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OtakuCon - the Jess review Last Updated: December 2004 Jess #1: Hmm... where to begin. We got up at 5.30 am, and I drove through Georgia and most of Florida ALONE (i.e. everyone else was asleep), so that put the first damper on my trip. Then the directions were off. Damper #2. Then parking was expensive, even though we were guests at the hotel. Then our room had one bed, instead of two. And this was all before the con. We ran around everywhere, because no one had record that we were to receive free badges, and we didn't even have the spot that was promised reserved for us! But it was all okay, because the reps from JACON and AFO didn't show, so we wound up getting two tables. The Anything Goes club across from us were really great people (gave us T-Shirts, no less), and I had fun letting them watch the FF7: AC trailer and shooting them with my Super Scope! And the MetroCon people next to us were cool, too. Registration was a disaster. It started like two hours late, or something absurd, due to problems, then they took pictures of everyone for con badges, which seemed silly, since constaff hardly looked at the badges to get into anything anyway. They were FAAAAAR too understaffed to really take on the people that were there (I put my estimate at around 2000-2500 for the weekend, but I heard that 3000 pre-registered...yeah, sure...). The staff wouldn't open the way to artist's alley (where we were) until around 6 pm.... but after that... ... no, wait, it gets worse from there. Our station was at the exit to the dealer's room, so you'd think we'd have a prime spot, ne? Well, you'd be wrong. The staff was inexperienced and too little in number, and let people basically exit wherever they pleased, so not a lot of people came to our table (except for Freaky Chain Mail guy and marvel guy), but I did yell FREE enough to catch some people's attention. The guests were excellent, and we got to meet a lot. Dopple followed Vic around some of Friday, Scott kept looking for Johnny everywhere and embarrassed the hell out of my talking about MomoCon to him, and I squealed when Scott McNeil did Majin Buu for me (thank god Manny introduced me to him! BUU HUNGRY!). Joshua Seth has the BEST VA VOICE EVER, I swear, and his hypnotism show was the best event of the weekend. Plus Johnny ranted about Saban, and we all love insider rants, don't we? The lady from NOATED.com was really nice and came to give us buttons and talked to us a bit, Geneon reps were really cool, and offered us permissions and maybe screeners for MomoCon. I missed a lot of panels I wanted to go to because of time changes, and there was no updated list anywhere (a la Daily Dragon). There were like a hundred typos in the program book, no maps in the book, and someone ELSE there trying to get the Anime Network petition signed (even though WE were the official reps!). We are up to something like 13 pages of signatures now, though, and we gave away several Peacemaker Kurogane posters and the first DVD and manga volume in a raffle. Plus, we brought back a HUGE Appleseed poster for raffle at O-Tekku meetings. Despite the fact that Geneon was there, there were no industry panels to speak of, minus RJP, a brand-new company with one license. The head honcho of Viz was there, but Dopple will have to comment because she went to the panel. The producer of ROD TV signed a sheet for me that I'm giving to Alan, and it was really sad, because he had like no fans at his table and he was probably the most accomplished guest there. I got Joshua Seth to sign my book for George (he does Tai in Digimon), and Johnny signed Scott's book. I think Dopple got signatures from them all. The only cosplay of note was this GREAT akasha, from Queen of the Damned, because she had the costume AND the incredible body-type down pact! And there WAS a porn star. I got a picture with her! Despite all of the god-awful problems, I managed to enjoy myself. Lots of time at the booth, and I got lots of ideas for MomoCon (i.e. How NOT to run certain things). Plus I got lots of props for the Super Scope (I took it because I have no cosplay at home, and I got Doug Smith to sign it!). The gaming was disappointing: LAN games that didn't go as planned, great TVs, but bad tourney planning, and DDR on big screens with music lag and terrible pads, plus NO OLD SCHOOL SYSTEMS! Anime events were mediocre, no really in-depth panels; guests were excellent DESPITE RABID FANGIRLS EVERYWHERE. AMVs were a low point, with a mediocre contest with less than 10 entrants and only about two anime used total over the 6 videos... The beach was beautiful, the prices were waaaaaaaaaaaaay too high, and the hotel was way sub-par for a "5-star hotel". The drive was long and boring, and I'll not go back to this con. Let's hope that they will at least have a good con going by Kunicon Atlanta. One thing is for sure, though, this didn't feel like a con "for fans and by fans". Poor Manny worked so hard, but the staff was either really good or really lax, and the lack of staff really hurt.