Sebby at Otakon
July 30 - August 1, 2010
For this year's Otakon, we decided to stay in a hotel for the convenience of being so close to the convention center. Every other year it just felt like we were spending so much time going back and forth, so we decided to try it out. We were very glad we did, because it was so nice to be right there! This year Hetalia seemed to be enormously popular (we each got a different badge depicting characters from the series), and it was too bad we hadn't yet seen the show because we weren't able to fully appreciate all the great Hetalia costumes! I brought my BJD Sebby to the convention, and although I really enjoyed bringing Shuichi the past two years, it was nice to bring a much smaller and lighter doll to tote around.
We saw a bunch of anime voice actor panels this year, on Friday it was literally back-to-back for the morning. It was really nice to see lots of our favorite actors, get introduced to some people we weren't yet familiar with, and see how each guest ran their panels. One of our favorite panels (although we didn't get to see it in it's entirety) was Mike Sinterniklaas because of how laid back and informal it was. He sat cross legged on the table and we really enjoyed the more intimate feel it gave to the panel. During Stephanie Sheh's panel, someone asked if she would sign something for them now because the Dealer's Room was on fire. Her reaction was so funny and she texted someone on her phone asking, "Is the Dealer's Room on fire?". We were all very curious to know what had occurred, but we were thankful we weren't evacuated like the rest of the convention, because we were in a panel room at the Hilton. We found out later that the fire alarm had been pulled, and apparently a lot happened outside when thousands of con-goers were evacuated onto the streets of Baltimore.
While in the Dealer's Room hunting for a Mikuru figure (from Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), we spotted J. Michael Tatum walking around. We were very excited to see him and asked if we could take our picture with him. He was very sweet and let us each take a photo and we told him how much we loved his work in Ouran. He was so nice to us and we were so excited that we had met one of our favorite voice actors. It was just such a coincidence too, because we spent all weekend looking for that figure, and if we had found it at any other point, we wouldn't have been heading out of the Dealer's Room at that exact time. When it was finally time to check out of the hotel on Sunday, we rode up the elevator and it was funny because there was someone dressed up as Chewbacca inside. When the elevator stopped at one of the other floors, two older ladies got on and were like 'Chewbacca again?'. It was really amusing because only at a convention can something as bizarre as Chewbacca in the elevator be met with something like that.
Memorable Moments
- Super easy and quick hotel check-in and pre-reg badge pickup
- Being in the Hilton which was connected to the Convention Center
- Watching the pirate ship in the Inner Harbor
- Patrick Seitz panel
- Todd Haberkorn panel
- J. Michael Tatum panel
- Artist Alley merchandise - Dr. Horrible standees, doll sweater, yaoi fan badges, cactaur magnet
- Dealer's Room merchandise - FFVII action figure weapon set, Get Backers character goods
- Getting an autograph and sketch in my manga from Joanna Estep in the Artist's Alley
- Ota-chan
- Stephanie Sheh panel (and being in the Hilton which avoided the fire alarm mess)
- Vic Mignogna panel and his Napoleon Dynamite/Mr. Bill FMA parody video
- Hetalia World Conference panel
- Even after not fully being able to follow along with Hetalia (due to it's fast pace and super short episodes) in the video room, knowing we would love it when we watched it at home
- Meeting J. Michael Tatum
- Chewbacca in the Hilton elevator
Photos