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Otakon 2005 Report
Written by: aquastar831
August 18th:
Arrived in Baltimore around 3:00 pm for Pre-Registration. Line had wrapped
3/4ths of the way around the building. Doors opened around 5:00 pm. Took
approximately 45 minutes for me to get my registration badge., Met up
with a friend of mine and some fellow AnimeOnDVD forum members for dinner
at Capitol City Brewing.
August 19th:
Pouring rain made the drive to Baltimore for erizo and I a nightmare.
Took a walk around the convention center to see the setup of panels, the
dealers' room, and other things. As erizo said, I will have some prizes
well worth playing for in the next site contest. Ended up buying the Negima
original mangas, Maburaho Vol. 3 DVD, a set of Futakoi Twins figures,
Galaxy Angel Party Vol. 1, and some goodies from the industry booths.
Well, Funimation didn't have any new titles for licensing at this time, since due to possible legal ramifications, there are two shows that they are finishing up the contracts with. Which shows you ask? We'll probably find that out within a week or two.
Late Night with Voice Actor: If you ever have a chance to attend something like this, do it as you definitely get to see English Voice actors in their crazy and wacky form. Voice actors attending were Vic Mignogna, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Michelle Ruff, Luci Christian, Monica Rial, Scott McNeil, Richard Ian Cox, Greg Ayres, and Mike McFarland. The room had quite a showing of attendees with the room full and people having to sit on the floor. Got to see Monica Rial and her little signature Snoballs that she came up with at AnimeUSA. The majority of the attendees were fangirls with the most common question/request being imitating a character's voice and/or saying, "I love you (insert name here)" with the VA in character.
August 20th:
Arriving at the convention center, erizo and I got in line for the autograph
session around 9:30. It was quite a long wait as we ended up spending
4 hours just to get autographs and pictures with Luci Christian, Greg
Ayres, and Monica Rial. erizo's meeting with Luci was priceless as I could
see his excitement when he got to meet Chidori Kaname in person. Meeting
the English VA for one of your favorite characters is definitely an awesome
experience, as I remember the first time meeting Monica Rial at AnimeUSA
and she autographed my Sister Princess DVD and artbox and the same with
Greg Ayres as Chrono. Greg autographed my DNAngel DVD for Satoshi Hiwatari,
Monica signed another of my Sister Princess DVDs and a DNAngel DVD, and
Luci signed my Sister Princess artbox, DVD, and postcard book.
Bandai Entertainment panel was cancelled, which gave erizo and I some time to hit the dealers' room once again. That place is huge and even with having about 2 hours before the next panel, we still didn't get through the entire room. Grabbed some Sister Princess keyring sets, posters, and other things here and there. Walked over to Subway a few blocks away to get some lunch, and then headed for the voice actors panel, and that room was packed. Even with several hundred chairs, they were all filled.
Following that panel was ADV Films panel conducted by Matt Greenfield and David Williams. No new licenses. This was mainly a question and answer session pertaining to the thinpack re-releases of select series, upcoming releases for the fall including Vol. 2 of Princess Tutu and KaleidoStar Season 2. Best selling titles for ADV this past year included Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, Chrono Crusade, Peacemaker, DNAngel, Gantz, Elfen Lied, and as always Neon Genesis Evangelion with their Platinum edition release. They are looking to promote some of their series on TV including Cartoon Network, Showtime, and G4TV. Anime Network continues to expand and a few questions came up about licensing procedures and issues. At the end of the panel, erizo had a chance to chat with Lauren Goodnight who has voiced characters in series such as Rahxephon, Pretear, and Aquarian Age: Sign for Evolution. We split up at this point until the end of the day.
Next up was Geneon
which began with a question and answer session with the members of "The
Indigo" for about 45 minutes. Then came the trailer DVD that they
showed at Anime Expo earlier this summer, which includes the new series
that they had licensed:
- Fate Stay Night
- Starship Operators
- Kannazuki no Miko
- Erementar Gerard
- Shakugan no Shana
- Ergo Proxy
Also, one big surprise that was unveiled at their panel was the Hellsing Ultimate OVA trailer, which had a lot of reaction in the room. This is currently in production so we can expect a release in Japan probably by the end of this year and late 2006 for a US release. Will the VAs from the previous series reprise their roles? They hope to do so.
Media Blasters - John Sirabella conducted this panel. This was mainly a Q & A session. Media Blasters is working to expand into the video game market with bringing games over to the US from Japan, priority being games that would tie in with their current properties. Re-releases of Rurouni Kenshin, 12 Kingdoms, and Berserk we should see probably at the end of this year and early next year. Ah My Goddess TV has already shown strong sales with Vol. 1 being sold at the convention six weeks before official release date and already selling out within the first day, estimated around 900 copies. Artbox will have foil lettering and will include phone straps as the included extras. Expect release schedule to be every other month for subsequent volumes. Grenadier and Genshiken have sold well for Media Blasters already with Midori Days continuing to show strong sales. Their Tokyoshock and Kitty Media branches are doing well and for those that are fans of the hentai series Bible Black, should expect more to be coming this next year, including the new series that was recently released in Japan. They also intend to look into live action series such as the GTO Live Action.
Central Park Media
- the guys who ran this panel were hilarious and this was a fun panel
to sit in on. 4 new licenses which include the complete VOTOMS series
in one boxset, Munto 2, Animation Runner Kuromi 2, and Outlanders. CPM
has repriced many of their existing titles, which means you can pick up
some good series, some at the affordable price of $9.95. They also went
into their Be Beautiful manga line and highlighted some of their upcoming
titles including Golden Cain, Kizuna, and Finder Series. In their Anime
18 line, you can expect the next volumes in series such as Angel Blade,
Crimson Climax, and Square of the Moon to be released this fall.
Attended the Geneon Offline panel for more Q and A, and scored an ROD
TV pencilboard, which I gave to erizo, since I already had it. After that,
it was just wondering around the convention center for about an hour and
ended up returning to the hotel around 12:30 am. Did get to see some con
attendees drawing characters and also singing the various Pokemon theme
songs.
August 21, 2005
We got up around 8 am to check out and head over to the Convention Center
to line up one more time for autographs. Think it took us about 2 hours
this time to get to the front. Got Luci's autograph for Risa Harada in
DNAngel and a hug from her. Monica signed my Spiral DVD with Rio on the
cover, Greg signed one also for Kousuke in the same series, and finally
Michelle Ruff for Aoi Sakuraba in Ai Yori Aoshi along with a hug. Aoi-chan!!!
One last trip to the dealers' room for us. Finally hit the last rows of the room, ending up with a Love Hina video game poster, some Negima pencilboards, the Blue Submarine No. 6 complete set DVD, an Otakon T-shirt, and a katana. Ended up leaving Baltimore a little later than we expected.
For this being my third con, this really blew me away with the number of people, the size of the dealers' room, and just the amount of available events, though it would've been more exciting if more new titles would've been announced. I wish that we could've been able to hang out with the voice actors more, but then again I expected that they wouldn't be able to mingle since it would've been several hundred fans wanting to get close to talk to the guests. I definitely plan on attending next year, hopefully with a hotel closer to the con for convenience purposes. I'm mainly glad that erizo had an awesome time as your first con is truly the best experience as an anime fan.
I will have pictures uploaded later.