Otakon 2010 Wrap-Up

First, the big news:


 * Funimation licensed Evangelion 2.0, the Hetalia World Series film, Strike Witches 2, and Summer Wars.
 * Bandai licensed The Girl Who Leapt Through Space (Sora Kake Girl), My-Otome 0~S.ifr~, and announced an English dub of K-ON!
 * Madhouse is making an ONA with Yoshiaki Kawajiri called Ninja Ten Battles, which Madhouse's head described as "a guy in drag with a sword wh ofights ninjas."
 * Aniplex USA will ship all of R.O.D (OVA and TV) in Blu-Ray.

Second, my Brief History of Anime panel went great! Lots of positive audience reaction. Thanks to everyone who was there; I'm really looking forward to doing it again.

[http://www.otakunovideo.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/photo-300x225.jpg|300x225px|Otakon 2010]Third, my thoughts on the con:

I attended several informative, well-run panels:


 * Experiments in the Anime Industry: noitaminA, an information-dense panel about the noitaminA anime block, which specifically targets the josei market.
 * Writing Your World, a panel nominally about writing role-playing game supplements that evolved into a forum to ask role-playing advice.
 * Anime in Academia. I skipped the Welcome to the Space Show premiere for this panel, and I'm glad I did. Lots of information from experts (one woman had a Fulbright Scholarship, another got her Ph.D. at Harvard) about how English-language academia is approaching anime and manga.

Unfortunately, the schedule was a mess. The convention guide listed panels in alphabetical order starting with whatever word the author thought was most important, so "A Brief History of Anime" may have been listed under A, B, or H. Worse, the schedule itself abbreviated the panels differently, so "A Brief History of Anime" may have been listed under B in the guide but written as "History of Anime" in the schedule.

Worse, I saw a lot of panel cancellations. By mid-afternoon on Saturday, two panels I wanted to see were canceled, and every panel room I saw had at least two cancellations listed just for that room.

Then, Saturday afternoon as the podcasting panel was setting up, some knucklehead decided to pull a fire alarm. All 27,000 otaku had to exit the convention center. This is not the organizer's fault, but I admit it didn't help my mood.

The Dealer's Room was smaller than last year, though we can get so much anime stuff online these days that a small Dealer's Room is no problem.

In general, I loved the panels but was frustrated by the con itself.