and they were reasonably nervous, so I was able to sympathize with them in spirit. I was a bit unprepared as well, not
having a notebook to write notes in, so I had to make do with the fact sheet provided in the press package. The first half hour
consisted of explaining what exactly OC Remix is (a website dedicated to remixes of video game music). After explaining,
the panel members played a few examples of their music, most of them being from older, classic games, the overwhelming favorites
being Chrono Trigger, Sonic the Hedgehog and Final Fantasy. They also had a few live performances, which were
fairly decent, though I was reminded why most music is recorded in studios.
Having had my fill of Uematsu remixes, I went off to meet up with the others at the AMV overflow. After watching a few of them, I
quickly realized why they were part of the overflow and not the actual competition. Not really wanting to subject our senses to the
seemingly millionth Naruto AMV, our group decided to head for the Dealer's Room. As we approached, I was somewhat alarmed to
see the tail end of a rather huge line that was indeed for the Dealer's Room, which was set to open at noon. However, Thanks to
Kain's slick manipulation of a security guard and the vibrant green press passes a few of us possessed, we were able to
squeeze into the Dealer's Room half an hour before anyone else.
The room had a very bazaar-ish feeling to it, with vendors as far as the eye could see, peddling wares ranging from cheap
gashapon sets to ridiculously expensive figurines. I took advantage of the relative emptiness and calm before the storm
and availed myself to a few of the vendors, securing a number of neat souvenirs, including a NERV messenger bag and a notebook.
After all, I couldn't very well be a proper member of the press writing my notes on the back of the pocket program guide the whole
time. Noon rolled around soon after, and with it the masses who had been lining up since early morning to get in. To our chagrin,
the downpour of people was quite orderly and not the chaotic mess of pushing and shoving we'd thought it would be. The room did get
a bit difficult to breathe in, however, so we hastily made our exit.
The next few hours involved finding a place to eat lunch, a quick check back into the Dealer's Room and meeting up with
Lady Sage and Le Bread, who had finally made it into the BCC following an almost cartoon-esque drive from
Washington, D.C. The next panel we'd scheduled to attend was the Madhouse panel at 5 PM, so most of us killed time
in the large theater showing Ouran High School Host Club (which is probably the best anime of the season to this point).
By 4:55 PM, we were safely seated in the second row of the Madhouse panel, ready for the goodies the venerable
Maruyama Masao was to entice us with. The teaser included such shows as Redline, Black Lagoon, Yume Tsukai,
Kiba and Highlander: Vengeance (the last one causing me to do a double take at the sheer ridiculousness of the trailer).
Afterwards, Maruyama fielded questions, which ranged from Madhouse's animation production (mostly traditional paper and pencil
with digital enhancement) to the sources of Madhouse's original concepts. Maruyama stated that sometimes manga artists such as
CLAMP will come forward and ask for a particular work of theirs to be made into an anime, and that at other times, Madhouse
will approach a manga artist and ask if they would like their work to be animated, as it happened with Black Lagoon. He assured us,
however, that manga was not the only source Madhouse looked to for their projects. At that point, Kain questioned Maruyama about
the delay in Redline, an extremely stylish racing show that apparently had been in production since the last Otakon. He informed
us that it was the pet project of Koite Takeshi (of Animatrix fame) and that Koite was handling almost all aspects of
Redline, including directing, producing and animating the whole thing. Maruyama stated it was tentatively scheduled for a
2008 release, though he said it with a rather rueful expression, making me think that even he wasn't sure when exactly Koite would
finish it.
It is at this point that we decided to attend the Nana Kitade/MUCC concert, which took place at the Ram's Head Live,
a club a few blocks away from the convention center. This event though was covered much more in-depth by Agent Lady Sage, so
I'll let her report do the talking.
After returning from the rocking MUCC concert, we spent a little downtime at the BCC before heading back to the hotel.
Little did I know that my night was not yet over. As Lady Sage, Tyrdium and I sat at a gas station fueling up, who was
to call but Le Bread, whose car had broken down for the third time in two days. Sighing wearily, I got back into the car and drove us
down to where his car was and waited there with him until AAA came to tow it back to the hotel. Needless to say, none of us got a
proper dinner that night. I can't remember exactly when we all finally put in for the night, but I'm pretty sure it was after two in
the morning. C'est la vie.
To be continued...
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