How the Mickey and the VCR Resurrected Anime by Jared the Greek
This panel was a major disappointment. It began by discussing how anime had inspiration from Disney and how decades later Disney may have plagiarized Kimba the White Lion. Then it moved into the growth in anime's popularity in the 80s and 90s with a very brief reference to the growth of the home video market and tape trading. Then there was a longer discussion on Toonami and a short look at Tokyopop leading the growth of manga in bookstores in the early 2000s. This was a rushed panel that didn't cover the history very well. The worst part was that the title was really misleading as it was only the first few minutes of the panel that looked at Disney and the home video market.

Steven Universe and Anime by Eri Kagami
As panelists of the "Hidden Gems of Steven Universe" panel on the west coast, we wanted to see how these panelists approached the topic. This panel was held in one of the larger panel rooms in the Hilton annex. It looked filled to capacity. The panelists looked at anime tropes found in Steven Universe from magical girl, harem, and more. They talked about various aesthetics and animation choices that were inspired by Japanese anime and cited some classic and current titles that match up. Unfortunately, the accoustics in this panel room were hit / miss. At times, the panelists sounded muffled in the large ballroom to the point where people were filtering in and out. However, this was a very informative panel done by panelists who knew anime-isms backwards and forwards.

18+ Registration by Eri Kagami
Otakon night life is full of 18+ events. This includes voices actors after dark, bad hentai dubbing, the 21+ swing dance in the Hyatt, and more. 18+ events is a main staple at Otakon; the convention day ends at 1AM. However, to get into these events, one must have an 18+ wristband to enter. 18+ registration took place in only in the main registration floor - away from where most 18+ events were taken place. Because of the law in Baltimore, 18+ registration had to be done a very specific way where security physically checks your id and places the wrist band on you. The crowd for this started building up in the evening. There were some 18+ events that we did want to check out, but the hassle and the fact that press could not even get ahead in line to cover said events was getting ridiculous. Hoping that this would be a much smoother process for DC.

Gaming Hall by Jared the Greek
One of the best parts of the convention is the gaming hall which never seems to close. The hall has a indie game section where small developers can show off their games. There was a huge selection of rhythm games this year, but there were also a few other arcade machines. There was space dedicated to table top gaming, but it looked like it was all card based. Finally there were the rows of consoles set up featuring a mix of games from fighters to shooters. There is a decent selection of games, but it would have been nice to see more variety in the table top side of things. However, the best part of the room is that there is enough space to help reduce the impact of con stink.

Parody Dub Theatre by Eri Kagami
One of the all ages events that took place in the evening was parody dub theater. Our hotel roommate was asking if these were happening at Otakon. We just happen to stumble upon them just to get some laughs for the evening. We caught the last part of Team Four Star's rendition of The World's Strongest. We then saw a recent parody dub of the first episode of the Pheonix Wright series. While it felt like a first time project where it's two people doing the voice over, it was still entertaining nonetheless. We sat through the first part of S.T.E.A.M. by famed parody group, NonDE Productions. S.T.E.A.M. was a mash up of several different anime from the 1990s. While I do love this parody group, this was one of their weaker parody movies. Too many anime and too many subplots really lost the main focus. I did like the commercials in between segments, but it was not enough to keep me interested.

Friday Night Dance by Li Mei
My roommates, me, and some other friends met up for the Friday night dance, also known as the Otakon rave. At first, the dance was hard to ease into; we weren't sure how to dance to the music. There were also a few awkward transitions between certain songs, so that threw us off a bit even when we tried to dance. We were amused by the colorful scenes shown on the screens at the front of the dance floor: there were video clips of cosplayers as well as scenes from anime. Some favorites that popped up on the screen were Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Durarara!! At the beginning of the dance, we showed off some of our silliest dance moves. At some other points, we tried to talk to each other (which involved yelling into one another's ears due to the loud music). Over time, we grew more accustomed to the music's volume though. And we even started getting into dancing more! There was lots of jumping up and down and watching the creative and impressive dance moves that other people on the floor were doing. We were sweating a lot too, but we spent all day sweating at Otakon due to the heat and humidity, so sweating during the dance wasn't a huge change. Luckily, there were a few water stations at the dance, so we were able to stay hydrated. The water was nice and cold too! One of the stations became MIA for a while due to someone throwing up right by it... So that was not a highlight of the dance. We left the dance early, but we felt like we had fun! After the dance, our ears were ringing but after an hour, our hearing returned to normal. I have a lot of respect for people who were out dancing all night, especially if they still woke up early and were ready to hit the con the next morning!

Pictures are copyright by Scarlet Rhapsody . If I took your picture, feel free to use it on your site or cosplay gallery. While you're here, do sign the guestbook. This site was brought to you by the font Brown Fox. Many thanks to Dream Host, Adobe Bridge, MS Photodraw, Picasa, and Dreamweaver for making this site design possible.