For otaku who have attended it, the mere mention of "Otakon" brings up cherished memories and even a nostalgic tear or two. Despite a concern here and there that this convention's 11th year might prove to be too large for the Baltimore Convention Center, the show went on! Of the Anime Academy Staff, Kain, Mugs, Kjeldoran, Gatts, Ender, Corpse, vanisher and myself went, and the only non-Staff member in our party was Jigenuck.

We arrived in the city around 11:00 am, but getting to the bus station proved more difficult, even though we had received directions from MapQuest, a gas station attendant and a police officer (the three sources that you'd expect to be correct). By sheer luck and a near-death experience, we arrived at 12:52 pm. After a 45-minute wait for someone that was on a different side of the bus station, we finally picked up Ender. We exchanged greetings with the "new fish", and our drive to the hotel was rather uneventful, but only because we'd inadvertently ran into it while we were driving around for two hours.

We hung out for a while until Kain zoomed into the hotel parking lot at 3:05 pm. After his quick check-in, our next destination was Baltimore-Washington International airport to pick up Corpse, Gatts and vanisher; I must admit that Gatts' handshake improved by leaps and bounds from when I first met him at Otakon 2003. Our convention crew didn't become fully assembled until 4:20 pm when Kjeldoran and Jigenuck rolled up in their car (recently thawed, of course).

By the time 5:15 pm rolled around, we'd already arrived at the BCC. Thankfully, getting press passes this time didn't require running all over the BCC desperately asking every Otakon staffer for directions; all we said was "press", and they led us to the right place. Afterwards, we waited for vanisher to get his pre-registered pass, and then we made way for dinner.

A short walk over to Inner Harbor turned up an Italian restaurant named Paolo's, and since Kain was buying, no one had a problem getting a real meal as opposed to the usual fast food.

After a jovial time was had by all (and a chicken parmesan by me), we came back to the BCC at 8:50 pm for the press conference. After a bit of waiting and a short walk across the convention center itself, the press conference began at 9:25 pm. Speaking to more than seventy organizations, the press operations staffer said lots of boring stuff that can be summarized with this: "we gave you guys press passes, so don't badmouth us". He went on to outline the L'Arc~en~Ciel concert rules by repeating what many people before him had said already, which was that no interviews, autographs or photographs were allowed. He said that this was the case because the musicians are artists and not just performers, but a conversation with Kjeldoran yielded that this was merely preference and not cultural. Anyway, the staffer also solved the mystery behind the disappearance of Mystery Anime Theater 3000 (MAT3K wasn't a true part of Otakon, and the creators decided to end on a high note) and went on to answer questions about interviews with Guests of Honor. Like I said: boring stuff. The press conference ended at 10:19 pm, and we beat feet to make our getaway.

What was supposed to be a 15-minute drive turned into an odyssey of unfathomable proportions… or we took the wrong exit and once again got lost in the suburbs of Baltimore. So after our 50-minute cruise, we ended up back at the hotel by 11:15 pm. After a long day of city driving, I was beat and fell fast asleep upon lying in my sleeping bag underneath the sink. The first day came to a close with my face buried in the wall.

Day One
Now came the first day of the convention. Seeing as how there was going to be a lot of things to do (if the previous day's epic pre-reg line was any indication), we woke up right at 7:00 am. This was achieved mainly through Kain's cosmic snoring.

We all showered and dressed, Kjeldoran and Jigenuck put on their finely-honed Lupin and Jigen costumes. The crew was assembled sharply and ready to hit the road to the convention center. Seeing as how we had a sizable group, we split people between Eek's and Kain's respective transportation vessels. So it was vanisher, Gatts, Jigenuck and me in Kain's car. When I remembered the stories my peers had told me about Kain's driving, I securely buckled up and held on for dear life.

Along the way, we picked up breakfast at Burger King; this would be fine nourishment for the convention... well, until lunch, that is. As we ate, Kain zigged and zagged his way through the dragon highways of Baltimore, and we got to the convention center a few minutes before 9 am.

Since the others picked up their passes yesterday, Gatts and I had to go to the info desk to pick up our associate badges. Despite having many people working behind the desk, it took us awhile. The associate badges were snazzy, little numbers with a picture of Edogawa Conan from Detective Conan on the front. I felt so special.

After that, Gatts and I had to secure our entrance for the L'Arc concert by getting round stickers on the back of our passes. So off we went to wait in another line. It took us awhile to navigate through the convention center, but with Gatts' "never-fear" attitude, we were in line at 9:30 am. This one was bit longer, though, and was kept in check with the help of some carefully-placed red tape on the floor. Thankfully, the line moved faster than we anticipated, and we had our stickers by 9:43 am.

Around this time, we decided to walk around and see where everyone was. Somewhere during our journey, we walked into one of the random video rooms around 10:00 am and witnessed the first episode of Bobobo~bo Bo~bobo: a heart-tugging story about a young girl, a talking pickle and an afro-haired man who fights evil. With his nose-hairs. We left after the first episode (there is only so much sanity you can retain from seeing a man use nose-hairs as weapons). As we stood around, Gatts pointed out the line to the dealers room to me. The idea that this many people would be so willing to set their wallets on the line for Kaleido Star plushies and CLAMP-inspired wall scrolls was more than awe-inspiring.

At 10:48 am, we ran into the rest of the crew. While I was trying to explain the wonder of Bobobo~Bo Bo~bobo to them, the warm melody of The Cheat Is not Dead could be heard from downstairs; truly a moving ballad.

At 11:00 am, I tagged along to the Music Video Screening... well, it said on the schedule it was supposed to start at 11:00 am, but instead the staffer informed us that it was going to start at 11:30 am. So we waited for 11:30 am to roll around, and wouldn't you know it? There were computer problems. So, we waited. And waited. And waited. By 11:57 am, we were out of there.

What to do? No AMV Screening? Surely there must be some way to kill time. That time-killer came in the shape of the AMV Contest at 12:30 pm. Mugs, vanisher, Kjeldoran and I ran down to the screening room to see what this year had to offer. We arrived slightly early and were handed cards for us to choose this year's winners from the nominees. The contest was divided into several categories: romance, drama, action, rhythm/beat and humor. And it was we, the viewers, who had to decide which was the best in each category, as well as the Best in Show. There were some good ones (X set to End all Hope, Rose of Versailles to Pastime Paradise and Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu to Stacey's Mom) and some disappointments (Fullmetal Alchemist to Behind Blue Eyes, Onegai Teacher to Echo, and Cowboy Bebop to Atomic Dog).

After that was done, vanisher, Mugs and I headed for lunch at this one pizza place across the street. Of course, it was packed with otaku, but somehow the "Dining Gods" smiled upon us and we got a table. We were also greeted by my good friend and Manhattanville Anime Club member, Chad. We laughed, dined and were generally in good mirth.

Soon was time for Anime Academy's Freshman Orientation panel. It was a swanky setup with Kain doing the presenting, Mugs on the computer and Eek, Gatts and I at the table. We wound up with some nice questions and a charming turnout. People just kept coming in, and the final head count wound up being somewhere over sixty people. Amongst those sixty were three MAC members (and Anime Boston veterans) Jeff, Maria and Chad. A good time was certainly being had by all. We gave out shirts, questions were asked (including one about Eek versus Studio Gonzo, which had this Professor trying to stifle his laughter) and we ran into some interesting people. Overall, it was a good panel.

At 5:45 pm, we went upstairs to attend the Angela concert. With the magic power of press passes, we were able to secure seats that were pretty close to the stage. Soon, the lights dimmed and a man came to introduce the J-Pop duo at 6:10 pm. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this guy might have been the same one Eek mentioned in Anime Expo 2004, because he said he was from Geneon and proceeded in giving all of us a totalitarian lesson in how to pronounce it, proclaiming that we had to "practice now!"

Thankfully, right after this, Angela took the stage. They performed the opening and closing songs to Stellvia and Fafnir, as well as an unexpected singing of Cruel Angel's Thesis. Also unexpected was the guitarist, Katsu, proclaiming that the only English he knew was "she's a babe!", Geneon staffers teaching us a new "dance" and the same Geneon guy tossing Angela CDs on the ground to enunciate the fact that "they are hot!"

Once the concert hall emptied out, we stopped at the dealers room for a bit. Well, it was less of a dealers room and more of a Dealer's Mansion. Hundreds of goods were just lying out in the open for consumers to flock to. The two biggest booths were Geneon's and FUNimation's, the latter featured a life-sized Alphonse from Fullmetal Alchemist. There, Eek and I both bought copies of the fourth volume of the Berserk manga and took a glimpse at some of the other stuff that was being consumed by wallet-wielding otaku.

By 7:50 pm, we linked back at the DJ booth outside the dealers room to go grab some grub at the Harbor Mall's food court. And like the pizza place from earlier, this was also packed. I had to secure and defend a table for seven (Jigenuck and Kjeldoran had went off on their own). The food was filling and affordable, always a plus in my frugal book. And once we had quenched our appetites, it was back to the con for some well-earned fan parodies.

At 9:00 pm, we found our seats and witnessed two demonstrations of the insane anime depths fans will reach to. The first was this old parody from 1992 called "Voltron and the Hunt for Leather". I was glad to see something so ridiculously old-school filled with old-school jokes ("Hey, they have Cosmo DNA, too!").

The next one was the more recent Studio Sukodei's (the masterminds behind "Evangelion ReDeath") "Nescaflowne." Combining clips from Vision of Escaflowne and Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaia with some unique voice acting, music and editing, this made for one hilarious ride.

When that was over, we headed on back to the hotel for some well-deserved floor sleeping. Of course, I was too excited to go to sleep. And too cold because of the air conditioning. And too wet because of Jigenuck's melting cooler. And too bloodshot because of Kain's snoring.

I snored one night, okay? One!

Continue to Otakon 2004: Part II...