Otakon 2005
August 24th, 2005Update: Added tony’s pictures.
Click here for Cosplay Pictures!
This year’s otakon was amazing. I am proudly here to bring you, my 3 day adventure at otakon!
Friday
Time to wake up. It’s 5 AM. Time to shower, eat breakfast etc. 6:00 AM comes and I finnaly get a call from Tony,who is driving. He’s coming to pick me up! Around 6:15 I hop on and we take off to pick up Jose. It’s around 6:30 now. We finnaly are driving out of Bayonne and head for the NJ Turnpike.
The Adventurers:
Jose
Myself
Tony
At the beginning of our drive we have established a new objective. While coming back, we must eat at Roy Rogers at all costs!
The 3 hour drive was pretty boring but here are some highlights. This is the car that we were in.(Toyota Corolla) Except with more shit. (bastards!)
We have finally reached the end of New Jersey. This is Deleware Memorial Bridge. Last year it looked very sinister. However, this year it looks very innocent. (We don’t know why…)
Newark? In Deleware? I bet it’s as shitty as the one in NJ. (Note: There is another Newark in Maryland to add to the confusion.)
Oh shit, we are late!. The convention center opened and we are only halfway there!
Curses! Heavy rain and traffic is upon us!
But what’s this!?
Two state troopers of Maryland are fishing for people to pull over. (Bastards!)
Self Bus? Do bus drivers bus themselves?
NO HAZMATS! (hazardous materials (like what?))
OH shit! It’s the big ramps to Baltimore!
This means that we are finally here!
After parking a couple blocks away at the Gallery, we go on foot and rush to the convention!
Oh shit, the line to the registration(and pre registration) is huge.
They made us line up around the glass outside of the building. It’s such a tease :/
We finally make it to the inside.
The registration line is so much bigger than the pre registration line. I wonder if some of those people will be turned away if the cap is reached.
Yes! We’re next! Badge get!
We look at the time and what can we do. THE DEALER ROOM OPENS SOON. We look for the end of the line…there is no end of the line. The line was closed off. BUT, a new line is formed! A line to the line. Excellent!
There is a slight problem though. The line to the line…all the way down the hall and outside at the skywalk…
Finally, after a long bit of walking and waiting we make it to the dealer room. Yes! Anime merchandise get! (Note: The dealer room this year was made even bigger than last year’s. First thing we noticed when we entered. Picture of Geneon booth.)
After we are done looking around at all the cool shit we decide to get out and eat something. But shit, long lines for fast food. Oh well. (Note: Is this duck?)
We drop our anime valuables at the car and notice something….legal sea foods. Yes, they are probably legal. As opposed to illegal seafoods…Which you won’t find anywhere…unless you look very very hard. Tony said that it’s an excellent idea to name a restaurant legal sea foods if you want to sell illegal sea food. He’s probably right.
We go play a little video games and then go see a little live performance. It’s the Indigo. Brought to you from Japan by Geneon. Made famous after doing the ED song for an anime. Their music was alright. Bearable, but a little bland.
Since we were near by, after the indigo performance we went to the girl gamers panel. It was quite an interesting panel to say the least.
I don’t know why, but ADV had 2 panels at otakon. A smaller one and a bigger one. We attended both. The panel on Friday was the smaller panel which featured trailers to new anime and extras to some already released anime. (They were hilarious)
After the panel we headed for the screening of Hellsing Ultimate. We sat down and waiting just to find out THAT THEY WON’T BE SHOWING IT TO US BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T ACTUALLY MADE THE ANIME YET! Gotta love Geneon. Well, it’s our fault for not looking at the correction sheet. Oh well, we needed to check into our motel. This is basically the end of Friday except for…DR FISH!
Saturday:
After staying the night at a Red Roof Inn motel 15 minutes away from Baltimore, we wake up at 7 AM. After showering and stuff, we come back to Baltimore for breakfast. On our way from the parking garage. We took a few more shots of the town:
Crabs
Believe what?
We arrived at the nearest blimpie (which is right across the street from the convention center). The ADV panelist was right. Most Otaku like to wake up late. The whole convenience place was pretty empty.
Tony: “The heart of Baltimore!”
There really wasn’t much to do in the morning except play video games maybe. We decided to go see the AMV contest, but we had no idea where they screened the main events. As a result we wondered around. We went to the dealers again and played some video games.
Jose is very good at street fighter games, but he can’t beat crazy asians.
A word of advice. Bring cash with you or you will end up waiting in lines to get cash.
We decided to see the mall that is above the Gallery (where we park). It was impressive looking to say the least.
We looked into a gameshop and then headed for the food court. We originally thought there was a sushi/teriyaki place there. However, we were hungry and the chinese place was good enough.
Even Spike has to eat sometimes.
After we were done, we headed back…to find that the convention center has become more packed than ever before!
Let’s just say that if you are in a group, and go off on your own to photograph cosplayers, you are bound to lose your friends. After we took a slew of pictures and found each other. We headed to the showing of Out of The Dark. Hilarious movie. (”He was obsessed by Grandma!”)
We had 30 minutes till the Evangelion panel. We were pleasantly suprised by a Gendo who had a sound system on his belt and played Evangelion music. There were also a couple Reis. Quite expected from Eva fans.
It was 10th anniversary of the panel and I can still say that the panel was awesome.
Otakon is annoying sometimes with the schedules. The second ADV panel was already underway after we were done with Evangelion panel. Oh well. We managed to come during a big Q/A session.
Then came the Geneon panel. But, the Indigo is there instead. (what?) Oh well, a Q/A session for the Indigo, no problem.
We originally came to complain about that showing of Hellsing Ultimate. However, we stopped caring after they showed us the trailer to it. Apperently, the trailer has no scenes from the actual anime. In fact, they haven’t actually made the anime yet.
lol, Media Blasters panel. I don’t know how I could describe it. “Let’s just do a Q/A session since I have nothing to show you.” “We basically license everything that hasn’t been licensed yet.” You get the idea.
Okay, there was nothing left but 4chan. We just wasted time and came early. THANK GOD WE CAME EARLY. A giant line quickly formed and we were somewhere near the front of the line. This was supposed to be something funny. But my camera was being retarded. Sorry. You can probably find it at the /b/ sticky anyways.
Here is a picture of the panel itself.
The panel was simply hilarious. Quite predictable when putting a lot of 4channers in a room. God knows how many rules the panel broke. Otakon probably hates 4chan now.
Let’s do the moot.
Saturday was already over. So it was over for us as well. Time to go to sleep.
Sunday:
The only highlights we expected was the signature session of Scott McNeil (which was important to Tony) and the Piano Squall concert.
Hey guys, let’s take the skywalk this time.
When we arrived for the signature session, the line was already huge. Tony got lucky, a few people behind him was a point where the staff was closing the line.
We left Tony for his fun and went to the dealers for our last purchases. We wanted to get pretty good seats for Piano Squall so we left early. We ended up walking on Kumiko Kato’s concert. Let’s just say I don’t like idol jpop.
At this point I had battery problems. (No more spare batteries.) Oh well, we waited for Piano Squall. I have to say that it was worth the wait. Piano Squall was simply awesome.
While Jose and I were watching the concerts, Tony was away busy getting a signature from Scott Mcneil. Here are some pictures he took. Oh and a close up of the Indigo.
The convention is over, but our adventure isn’t.
Goodbye Otakon 2005
The result: over 1000$ worth of merchandise in the trunk.
As we exit the Gallery we notice something. Is this duck?
Everyone seems to be wanting to go at the same time.
What’s this? Blue cabs?
Endless traffic…
Oh shit, Japan is really in Maryland.
There were a total of 3 car accidents on our trip and this is one of them.
Finally, we are almost back in New Jersey. Back to the barely enforced highways. Hooray.
Hooray!
The story of the bus:
Soon after we entered New Jersey, we witnessed a big church bus. Tony: “If they added a little more touch ups, it would be the ultimate hellsing bus.” Anyways, the bus was going at around 70 MPH. Tony cut it off. Soon we noticed that the bus was being driven by a cop who stuck his badge out of the window. “Who does he think he is? Keanu Reeves in Speed?”. So yeah, church bus driven by a cop who is obviously speeding. Great. Oh and guess where the bus is from. That’s right, Newark, NJ.
Soon we noticed something amazing. A Jeep with Nerv on the side. (That’s right, the bus is still there.)
Yes, we finnaly approach relief. Roy Rogers is up ahead!
We immedietly notice one thing. The nerv jeep has parked right behind us. The driver and the passager, entered the service building…and dined at ROY ROGERS.
For us, mission accomplished! Return home!
We cheer as we see exit 10.
Several minutes later, we approach exit 14A. We are finally home!
We are back in Bayonne.
OWARI
My stuff:
In no particular order.
“I want a Japanese girlfriend” T-shirt
Samurai Champloo T-shirt
Popotan Poster
Sugar Cube Doll H-Manga
Figures of Happiness English H-game by G-collections/Angelsmile
Silent Satin SS H-Doujin
Under Blue 8 H-Doujin
Gambler Club Lets Mix 3 H-Doujin
State of Synthpop 2003 CD Album
Syrian: De-synchronize CD Album
Two-Mix BPM “Best Files”
Panda Plushie
Azumanga Diaoh doujin
Initial D Selection 1 Boxset
4chan button: Anynomous 08/21/06(Sun)
Otakon Badge and Guide
Samurai 7 Demo disc