evasource

These are in no particular order.

Otakon Attendees

The generic Otakon attendee is generally a white male belonging to one of the following categories:

1. Fat - Long hair
2. Fat - Short hair
3. Shit thin - Long hair

No matter which type it is, it is generally a given that he will be wearing a t-shirt that does not fit him, and it will most likely be black. I'm not sure why.

AMVS

This year we decided to actually enter our own AMV into the contest; needless to say, it wasn't quite that great, and didn't make the finals. The lowest blow of all, of course, was when we failed to make the consolation tape.

Regardless, there's a major problem with the AMV's at Otakon; namely, most of the people who watch them are fucktards (as discussed above), and the people who make AMV's cater to this audience. There's clearly a cheap and easy way to make your video "funny" and give it mass appeal, and as far as I can tell it's abused to shit; simply use any part of Trigun ANYWHERE in your video, and it'll become an instant classic. You have a wide variety of scenes to choose from:

1. Vash dancing.
2. Vash with a cat thing (whatever the fuck that is) on his tongue.
3. Vash inching up to look up a girl's skirt.
4. Vash making a stupid face.

Judging solely from the videos I've seen, TRIGUN HAS NO OTHER SCENES.

Now, don't get me wrong- I like Trigun, and I think it's a great anime. It has a decent story, a badass protagonist, and plenty of action; it's funny. But unless you're some kind of idiot or a small child, nothing is funny when repeated over and over. The amazing thing was that, regardless of this, people marveled and laughed consistently at those four scenes EVEN WHEN THEY OCCURRED IN OVER THREE CONSECUTIVE VIDEOS. The only conclusion I can reach is that Otakon is primarily attended by easily amused little monkeys. Some of which attempt to sing along to every single fucking song in the contest.

Similarly, I found various animes tremendously overexposed.

Before I continue, I'd like to note that I'm not one of those elitist assholes that believes that nothing popular can be good, and that the general body of the populace is not entitled to watch or read the same material I do. That said, it is clear that many people have had an extremely limited exposure to anime, and as a result concentrate on the select few they HAVE watched with a sad, fanatical degree. The most notable examples are Trigun and Vampire Hunter D; both fine products, I still found myself completely thrown off by just how much of them I saw. Just sitting through around three general screening tapes, I came to the conclusion that all the videos made with these animes were the same exact thing; this is most evident with D, given the source material consists of a single movie. Towards the end, I began to even hate them.

Damn you Cartoon Network.

One last note: yes, Naru hits Keitaro repeatedly. He goes flying off into the horizon. Stop laughing every single time.

Revolving Doors

As l was leaving the hotel, sometimes I would take the opportunity to shove the revolving door with as much force as possible, slamming the glass into the occupant on the other side. It was great fun.

Cosplaying

This has been said before, and I'll say it again; some people should not cosplay. Looking at them is a fucking horrible experience.

Kids with Signs

There were a bunch of people walking around the convention holding signs ranging from "hug me" to "slap my ass" to, of all things, "free asskicking." The last belonged to a fragile looking, thin boy with glasses standing next to the elevator; ignoring the fact that he's probably paid several hundred dollars, including hotel fees, to stand there with his stupid ass sign, that's someone asking for trouble.

Naruto

I was surprised at just how widespread Naruto was, given that the anime has not even been licensed as I write this; either a whole lot more people read manga than I thought, or fansubbed copies are getting extremely widespread.

Megatokyo

I just don't get it. I'll leave this one alone.

ADV T-shirt Throwing

In the dealer's room, periodically the ADV booth would gather a bunch of people into a small space and start throwing t-shirts in; obviously, whoever caught one would keep it, and be the envy of those around him. Needless to say, both myself and Tempest got three each, and surrendered two total out of sheer pity.

The Cowboy Bebop Guy

I had the chance to get an autograph from the character designer of Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, and Golden Boy, among others; his name was Toshihiro Kawamoto. A very nice guy.

Elevators

The elevators at the Wyndam Hotel sucked ass, probably due to the sheer mass of obese flesh they had to move around this weekend. Worst of all was seeing it stop on the SECOND FUCKING FLOOR for people who wanted to go down. Otakon is a vicious cycle consisting of people carrying lots of cosplaying materials, thus becoming too lazy to walk, thus becoming fatasses, and thus becoming horribly inappropriate cosplayers. Go on some fucking diets.

Food

On average, I was going on one meal a day. It's not that bad, if you eat your fill when you get the chance. As opposed to Otakon 2002, this year we had the chance to get some decent food; crab cakes, gourmet pizza, kabobs, etc...

Dealer's Room

The dealer's room kicks ass. Enough said.