People came to Otakon from all around the USA

For the first time since moving here, I found out about Otakon ahead of time. Unfortunately, the economics didn’t work out we didn’t buy tickets. But I did go to hang out outside Otakon on Saturday to get some photos. Lessons learned:

• Remember what you learned in Hawaii and don’t be afraid to approach people. This is especially the case with Otakon. The cosplayers have spent a long time working on their costumes, sometimes up to a whole year. They want to show off their costumes. So go up to them and ask to photograph them.
• With a 1.6x crop factor camera like the Canon 400D, 28mm is not wide enough. It’s very, very crowded at Otakon. They had something like 19 000 preregistered attendees. I missed out on getting some awesome shots of costumes such as this one where the girl on the left had an amazing bottom part to her costume, but I couldn’t fit her and her friend in without backing up a lot more
• Buy tickets to Otakon! I missed out on a bunch of costumes because they were walking into the conference too quickly for me to intercept them at the door. So attend so you can see all the costumes

And now here is my photo essay on Otakon 2009.

Lots of Pokemon trainers including multiple Ash Ketchums and Mistys. It can be hard to have an original costume at Otakon.

People didn't only cosplay from anime, they also cosplayed video games. In this case, it was Team Fortress 2.

This was another video game cosplay - this time from Street Fighter IV.

Goth Lolita is a very popular style in Harajuku, Japan and is often cosplayed at anime conventions. There were quite a few women cosplaying lolitas.

A very unique cosplay came in the form of this group cosplaying Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.

These women are cosplaying an anime called Soul Eater. Many costumes ranged from the skimpy to the elaborate and full-body-covering.

A unique costume not only in its complexity, but also its subject. By choosing an anime that came out a while ago, one can get a better chance of being the only one cosplaying that character.

This Iron Man cosplay was very, very intricate and he was constantly stopped to pose for photos.

Phoenix Wright is a video game where the player is a lawyer. His signature catchphrase is on the sign.

Yet another video game cosplay with this pair from Portal.

I wanted to finish up with a cosplay from my favorite anime, Ranma 1/2. It was a special treat to see this since Ranma is a pretty old anime so there is less of a chance of people cosplaying it. The characters are the heads of the Tendo and Saotome households.

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So, first up is the Hello Kitty Shoulder Massager.  Er….strange shape for a shoulder massager.  Um you don’t think this is for…..I mean you can’t see anyone actually getting turned on with this can you?….um… All I know is that the first version sold so well, they’ve introduced this new updated version.  Lots of Hello Kitty Fans with sore shoulders, I guess.

This one, I know for a fact, is not photoshopped.  I actually saw this in a book about some of the strange fetishes that the Japanese have.  I can’t get over the Hello Kitty in the tank with the band around its eyes.  Seriously, how could anyone do anything in this Love Hotel?  Incidentally, did you know that at one point in the past Nintendo ran Love Hotels?  I wonder if they featured Mario and Princesss Peach?

The strange thing for me is the fact that they would have SO MANY Hello Kitty bras that they’d actually be able to open up a boutique store and be in business.  Also, not only would they have to have enough designs, but there’d have to be enough customers to keep them in business as well.  I just can’t understand it.

In a post with Hello Kitty in a variety of sexual contexts, I still think that this is the MOST disturbing Hello Kitty item in existence – the Hello Kitty Shotgun.  That’s right, how could anyone go to the shooting range in their Hello Kitty shirt, undies, and shoes and not have their Hello Kitty shotgun?  I don’t know, but if I ever got mowed down by someone wielding a Hello Kitty Shotgun, I hope they kill me because the psychological damage I’ll have (not to mention the ridicule I’ll have to endure) will be awful.

This is just a smidgen of the crazy, crazy Hello Kitty merchandise out there.  To see more, just visit Hello Kitty Hell.

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Here’s one sample:

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Apparently there aren’t too many other blogs/sites out there talking about it or I wouldn’t get so many people coming here looking for it. The above pictures are probably responsible for the 32 people coming here looking for cosplay. (The second top search term) Another one that brought about 20 people here is the Order of the Engineer, which I blogged about the day I got it. Since then I haven’t mentioned it until today.

Other than that, the search terms mostly make more sense such as Fedora (since that’s what I use for one of my Linux computers. (Fedora 7 comes out soon!! About 1 month left + delays [they always have delays]) Civ4 also makes sense as I talk about it a lot. Well, not that much, but a decent amount.

But there are also weird terms such as “Lebanon to get DSL” which I have NEVER mentioned. And “Mario depressing” which I’m pretty sure I’ve never written. Perhaps Andrew blogged about Lebanon – but I don’t remember reading it!

While I’m talking about random stuff, check out Andrew’s Blog posts on Jack Thompson.

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Cosplay, for the uninitiated, is dressing up as a fictional character; in the US it tends to specifically mean dressing up as anime or video game characters. Anime Conventions are known for the fans cosplaying and coming up with elaborate costumes which can sometimes take months to develop. I missed Otakon (Baltimore Anime Convention) for the second year in a row. I know it’s my fault for no longer having my finger on the pulse of anime culture in the US, but I was hoping to catch it this year to get some great cosplay pics. Instead I had to just linger in the lobby of the convention center and take some snaps. I took about ten shots and here are two of my better ones.

I guess there’s always next year. I’d like to possibly cosplay too, but do you think kids still know who Ranma is nowadays? What about one of the guys from robotech?

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But this is all just a long story to tell you that I subscribed to Animerica for three years. At the time I thought I’d always want to read about anime. But then I remembered why I had stopped subscribing to Electronic Gaming Monthly – both magazines talked about things in such a way as to make me want them, but I couldn’t have them since they were so expensive. Linux Format Magazine, by contrast, gives away all the software the magazine covers in an attached DVD. I think I still have two years or a year and one half on the Animerica magazine.

Animerica is owned by Viz, who gained the most fame for bringing Rumiko Takahashi’s work to the States, like Ranma 1/2. Viz gained the re-publishing rights to Shonen Jump, a wildly popular manga magazine in Japan. Shonen is boy’s manga – so it deals with stuff young to adolescent boys like. Viz also decided to just lauch Shojo Magazine. Shojo is girl’s manga. In Megatokyo it’s a running joke that Piro likes to read Shojo, which is all about “girly” things like love, does that boy like me, and “evil biatch” betrayal by the girl who stole your boyfriend.

Yes, this is all good and well, but what does it have to do with direct mailing? Well, in an effort to get more people interested in Shojo Magazine, they sent one to people subscribed to Animerica – apparently regardless of their sex. So now I have a copy of the first issue of Shojo Magazine. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but now I think I’ll give it to my cousin. She is really into manga now and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind reading this magazine which even has tips on how to dress like the female characters in the manga.

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