Wanna be an otaku?

...which I just now learned is "a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, especially manga, anime, or video games" (thanks Wikipedia).

Otakon, the East Coast's largest anime and Japanese culture convention, just so happens to be held in Baltimore every year. Since I had Sunday off, Shane and I decided "why the hell not?" and went down to the convention center.

Keep in mind that my knowledge of anything anime is very limited. Okay so I had a Sailor Moon doll, some Hello Kitty VHS tapes, and used to watch Pokémon every day after school. That's pretty much it. Needless to say, we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into...

Wait I know these guys! Why are the Power Rangers here? Pretty sure they're not Japanese*

 That's okay, we'll let that one slide.

*upon further research, I have learned that the Power Rangers were basically a rip-off of the Super Sentai series, which is Japanese. If you're really that interested, you can see for yourself here and here.*

Turns out, when they say Otakon is the largest otaku convention on the East Coast, they mean it. We're talking an estimated 31,000+ in attendance this year, with tickets going for $75 a pop! (Do some quick math. It's okay, pull out the calculator. Yes I know, that's a lot of money. And that's just from tickets.) Thank goodness they had quit selling tickets by the time we got there, and the guy said "It's okay, you can just walk around." We didn't even really go inside, but just in the hallways we saw plenty.

I didn't really want to stop and ask anybody if I could take their picture because, well, for the most part I had no idea what anyone was supposed to be. So I just snapped a couple here and there, trying to show the craziness that we saw. Believe me, there was so much more. I wish I had just put my iPhone on video mode and walked around with it like that.

These people, who are dressed up as Link and the princess from the Legend of Zelda (which I have somehow picked up in passing, I really have no idea why I know who these people are) were being interviewed by some girl in a tie about their costumes. I heard the princess say it took her three months to make hers. Also, check out the camera man's hat. It was some sort of little anime character, those are it's orange feet on the sides.

 

Compared to everyone else, this girl in the horned, fanged, purple people eater or whatever the heck that is mask is actually way under dressed.

 Oh, and did you see Betty Boop up there? Look for the red dress... now I know for certain that she's not Japanese!

 Everyone was pretty much dressed up as something or other. We're talking lots and lots of wigs. Furry tails hanging out of pants. Decorated doctor's masks (can you say creepy?). Gas masks. And there were definitely lots of foam swords. And I had absolutely no clue what any of it meant...like the girl who was wearing a homely dress and carrying a basket. Is there some Japanese version of Little House on the Prairie that I don't know about?

 This picture, which I stole from the internet, is a basic run-down of what I'm talking about. Foam swords, wigs, face paint, mask things, it's all right here. And unless you saw the photo comments on deviantart, I don't think that any of you (or me) would know that these people are something called Espada from Bleach. And all I know about Bleach is that I change the channel when it comes on adult swim.

 Not sure who this girl was, but she was already posing. So there.

 Some people would look at this costume and say "wow, he's such a fan of blah blah whatever this is!" Other people would wonder how long it took him to make it.

I'm just wondering how he fit inside a bathroom stall.

So yeah. That's what happens when you go to the anime convention. You see people in strange costumes. Then you have to wiki a bunch of stuff so you can write a blog post about it. But hey, we learn something new every day!