Otakon 2010 Event and Panel feedback

As my first trip to a convention anywhere near the immensity of Otakon, I was overwhelmed and didn't manage t accomplish much of what I planned when just glancing at a schedule. I would like to offer my impressions of some of what I experienced at the convention. These are not full panel coverage, as many other blogs have that well documented.

Friday-

Vertical Inc. Panel

Ed Chavez and Felipe Smith, aided by intern Ko Ransom (Welcome Datacomp), presented an endearingly deadpan panel compared to the overly enthusiastic and flashy presentation by FUNimation. It was a low-key event where they introduced their recent and future releases, including Chi's Sweet Home, Peepo Choo, Black Jack, Twin Spica, Ayako, 7 Billion Needles, and Lychee Light Club. In addition to manga, they mentioned upcoming Sudoku, cookbooks, craft books, and novels.

The Vertical Inc panel actually began with the uplifting news that the company has been doing better, and went into 2010 with a growth of eighteen percent. The panel concluded with a Q&A session where the audience enthusiastically asked questions about possible licenses from exactly the kind of well-read audience associated with Vertical. Ed then asked us a couple questions. He asked if we have been seeing more Vertical titles in bookstores; I responded that despite having trouble even getting my South Texas B&N to order me To Terra before, ever since around the release of MW my local store has been well stocked.

Felipe Smith was a cool guy and it was interesting to hear from a Western mangaka who lived in Japan and had it published there before the Western release. He introduced the series and explained some of its themes.

Anyone who follows Vertical_Ed on twitter knows how open the company is with fan relations and often reveals specific and interesting details on what is going on. This was just as present at the panel, where frank details and fan interaction keeps it entertaining and less manufactured than other company panels. Its true that I have read live tweets from the panels many times in the past, but being present at the Vertical Inc panel was very entertaining and I would love to attend in the future.

Madhouse

I had been really looking forward to Masoa Maruyama's Madhouse presentation and was not at all disappointed. The bulk of the actual panel was spent viewing trailers and introducing new shows. The highlight was confirmation of Redline's upcoming US distribution, accompanied by an exciting trailer and facts on the 6 year long Redline production.

The Q&A session was even more interesting, as the audience was full of questions. Maruyama was very responsive to questions and would give detailed answers when necessary while humouring even the most inane fanboy queries. Maruyama is a really cool guy who reveals a lot of interesting views on the company and series they work on, while being humourous about things and not taking the panel too seriously. The Madhouse panel was extremely interesting, and I was glad to see a reasonably large crowd and enthusiastic audience. I wanted to ask a question, so I inquired about the possibility of Trava Fist Planet (set in the same world as Redline) being released alongside Redline or as an extra. As expected, there are no plans at this time.

FUNimation

A fan favourite event, the FUNimation panel was presented in a much larger room with an immense line. I inquired if press go to line's front and received an "I dunno" in response. I took my seat amongst my fellow congoers and logged into pictochat as I had noticed a few other Nintendo DSs nearby. The chat room discussion was concerning how obnoxious the Hetalia fans were being and relief that they were currently attending something else. After a few minutes, a horde of squealing fangirls exited a room and suddenly the noise once again saturated the area. Pictochat again filled with annoyed commentary on the Hetalia fandom.

The FUNimation panel itself was made into a major event with giant screens showing flashy trailer for series such as My Bride is a Mermaid (looks interesting) , Hetalia (imagine the squee), Master of Rumble Hearts (mmm sophisticated -_-), and others. The two fan highlights were the announcements of the second EVA movie and Summer Wars. Most people know what a huge fan I am of Hosoda and Summer Wars so this was easily my most exciting convention announcement.

The panel itself though, did not really amaze me. While online FUNi has proven to be very interested in fandom involvement, it lacked the delightful openness of Vertical Inc and Madhouse. The presentation was too over-the-top for my liking and felt too much liked canned PR. Unlike the previous panels, I didn't see much benefit over just reading the announcements over twitter. They did have a good Q&A session at the end that addressed some interesting questions.

Gothic Lolita Fashion Show

Yes, I went to this. Shut up. This event took place in the same room as FUNimation's, with a long runway for the models to walk down. The room was darkened with lights shining down along the length of the runway. I was unsure what freedoms press had for photographs, so I looked around to see what others were doing. A large group was sitting on the floor close at the front with cameras ready. Before it started, a otakon staff member told the group to take seats unless you are press. "Yes, ma'am" I responded as I stayed due to my badge. A few minutes later, another staff member told us all to disperse. After another pacifistic "yes, sir" I took a front row seat waiting just behind me.

The show was divided up into each designer who presented a series models wearing their designs. The girls would walk down, pausing for photos a couple times each before walking back behind the curtain. Photographing these ladies was quite a challenge for myself, whose normal photography focuses on still subjects such as industrial scenes and anime figures. After taking a shot, my camera spends a good bit processing before I can snap another. I was able to get about two photos per model while experimenting how to most effectively capture the fleeting subjects on the spot.

The fashion show was tastefully done and maintained its focus on the topic. The presentation went by smoothly, aside from sound issues. When the music was playing it was too loud to also hear the speakers; also they kept running into audio problems where the music would disappear.
After the show, the designers all came onto the stage wearing one of their outfits to answer questions from excited young girls. Amid questions about dresses and sewing and such, I was taking the opportunity to take a handful of pictures now that they were still.

Overall, it was a well done event that attracted quite a large crowd. While no one cares about my opinions on ladies fashions, I found the bulk of the outfits quite cute, though a few pieces were a bit out there for my taste. I'll have more details on specific examples when I develop my photos soon.

Saturday-

The Changing Faces of Anime

This panel was run by my rival Evan Minto (Ani-Gamers), who put on a solid show. The crowd was not huge, but still filled quite a few seats considering it is a non-silly, non-industry panel at 9:30 am. You would have to be really interested to make your way over here after staying up late for all the "after hours" convention fun. As the title suggests, Minto described how the character designs in anime have progressed and what influences lead to different styles and phases. His topic was obviously well researched as he described gekiga or Otomo. After making his disdain for moe obvious, he narrowly avoided my rocket punch from the back row by mentioning that moe is not necessarily of sexual intent. Good save, my friend.

I really enjoyed the panel, and learned a few things myself from the analysis of earlier years. Minto is a good speaker who kept the panel flowing and engaging. The audience laughed at some of his jokes, and many seemed to really get into it. Afterwords, he took a few questions from the audience and there was some interesting post-panel discussion. Amusingly, he told me later that someone mentioned that he would make a good podcaster.

Minto could not remember the name of the author of Tekkonkinkreet, so I came up to announce it at the end. I write this, and my other involvements mentioned earlier, so that anyone interested can think "Oh I remember that guy". The Changing Faces of Anime was a good, informative panel that I find much more refreshing than such inane topics as how one might be able to become a ninja and/or samurai within the panel's 1 hour duration.

Welcome to the Space Show

This was easily my otakon schedule highlight for two reasons. Most importantly is that watching film premiers along with my cartoon comrades seems to really fullfill what an animation convention is all about, in an era where the proliferation of availability has caused the actual watching of anime to fall lower into a con's priorities. Secondarily, though, as a huge fan of Kamichu I was extremely excited to see what the team was going to unveil next. The hilariously engrish trailer had captured my attention quite a while ago. I loved the movie, but am saving details for an upcoming audio recording.

Touhou

If not for my press pass sending me to the beginning of the line, I would not have been able to attend the Touhou panel at all. Now, I realized that the fandom is quite large, but I certainly did not expect it to draw the large crowd that it did. Admittedly, I felt a bit awkward cutting to the front while devoted Touhou cosplayers were left outside as the panel room became full. The line outside was so intent on attending, that many remained after the doors closed in the hopes that someone would leave and open another seat.

Before the panel began, the screens in front showed the games as the panelists set their gamepads up to play with it. During this waiting period, a man behind me was giving commentary through amusing rap lines. The one that left the most impression was the line prophesying that the entire panel would consist of just watching them play the game. For the first several minutes, this actually seemed to be the case. First they introduced the games by showing a couple off, and then asked an unfamiliar member of the audience to try playing the game for the first time. The audience clapped when he weaved through tight spots and made vocalized sympathies when he took damage. I am told that around this time a couple guys left, angrily, and started shouting to those waiting outside that the panel is nothing but playing the game and not even on a hard difficulty.

It was an interesting panel all around. The panelists would describe ZUN's related works or the immensity of the doujin scene, but with enough brevity to leave outsiders confused and fans feeling like they already knew that. The entire thing was all over the place, but still managed to be a lot of fun. I can't say that I really got a lot of information out of it, but the spirit of touhou fan camaraderie was very present and the panelists were good-humoured and entertaining. I liked how one guy (apologies for forgetting everyone's name) had a bunch of physical doujinshi to show off and the other dude sampled from the large variety of music fan arrangements. I was delighted to see that he ended it with a favourite oddity of mine- the remix that combines Touhou's Native Faith and The Beatle's Come Together.

I had a good time at this panel and admit to bringing along my Reimu plushie to accompany me. It was also nice getting so many of the Touhou cosplayers together so that I was able to get a few photos in without stalking them all over the convention. I appreciate the emphasis on appealing to existing fans, but I believe that the panel could benefit greatly by tightening its focus a bit.

Sunday-

I spent most of Sunday taking cosplay photos and taking one last stroll through the dealer's room. The only thing I attended was half of Dubs That Time Forgot, but decided to exit the convention before the entire crowd had the same idea and was leaving at once. as my first convention of such scale, I was overwhelmed by the things to do and felt like I didn't accomplish half the panels that I should have. I was happy with what I attended though, and had a very fulfilling weekend.