We’d never thought that we would be going to an event like Otakon in Baltimore, MD, but we did. We didn’t attend as a vendor, but a visitor this time, and we had a fun! We wanted to check things out and see what the biggest East Coast Anime show was all about.
We were there for only a day and a half, thinking that that would be a plenty of time to browse things through. But it was not that case. I wished we’d arrived there from the very beginning and got to see more of it.
In order to explore the anime world, we decided to take a couple of seminars. One of them was called “Cover Your Bases.” It was an overview of the most important Anime that we should watch before we could call ourselves true anime fans. I could recognize only 10% of what they were talking about just because I used to watch some of the shows on TV as a child. Every time the panel introduced a new title, people would applaud. Everybody in the room was interested and excited about what the panels had to say about each anime. Clearly, we have a lot to learn. I do watch Japanese dramas sometimes, but that’s because it’s easy to hear my own language when my brain is dead after a long day. But for non-Japanese people to watch those shows with subtitles, they would have to have a special interest in the language or culture. Apparently, there are lots of fans out there for Japanese entertainment. From what we learned, there’s a lot of variety in anime and a bit of something for everyone.
It’s so nice to see people reacting the way they were to parts of the Japanese culture. I think they get into Anime or drama first and then Cosplay or kimono. Then the Japanese language, food and culture….
However that works, I do appreciate when people show an interest towards Japan. When I realized how much more Japan has to offer after attending this event, I was very proud to be Japanese.
We were tired after our crammed schedules, but it was refreshing to see a different world that we’d never experienced before. When we come back as a vendor next year, we should have a better understanding of the culture of anime.
