Like always there was a mad dash to receive tickets, this year however, I was not part of the stampede. I choose to just watch the tournaments, which, for me was different. I'm usually the guy hogging the first player controller making everyone else watch me. The audience wasn't very loud, only getting excited when someone was defeated, everyone screaming "OHHH!" in unison, which was funny, the first dozen times. Not so much after that.

Sadly I couldn't spend all my time in the game room; Otakon is more than just a game room. Otakon also has panel discussions on just about anything you could want to hear about in reference to Asian culture, music, fashion, voice actors, hentai, anime, video games and so on. I listened in to a few of the video game panels, such as discussions about localizing PC games and creating homebrew software. While I found them interesting, mainly because I was surrounded by like-minded gamers, they weren't all that enlightening. Whether I learned anything or not wasn't that important, having discussions usually limited to the internet in person was a good experience.

Other than the game panels, I chose not to attend anything other then two of the music panels; former X Japan drummer/pianist and now composer and producer Yoshiki, and the Japanese rock band Mucc. On top of being a huge J-Rock fan to begin with, Yoshiki and Mucc are two of my favorite names in the business. Mucc did the usual fan service, explaining that they are a group of friends from school and that they all love Metallica. They also stated that they intend to be the group that brings Japanese rock to mainstream America, pledging to release stuff here. Which is completely different then what prior J-Rock/pop groups have stated previously at Otakon (such as T.M.R. or L'arc~en~ciel), those groups merely stated that they'd love to come back. They haven't ...

Yoshiki is a bit of an odd ball when attempting to decipher his intentions for America. He has lived here since the early nineties, his record label is based in Los Angeles, and he frequents MySpace. Yet he's only had one song released in the states that is on a KISS tribute album. When asked if his pet project, Violet UK, would tour in the United States he assured the audience that they would. Take that with a grain of salt though, he also said the band would be ready for action years ago, it still isn't ready. He engaged in trivial banter with the fans, talking about his MySpace page, his work with Sir George Martin, whether or not he'd bring his hair band hair back or not, that sort of stuff. Yoshiki took time out from the fan service to announce a bomb shell; he will be forming a band with none other then Gackt (Malice Mizer, solo artist). I thought my ears were going to bleed after that announcement ... those fan girls can scream LOUD. Aside from the fact that the band will happen, Yoshiki said nothing else leaving questions about what type of music the band will perform or what would happen to Violet UK and GacktJOB (Gackt's personal band).

Unfortunately, Yoshiki was not performing at this year's convention, since he doesn't really have a group at this point. Gothic Lolita pop star Nana Kitade opened for Mucc at a small local venue called The Ram's Head. At first I was pissed off that the concert was being held there, as it was a twenty minute walk away and there were only 1,500 tickets for 25,000 con goers. It turns out the press were more or less guaranteed tickets, and the walk? Well worth it! The venue has great sightlines and even better acoustics; I'm going to have to start going there to see local bands. To anyone else in the Baltimore-Washington area, I recommend seeing a show there. Actually, I think I may have been the only local that hadn't ever been there.

As previously stated, the opening act was guitarist/vocalist and Gothic Lolita fashion designer Nana Kitade. She was peppy, cute and was a pretty decent singer. I had just about made up my mind to buy her CD on the way out when something caught my eye; the woman was guitar syncing ... poorly. It was so obvious, not only were her movements a dead give away, but her ankle length hair was between her hand and the strings. I just stood there in amazement, how arrogant do you have to be to do something like that in your debut performance?