Otakon 2004
It's already this late in the year?
Time goes by like Otakon '03 was just yesterday, but now Otakon '04 is now
officially in the record books. This year was quite different from last year in
many respects. First of all, I was able to get enough time off from work (extra
in fact) to attend all three days of the con as opposed to just Saturday and
Sunday last year. I took the day off on Wednesday to pack up and get ready for
travel on Thursday. This year I was able to get cheap airfare and fly down to
Washington DC instead of drive my ancient automobile down there. Of course the
consequence of a cheap ticket is that you'll get an unpopular flight schedule,
which meant that the flight leaves at 6am in the morning. So first thing
Thursday morning I was up and outside to get picked up by the taxi. The driver
turned out to be a fellow that I knew in high school many years ago, so it was a
treat to see him again, as we were good friends back then. The flight wasn't
very long, less than 1½ hours, and a great deal shorter than the 10 hours it
would take for me to drive there. I flew down to Dulles airport instead of BWI,
because this year I was able to stay with my sister and her family. I tried to
do this last year, but she was out of town during the con and I had to stay in a
hotel. This was also a special visit for me as well. Next month my sister is
moving to England, so it may be several years before I see her again. I showed
up at her house about 9:30am Thursday and we were able to spend the day
together. Her husband works at home on his pc constantly, so he really wasn't
able to do anything with us while I was there.
Friday morning was the first day of
the con. If you're not familiar with the DC area, I'll let you know that the
traffic in the area is utterly horrible, so there wasn't any point to me leaving
early for the drive to Baltimore. The distance is about 60 miles from my
sister's house to the con and takes a little more than an hour to get there. It
was about 11am by the time I got into the line for pre-registered members. It
was the first of many lines I stood in over the weekend, but that's just a fact
of life for large anime cons. It was about noon by the time I got my badge and
sticker for the L'Arc En Ciel concert, so I had a quick lunch and went first to
the 35mm theater to see Metropolis on glorious celluloid film. A visually
spectacular film, Metropolis is best seen this way to really appreciate it's
wonderful production. After that, it was a trip to the dealer's room to become
immersed in a universe of anime goodies of every kind imaginable. Right away I
picked up the last DVD of the Snow Fairy Sugar series, which I had decided that
I would use it as a worthy recipient object for Koge Donbo-san's autograph the
next day. After the afternoon shopping I went and had dinner and treated myself
to some nice seafood at a nearby Legal Sea Foods restaurant. The dinner was very
good, but also on the expensive side, so I only went the one time, I'd rather
spend my money on anime stuff. Friday evening I spent watching various anime
series in the video rooms. The ones I watched that night were: Lupin III,
Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade, Kiddy Grade, and Pretear. I tried to get
into one of the manga drawing workshops, but they were always packed full all
weekend. About 10pm I left to go back to my sister's house.
Saturday morning pretty much
started out the same way as Friday, except that I didn't have to deal with the
registration business and walked right in. There were two distinct objectives
for the day - see koge Donbo-san and the L'Arc En Ciel concert. I was a little
early so I went down to the artist's alley for a bit to try and find this person
that had some CLAMP fanart. She was there Friday, but told me that she had sold
out all of the pictures and would have more on Saturday. She wasn't there
Saturday at all, which was quite disappointing. Then I went to get in line for
the autograph signing. I showed up pretty early for that, but there were already
lots of people in line to see Koge Donbo-san. By the time the signing started,
there were literally hundreds of people in line to see her. I was able to get in
with the second batch of 50 people and get the cover of my DVD signed.
She had
on a very pretty purple kimono with a floral pattern on it. Like her characters, Donbo-san struck me as a very cute person, both in appearance and behavior.
There wasn't nearly enough time allowed for the autograph signing and a great
number of people were turned away sadly disappointed. After the autograph
session, I went to the panel with Koge Donbo-san and I was able to ask her a
couple of questions. This was her first visit to the US East Coast and she found
it to be very humid. She also started to draw at a young age and just liked to
do pictures of things that she saw on TV. She's also quiet and pretty shy and
doesn't like to have her picture taken, which was too bad because I thought that
she was pretty and very nicely dressed. Then it was time for THE BIG LINE. I am
not exaggerating when I say that the line to get into the L'Arc En Ciel concert
was seven blocks long outside in the sweaty humid air of the city. It took at
least an hour to get inside the arena and about another hour after I was seated
before the band came on to play. In the meantime they played episodes of
Fullmetal Alchemist on some video screens inside of the arena. For me, the
concert was largely a curiosity and I'm not too familiar with their material.
The music was good I thought and had a hard rock sound to it, not J-popish at
all. They were moderately loud, but there were some other girls behind me that
would screech as loud as they could every time the band did something that they
liked. When they did that I actually couldn't hear L'Arc En Ciel playing, they
were that loud, and several times I would've liked to strangle them. Aside from
that, it was a great concert and decent light show to go along with it. After
the concert, I went back to the video rooms to relax and watch anime. That night
I saw the second Cardcaptor Sakura movie, Tenchi Muyo in Love, and Arcadia of My
Youth. Tenchi Muyo in Love I've seen dozens of times at home on video, but this
time I was about to see it on 35mm film, which was a nice treat to see a very
familiar anime in a different format. Like Friday I drove back to my sister's
house about 10pm.
Sunday was a little different
because I had to go and attend mass and then drive to Baltimore for the con.
Sunday is the best day to go to the dealer's room, because the hot merchandise
has all been sold already and everything else (which is still tons of stuff) is
marked down to try and sell it off. I got some great deals on manga and DVD's
and other things too! That was my primary objective for the day, but afterwards
I went back to the 35mm theater and saw Millennium Actress. It's a very well
produced and directed film. The lead seiyuu playing Chiyoko puts on an
astonishing performance, so if you like such things, Millennium Actress is a
must see. The con schedule ended after that with only a feedback panel with con
staff remaining. I went just for curiosity to see what kinds of complaints
people had. The biggest ones were over confusion with handicapped access and the
people with "Hug Me" signs getting overly aggressive. They also gave out
unofficial attendance numbers that estimated the attendance at the con to be
around 21,000 people. It was a big jump over last year. After that I went back
to my sister's house to find the place locked and no one home. Obviously they
weren't expecting me back so early, so I went and had dinner at a restaurant and
came back. They still weren't home, so I got a manga book and read it for about
a half hour and then they returned.
After Sunday, the con of course was
over, but I still had another day of vacation on Monday because the flight home
wasn't until 9:30pm. My sister had to work, so I just slept late and relaxed,
but in the afternoon I went by myself to a new aviation museum just south of
Dulles airport. It was close by and very interesting to see all of the various
aircraft that they had in there. I was also surprised to see large planes like a
707, a Concorde, and an SR-71 Blackbird in the museum hanger. They were the real
things, not models or mock-ups. Later on I had dinner with my sister after she
came home from work and then we said our goodbyes. I went to the airport, but as
is normal nowadays, the flight home was about two hours late going out. So once
again - manga to the rescue!! Lately I've been reading Full Metal Panic, which
I've found to be very funny. Chidori-chan is loud and outspoken, but she's also
a realist and often finds herself constantly frustrated by nutty people and
situations. An lastly to end this tale, I arrived back home about 1am Tuesday
morning, also having to work the next day as well. *sighs*