I'm going to have to second that. The only thing that stuck out for me in 2004 was Piano Squall.Mroni wrote:Otakon was getting lame the last few years 2003 and 2004 sucked pretty bad but 2005 was awesome.
Mr Oni
Important Events:
1. Concerts are generally guests from other countries that you will not be able to see under normal circumstances. They cost money to see, and it's generally worth the price of admission just to be able to see these concerts.
2. The most important thing that you can see at Otakon is the Fan Parodies. They are Convention Exclusive productions, and you CANNOT see them outside of conventions. If you go to multiple conventions, even successive years of the same convention, you'll probably see some repeat fan parodies though.
3. Panels are guests that come from anywhere and for just about anything. You can learn a lot, and you should be fired if you don't see at least one panel.
4. Workshops offer information for the "how to" of what a lot of Otaku like to do. I've been to Cel Painting, and Learn to Play Go. It's actual stuff that you can take home with you and do.
5. The AMV contest is going to be awesome this year. It wasn't the past 2 years, but let me tell you, everyone who can squeeze into those tiny little rooms will be glad they stood in line. But! You can download most of the videos showing, so it's kind of silly. Yet it's always amazing to see these videos on ginormous screens with nice sound systems.
6. The Cosplay. Only about 4 or 5 skits are actually worthwhile. I always go to them though because I like to see people up in costumes do silly things. That, and it's so late at night usually that I can just fall asleep by the time they do the costume walkouts.
7. Anything else that sparks your interest. There's TONS to do.
Filler Events
1. The dealer's room should have doujinshi, but you have to look around for it. Depending on what type you're looking for, you may have to ask the dealer to show you their stash. The dealers room has EVERYTHING that you are looking for, that exists.
2. The artist alley is great fun. I tend to stay away from the actual artists though, since I could probably spend the entire convention looking at all of the hundreds of people with stations. The art gallery (where you can bid on some art) is about 25% okay, 50% good, and 25% fantastic.
3. The game room is a lot of fun to kill some time between events. They've got a lot of games that you can get around here, but there's about a dozen games that you won't really see anywhere unless you import games.
4. Most of the video rooms have anime showing that you can already see (by nameless other means), but sometimes it's fun to sit in on a few episodes.
- ReligionX
boys.
Last year they sold out at 22,000 and this year it is at 15,500 or so. What do you guys think?
