Wednesday, July 20, 2016

T5W#49-Top 5 Otakon 2012 Moments


After the tremendous success that was Otakon 2011, Otakon 2012 had a lot to live up to…and it kinda didn’t.  Most of it was me desperately trying to find a friend to come with me to experience it all with me…and failing miserably.  The rest was a mix of so-so events, not as stellar a guest list as last year and just a general downer feeling.  My expectations were high and in truth that wasn’t fair.  There was still a lot of good to come out of 2012 but expecting a repeat of last year hampered the overall experience.  No two con experiences are alike and youre doing yourself a disadvantage if you think otherwise.  I learned this in 2012 and still stick with it (though I did have re relearn it with Katsucon this year).  Anyway, onto the 5.

 

#5-The Hotel Room
 
When I first thought about getting a hotel room this year, I really wanted to go for the Hilton.  But I looked too late and all of the rooms were taken.  There was one still up for grabs though, at the Hyatt across from the opposite skybridge.  There would be no roof over my head if it rained and I had to get back to my hotel room, but it was close enough.  Thing is, the room was designated a “Parlor Room” and I had no idea what that meant.  Would I be in a broom closet, or something as small as my college dorm room?  The answer was neither.  Holy freaking crap.  Basically they locked down the living room portion of a condo and handed it to me for two nights for a pretty reasonable price.  There was no standard bed, but there was a couch bed and TV and a lot of space.  And one helluva view too.  It was big…a bit too big.  Made the notion of no one coming with me feel a bit more real.  But as far as staying rooms for a convention go, this wasn’t bad at all.

 

#4-Maid Cafe
To my knowledge, Otakon had never attempted a Maid Café before.  True or not, this was my first year to try going to one.  I was a little stunned as to how it all worked out.  It wasn’t your typical Starbucks, that’s for sure.  No the Maid Café was a rehearsed show that restarted every hour or so for a new audience.  There were mini games, dances, skits and of course, cute girls and handsome young men serving drinks.  It was a little bit costly but it was a fun little experience all the same.  Kinda wished it was more of a come in, sit down and have a drink without all the theatrics, but still, wont complain.

 

#3-Otaku Idol
 
It’s exactly what it sounded like.  Anyone with the vocals to belt out Anime tunes stepped up to participate in an American Idol showdown in the Otaka-Café (again not really a café), aka the Karaoke room of Otakon.  I only sat in on the first round of contestants, as I knew of a couple of people participating.  Themes from Haruhi Suzumiya, Durarara and various other shows were heard.  But it was one girl who belted out “Shinjitsu no Uta” from Inuyasha who clearly stole the show first round, even the people I was cheering for were impressed.  From what I learned later on, I think that girl won the competition overall.  Hard to argue with that result since even I could see she was attracting a ton of outsiders during her Inuyasha theme performance.

 

#2-AMV 101
Back in 2012 I was really into AMV crafting and had a ton of my own videos under my belt.  An alliance of AMV makers under the banner PixelBlended Studios, came together to do a special panel on AMVs and I was excited to attend.  Turns out, our philosophies were pretty similar-Why choose certain Anime, what songs work better and which don’t, why use a ton of special effects when sometimes none will do, and what kind of story do you tell with your AMV?  I loved that they took the time to show us samples from all across the board: comedy, action, dramatic, movie trailers, music videos, the works.  In the end, I gave them a sample DVD of some of my work.  I heard one little bit from them not long after but never went on to work with them.  And since 2013 my AMV churn out rate had dipped drastically.  Still this was probably the heyday of my AMV making experience and it was a fun presentation that I really enjoyed.

 

#1-LittleKuriboh’s Shout Out to My Sister
After sitting out 2012, LittleKuriboh returned to Baltimore for another Otakon.  Not only did I manage to get a cool Duke Devlin shirt from his booth, not only did we take a picture that is eerily similar to the one we took two years prior, but he ALSO was happy enough to do a short video shout out to my sister.  Otakon is an experience id really like to share with her but things just keep getting in the way.  So each year I try to bring back something she’d like, like plushies or a DVD.  In this case, had to get a popular Anime celebrity to say hi.  This was on the last day of the convention so he was super beat.  He couldn’t do the shout out in the voice of the villainous Melvin, but LittleKuriboh was still happy to say a few words and promise “Free hugs” from Melvin should my sis attend in the future.  I’ve run into LK a few times over the years but this was my favorite run in with him.  It’s one of my best Otakon moments and one of the best gifts ive gotten for my sis.
So 2012 was a little bit of a bust.  But yeah, next week we get to the first of two years that have come tremendously close to matching if not surpassing 2011’s greatness.  See ya then.
 

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