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Well, a week late and a couple hundred dollars short, here’s my roundup of Otakon 2014! The lines this year were even more obnoxious than last year, but I had plenty of fun regardless! General impressions first. As usual, the crush of ~40k anime fans was both overwhelming and exhilarating. I was a bit disappointed that there was only one badge design this year. I really liked being able to pick from three or four designs, but I guess budgets are budgets… I absolutely LOVED the space theme this year though
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff178/chucklocker/Otakon%202014/20140811_003546_zpsp2wtvqxx.jpg
" /> Lots of great cosplay and conversation all three days. My personal favorite cosplay of the con was definitely this awesome young lady’s Space Dandy cosplay!
" /> Pretty damn impressive when you consider the episode with this particular character aired less than two weeks before the con!
The AMV Contest: I’ve been to quite a few AMV contests over the years, so I generally have a good idea of what to expect. There’s usually a whole bunch of well-edited but generally uninteresting entries, with one or two real standouts. Not so this time! This AMV contest was by far the best I have ever seen, with nearly every single entry an exciting or touching piece of art! Several categories were almost impossible for me to choose a favorite! I’ll highlight some of the ones I thought were the best over in the AMV thread, but here’s the whole ballot and a link to a mostly complete youtube playlist for anyone interested.
" /> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwk0s4uFt0tm6r8goeLyVHlFK6VMck4ER ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwk0s4uFt0tm6r8goeLyVHlFK6VMck4ER Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind: Viz won Otakon 2014, hands down, and they did it with Sailor Moon! There were events, panels, interviews, photo shoots, world premiers, and announcements all throughout the week, and every one of them was packed with fans and overflowing with excitement! My personal favorite stunt of theirs was the Sailor Scout Scavenger Hunt in the dealer’s room! The name of the game was to find all five of the Sailor Scouts (who were professional cosplayers hired by Viz!) scattered throughout the dealer’s room and collect stamps from each one! Once you collected all five stamps Sailor Moon herself gave you a collector’s coin and a poster!
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" /> By sheer luck I found each of the scouts in the order which they were introduced in the show, and it took me forever to find Sailor V, because unlike the others she didn’t stay put in one spot, but was always on the move throughout the entire room! Little stuff like that was what really endeared Viz to a lot of people last weekend!
Finally, my favorite part of this con (and every con!): the dealer’s room! I was actually pretty disappointed by the severe lack of cool swag this year. It seemed like every single booth in the whole place was selling the same figures, sets, and wallscrolls. This wasn’t helped by the notable absence of several of my favorite go-to dealers this year, particularly the cel dealer and the poster dealer. This isn’t to say that the dealer’s room was a total loss this year. I was pretty impressed with the selection of anime at a few of the dealers’ booths, especially when it came to some rarer items. Here’s the rundown of my purchases.
" /> This Nausicaa model came from my good friend at the Mediablasters booth, and was the only real swag of interest that I bought this con.
Next up is this Eva soundtrack CD. It now joins my TM! soundtrack in keeping me entertained on my long drives to and from VA.
" /> Next up are a pair of items I bought from a new vendor.
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" /> After years of nagging from JG and several other dear friends, both here and elsewhere, I finally bit the bullet and bought Captain Tylor! I am really looking forward to watching this one
" /> This next dvd was given to me for free because the dealer and I hit it off so well in our shared love of classic series, because they were a fan of Dagon’s panel appearance at Glass City Con (thanks man, it’s good to have famous friends!), and because I spent enough money on other purchases from them that they probably could have closed early!
😆 Anyway, I have no idea what it’s about, but it was free and it looks sortof like Record of Lodoss War so it’s good enough for me
" /> These next two sets are the pride of my Otakon purchases (and the bane of my wallet!).
" /> The original Bubblegum Crisis series! Viva classic AIC!
" /> Gunbuster! And so my Gainax library and addiction grows… All according to plan.
gendo1 Finally, while I didn’t end up purchasing this Geneon gem, I did take the opportunity to appreciate the irony.
" /> My, how the world turns
😆 Well, that was about it for me this Otakon! I once again struck out on finding more Tenchi manga, my Eva figure collection still lacks a Shinji figure, and I missed every single one of the handful of Tenchi cosplayers wandering around. It was a hot, mismanaged, crazy mess, and I loved every second of it! I look forward to my next con outing!
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