I woke up around 10:30 on the second day, having gone to bed late the night before. Miraculously, my legs felt great, and I decided to continue my stretching routine by going down to the health club for a half hour. When I got back and changed, I headed straight to brunch at the inner harbor for some pasta and salad, which was a little more expensive than yesterday's sub but added some needed variety.
In order to ensure that I didn't try to do everything on the first day, I intentionally avoided the Artist Alley on Friday, so that was the first place that I headed on Saturday. In middle school, Dragonball Z fan art really helped push me in my artistic ability, so I have tremendous respect for the artists who were stationed around the room or had pieces displayed. There were a lot of amazing 2D pieces in the gallery, but of course I wasn't allowed to take any pictures (I actually got yelled at for taking out my cell phone to look at the time, lol). I walked around to booths of actual artists selling their stuff, and nearly all of them were in the process of drawing something new. I guess that's to be expected, and to promote their abilities, but it reminded me vividly of a friend who is constantly drawing to become a comic book artist.
My next destination was the Q & A session for Kappei Yamaguchi, which I knew would be a popular panel so I jumped into line early. For those of you unfamiliar with Japanese seiyuu (I am too, but someone luckily pointed this guy out to me), he is one of the most well-known voice actors in Japan, having done Ranma (Ranma 1/2), InuYasha (InuYasha), Usopp (One Piece), Kyle (South Park dub), and my personal favorite.. L (Death Note), among many others. My friend was working at the panel, and he said he'd be giving out 25 autograph tickets for people who wanted to ask questions. Well, I didn't have any questions so I didn't bother raising my hand to get chosen, and luckily the people who did go up asked pretty good questions or made good requests of voices and songs. About 10 minutes before it ended, I left to hop in line for his autograph downstairs, and initially walked past a huge crowd before I realized.. that was the line. x_X It turned out that the autograph tickets were to bypass that line, rather than letting them get their autographs right after the Q & A. So I went to the back and eventually it became a line, which I was in for almost two hours (45 mins. after it was supposed to start) before I finally gave up and went to the Fansubber and Industry Discussion panel.
That morning I had read online that people who weren't going to Otakon had been looking forward to hearing what this panel would be about, so I guess it must have been a big deal. ~_^ Basically, there were people from American companies (Media Blasters, Funimation) and from fansubber groups (Live-eviL, Dattebayo, Shinsen, Anime-Empire) to discuss the state of the anime industry today and how it's positively or negatively affected by fansubs. So everyone sat along in a line and discussed topics from an overhead, and we got to see each side respond to the other based on all their experience and data. It was assumed from the beginning that fansubbing wouldn't just go away so it's pointless to ask or expect it, though each of the fansub groups confidently stated that they would stop if they were asked by a company to do so. However, once they stopped another group would probably take their project up, and this would happen continuously each time a cease and desist was ordered. To sum up, Media Blasters was of the opinion that the industry would just have to deal with fansubbing and could get along fine, Funimation thought fansubbers should respect the rights of the creators to earn their deserved royalties, and the fansub groups believed that the only way the industry can keep up is to bring anime into a medium that consumers want, namely quick, subtitled releases online that are true to the original. Funimation did kind of sound like a bitch, though. :/
Phew, so after all this I was pretty hungry for dinner, and I headed to the inner harbor food court for a pizza and bagel. I went back to the room to cool down for a while, then left to go back to Artist Alley with my friend, where I browsed the booths more carefully and found even more amazing artwork than I had seen earlier in the day.
The final panel of the day for me was How to Machinima, which was run by some friends of mine who work on Spriggs: A Halo 3 Machinima. Machinima essentially involves using a video game engine to create your own cartoon, but the developers of the game or engine have certain restrictions, such as Microsoft whereas you can't use any in-game sounds. So the panel was intended for those who might be interested in creating such cartoons, and they went into things like good equipment to use, setting up a good story, utilizing good camera and film techniques, and getting it out to the community. My friends worked hard on the panel, and though I wasn't interested in the mechanics of it so much, I thought that the group worked well together and made the experience amusing for someone who just walked in to pass the time. I hung out with my friends a bit afterward, and then left for the rave down the hall.
The rave is always a cool feature of Otakon, which you'd think might be kind of lame, packing in a bunch of young and awkward otaku onto a dance floor and blasting techno music at them. But honestly, you get into it. When you go to that area of the convention center, there's a stage up front with screens and huge speakers, a large dance floor that's always packed, a back area where people generally perform acrobatic moves, and a small crowded room on the left with different music and colored spotlights going everywhere. Tons of people have glowsticks, and everyone who isn't watching others dance are moving to the beat. The best thing about the raves is watching people dance, though. People are flipping around and performing all types of acrobatics, or having dance-offs that you could swear are choreographed. I would take videos of it, but my camera broke by then, plus it's often too dark to come out anyway. The worst thing about the raves.. is the smell. Some ungodly combination of B.O. and puke. I danced/moved around for a little bit, and at one point I was just chilling on one of the walls and a guy comes up to me and asks where he can score some E. lol So much fun.
Well that's it for Day #2. I got one more day, plus the adventures that follow. BTW, there are pictures and videos up on my Facebook for whoever wants to see them.
now do SUNDAY!
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