Otakon 2006
By Jeff Couto

Introduction

This year was going to be the best Otakon trip ever! That’s what I said to myself as I got my car ready to go early on the Thursday before the event (and yes I do say cheesy things like that to myself on occasion). With my bags packed, big hugs given to my girls, and a pat on the head for my dog I set out on my journey! Well, technically I first stopped at McDonalds for Hot Cakes (Pancakes for the uninitiated), but then after that I really was off on my journey!

What I didn’t know was that this would turn out to be the most challenging Otakon journeys I have ever taken! Nothing could have prepared me for it!

What follows is a tale assembled as best as I could from the memories of those days...

The Trip to Motorized Heck

Whereas my wife drives a very awesome and very enviable vehicle, a 2006 Prius (god do I love that car!), I still drive around in my good old 2000 Ford Focus ZX3 (hatchback model), which by all accounts is still a great car, even if it is an aging one. I haven’t really had any problems with it recently so I didn’t think twice about taking it out for the 5-hour drive down to Maryland and sure enough 3-4 hours into the trip everything was going as smoothly as it could possibly go. That’s why I was surprised to notice some shaking and some strange acceleration problems when I hit York, PA. Not being one to take life dangerously while driving between 3 freight trucks traveling at 80 mph I pulled over and checked the engine, everything looked fine!

And so I set out back onto the road thinking that maybe the car overheated, an hour later everything seemed fine yet again, when suddenly the car started having the same problems! This time convinced that there were some oil or radiator issues going on so I pulled over to a Jiffy Lube center in Towson, MD. I was familiar enough with the town since I used to live there that I felt comfortable pulling over and having the car checked out. I had them change everything!

15-20 minutes after pulling in my car was ready to go again! “Perfect, I’m ready to rock and roll now” I thought as I turned to York Rd, heading north towards Padonia Rd (that’s where my hotel was). As I pull into Padonia Rd, a construction zone in Padonia Rd that is, my car suddenly dies! If that happened here in Syracuse, I would not worry too much about it, but in a busy intersection in a large city in Maryland, in a construction zone, with 95+ degree weather, yeah, I was worried! Somehow though my car restarted after a couple of minutes and my hotel was literally one block down from where I had just died down, so I was able to finally get in. By now it was too late to go to the Press-orientation downtown. Not that I was in a mindset to go because my car was dying and I was freaking out thinking how much it would cost to get it back to Syracuse if I could not get it fixed, but still Otakon and downtown Baltimore were very much still top on mind despite it all.

The rest of the day has become a blur to me, but at least I was able to come up with a battle plan that would allow me to go to Otakon and get my car come back to life! After all I am the invincible marketing man! (Yeah that’s how I refer to myself in the real world professional arena!)

I'm Here Otakon!

It’s Friday! Early in the morning I get my car dropped off at Towson Ford Service, a place I’m all too familiar with thanks to several recalls my car had back when I was still living in Maryland. After delivering a story of woe and travel follies the service manager did his best to help me out and assure me that they would do everything they could to get me on the road the same day. Assured of a positive outcome I hailed down a cab and set off on my way!

The Baltimore Convention Center! What a great sight! Already thousands of people were lined up outside waiting to get their passes for the event. Costumers were everywhere to be seen and tourists downtown could not help but look at the spectacle of it all, which made it so much more fun for everyone involved. I have to admit that it made me reconsider whether I should come in costume to future Otakons. Anyway, an hour or so later with passes on hand and checked in I was on my way!

Otakon is traditionally one of the biggest and best anime gatherings in the east coast and this year was no different. The halls were packed with fans, cosplayers, press and pr people and all kinds of other interesting characters and all the panel, video and exhibit areas felt like they were always full to capacity which bode well for all ongoing activities. Of the first round of panels taking place I decided to take in the “Sentai – It’is Awesome” panel, which promised to be an interesting presentation.

As things got started the panelists went over briefly over the rich history of the Super Sentai series, which many people in the audience were surprised to learn went back 30 years. After their overview the discussion gave way to video presentations as we witnessed each Super Sentai team do their battle presentation from Himitsu Sentai GoRanger all the way up to Boukenger. I’ve seen these sequences a million times, but seeing them on a large projection system in a room with a couple of hundred people made it quite exciting. After it was all said and done I took some photos of the tokusatsu cosplayers and then made my way out the door.

From there I headed down to the dealers room, always the highlight of any good Otakon experience. After an hour of waiting in line I finally made my way into the room and immediately began making the rounds. Sure enough all the major anime companies were near the main entrance and the smaller vendors and stores were in the backside of the floor, this is where the real action tends to happen so I headed out there to see what was new and exciting this year. Many of the dealers were the same ones from last year, but the merchandise was updated to reflect new popular trends, characters and shows. I spotted some great Space BattleShip Yamato Gashapagon’s, but knowing that I had a car to pay for at the dealership my budget was severely compromised, meaning that I was unable to really get anything from any of the shops on the floor.

And so I made my way around, checked out all the tables/booths, spoke with people, dealers and try to find anything I could of interest to report back to the Japan Hero folks, but on the tokusatsu hero front there really wasn’t much happening that I could take note of, aside from spotting a couple of Ultraman toys here and there. So with my notes taken and hellos traded with people I knew at some of the Anime booths I set out to go have lunch. While eating away at my pizza I got phone call from the dealer, the car was fixed! So I headed out to the Inner Harbor, hailed a cab and off I went to see how much this was going to hurt my wallet!

The damage was minimal! Hooray!! My mind was now at peace…having spent most of the day at Otakon and being stressed over the car I decided to stay uptown for the evening and meet up with an old college buddy of mine. We had great fun and even beat one of those burger challenges at a local burger joint (yeah we got our picture up on the wall!). The day definitely ended on a positive note and I was looking forward to going back to Otakon on Saturday to check out what announcements (if any) were made. However, things got taken out of my hands when word came down that my sister-in-law was having her baby! This was going to be Maya’s cousin so I didn’t hesitate for a moment to change my plans and head back up to NY the next morning.

It was not planned, but given the nature of the situation I think it was more important that I came back up to NY than stick around for the panels at Otakon that day. I did hate missing them though!! This is were the excitement of everything that is Otakon really shines through as people applaud and cheer for the new titles being announced.

The Otakon Live Reports

While at the show I posted a couple of live reports in our blog, here is a link to all those!

The Return of Japan Hero!

And so I arrived early on Saturday and after a short debriefing with the wife and daughter we set out to the hospital to meet our nephew. It was a great ending for what had started off on such a wrong note!

Next year I’m renting a car and no babies will be in the oven when we report back to you from Otakon!

Still the best damn anime convention in the East coast!

Jeff Couto