Anime Industry: The Before Times
As an old school anime fan, I'm always intrigued by learning about the beginnings of the state side anime industry. This panel had a few veterans from ADV, Harmony Gold, and Animerica to talk about the dark ages. There was much discussion about the old days of the VHS format and what it was like to license a title in Japan. There was talk about translating and also staying afloat. What I also found interesting was that the panelists talked about "where are they now" with domestic anime industry veterans.

Dealers Hall (Basement)
For someone new to Otakon, the dealers hall was pretty tough to find. I literally had to find for a staffer to guide me to where it was. Usually, the dealers hall location is quite obvious – it's the largest hall in the convention center. However, getting there was quite a pain. You had to enter from outside and go down a flight of stairs to get into the Otakon dealers basement. The exit was on the other side where you had to go up a flight of stairs to another flight of stairs only to go down another flight of stairs to the main street. The site logistics were quite confusing.

However, the dealers basement was pretty huge. The nice thing was that you could really breathe and really walk around. It was not as claustrophobic as Anime Expo. What I did like about this dealers hall was that there was a variety of anime and gaming goods. I was on the search for cosplay wigs and there were a variety of them. On the first day alone, I stopped by five wig dealers and they were all sold out of any blue bobbed wigs. There were a few Lolita dealers and some cosplay accessory dealers. However, if you're into collecting cute alpacas and stuffed cats, there were a ton of them around the dealers basement. Most booths sold your standard current anime goods, while others, you really had to look around to find some old Sailor Moon merchandise. For figure collectors, this place had a ton of figure dealers. However, the downside was carrying everything back to the hotel room once purchased.

MST3K
I really did not know what to expect from an Otakon MST3K screening. I attended one at AniMagic 2000 where it was pre-recorded audio over "End of Evangelion" and a live one by Kyle Hebert to "Dragonball Evolution." The evening's roast was "Origin: Spirits of the East." Otakon had the actual bots from the Satillite of Love plus a femme Mike Nelson present to do the live riffing. We even had silhouettes of the bots on the anime feature.

Anime MST3K simply goes like this. You play a cheesy movie, the worst you can find and make fun of it all the way through. "Origin" was a fairly newer title. It seemed to have a pro-enviromental message set in a post-apocolyptic world. I just loved how the creative team set everything up and the comic timing was superb. I only wish someone had did a live recording of the jokes and riffs so I could play it alongside "Origin" on Netflix. The room was really crowded; MST3K seems to be an Otakon tradition among all otaku generations.

Lounge 21
This almost feels like déjà vu. Otakon's Lounge 21 consisted of adult drinks and (east coast) swing. It's as if a ballroom dance had merged with a bar. Lounge 21 was a one night only thing that Otakon wanted to do to celebrate their 20th year. The bar was located at the Hyatt. I thought it was going to be a long walk from the Days Inn, but despite what Google Maps looks like, all the hotels are fairly close and connected with one another. I spent some time with the Angel Hearts gals where they bought me some wine to celebrate my birthday. This was a pretty nice addition to Otakon; the idea of having a 21+ lounge is spreading across the con circuit. I also liked watching people dance to classic big band and swing tunes from the 1940s. There was nothing formal about it, just come in and grab a drink. Ain't we got fun!

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