What is wrong with Otakon?

Every year, in the hot and sweaty middle of the summer, Otakon, a large Anime convention is held in Baltimore, Maryland. The convention is so large that it practically takes over Baltimore for the weekend. To con-goers, Otakon is the Mecca of the east coast conventions and an absolute must go convention if you live on the east coast. You are almost guaranteed to have a good time if you attend the con. This year's Otakon has been my 7th year and I can comfortably say that it was the worst Otakon yet.

Don't get me wrong, Otakon is still a great convention and it is easy to list all the great things that it had to offer this year. Every year it has been always well organized despite the steady attendance growth to over 29000 this year. The quality of the panels at the convention was superb and there were fresh screenings anime and movies. The dealer's room as always had a large variety of dealers. The video game, as always, massive.

However, describing the shortcomings of the convention is a lot more difficult because it forces you to think a little more about the reasons for the shortcomings. Also, criticism is somewhat useless if you don't offer alternate solutions.

Overcrowding

"Welcome to Otakon, anime and Japanese culture and freaking lines!" -fellow attendee waiting on the line to the dealer's room

This is a problem that every large convention is faced with. This is a problem that simply can't be solved by regular means. Otakon has been taking many steps in alleviating this problem and so it isn't as severe a problem as linecon. However, the symptoms are still there: inability to get into popular panels without lining up an hour before, large lines to get into the dealer's room, masquarade, and the rave. If you're claustrophobic, you're screwed. Unfortunately, not much can be done about overcrowding at Otakon without changing the venue completely. With the recent addition of the Hilton, a change of venue seems unlikely in the near future.

Getting Into the Convention

This problem was introduced last year. In the past, once you got your badge, you could pretty much enter through any entrance. For some inexplicable reason, they opened the convention floor with just one entrance and thus people who got their badges on Thursday night were screwed as they had to wait in a line to get in anyway. This problem became so ridiculous last year that many people who picked up their badges on Friday or even just registered, were able to get into the convention sooner than people who picked up theirs on Thursday. Oh yeah, and no one that was waiting got in till 10 AM. This year, was a repeat of the same problem but not only of Friday, but on all 3 days! Even though the convention is technically supposed to open at 8:30 AM, they didn't actually start letting people in till 9:30 AM. I have no idea why you would screw over panelists who had their panels scheduled at 9:00 AM like that, but the idea of only one entrance being open is ridiculous.

Is the Dealer's Room Shrinking?

In 2008, Otakon's dealer's room was at its largest size. Taking up the size of this year's dealer's room plus the artist alley. Last year, for what I thought was economic reasons, they shrunk the floor to what it is this year's size. However, I noticed a disturbing number of dealers that were at Otakon for many years and suddenly didn't show up this year. The additional space seems to have been allocated to dealers who needed the extra space, but the variety of dealers has shrunk noticeably. I really hope this isn't a trend that is to follow for the upcoming years.

Where Did All the Cool Guests Go?

Last year was probably the most amazing Otakon for guests ever. With many known musical guests and interesting anime production staff, Otakon 2009 was easily the best Otakon. This year, Otakon understandably toned down on the amount of concerts and musical guests. I would have been okay with this change as long as the guests that were brought over were just as good as in previous years. Unfortunately for Otakon, that did not happen. Home Made Kazoku was the best that they were able to do this year despite the fact that other conventions on the east coast like AnimeNEXT, Anime Boston, and New York Anime Fest had a much better success at getting interesting guests. I understand that acquiring Japanese guests is a very difficult especially on the east coast where it becomes more expensive in both money and time. It is also becoming apparent, that with the con industry booming, the competition of getting quality guests has really heated up. Otakon is in danger of losing it's east coast crown as the biggest convention to NYAF which merged with New York Comic Con.

Was the Staggered Schedule Necessary?

I figure someone has suggested a staggered schedule to try accomplishing two things: Allowing panelists time to set up or pack up; Giving people time to get to the next panel. Unfortunately, there were obvious setbacks of this idea. Since there was 30 minute break between panels, it was painstakingly obvious that there was about 50% loss in time that could have been filled with more panels. The staggered schedule sacrificed panel variety as well as added 'dead' time between panels. This made the schedule boring with fewer interesting panels. Now Otakon wasn't the first convention to have used a staggered schedule. New York Anime Fest uses a staggered schedule with much success. So why couldn't Otakon get it right? Not only does NYAF keep a 15 minute break between panels, but it keeps a much more constant panel schedule which Otakon also failed to do. I really hope next year, they try to improve on this.

Hotel Reservations

So Otakon offered reduced rate hotel rooms if you reserved through Otakon. Fair enough they were indeed cheaper. However there was an important catch to this deal. If you reserved through Otakon and not the hotel directly, it means that hotels will treat you like a second class citizen and were allowed to downgrade your reservation if they wanted to. So if you (attempted to) reserved a room with two queen size beds for two people and one guest, tough shit, the hotel can give you a room with one queen sized bed if they want to. I wish that Otakon made it clear to everyone reserving hotels through them of possible issues concerning room reservations.

Having Fun Not Permitted

Just like many jaded veteran con goers, I too get annoyed by people yelling catch phrases and sudden hallway huggers. Over the years, Otakon went out of their way to enact rules to stop people from annoying others. Unfortunately, this is a double sided sword because at the same time, you are restricting people's expression of excitement and subduing the atmosphere of the convention. Suddenly, the con felt less lively, and more bland. I really think there can be a middle ground on this issue. Surely, the vuvuzelas can stay banned, but there is really nothing wrong with signs as long as they don't incite disruptive behavior. Catchphrases allowed as long as they're not racist, inflammatory, or vulgar. And really, what's wrong with consensual hugging?

As everyone already knows, there was a fire alarm that went off at around 2 PM on Saturday. However, I can't really blame Otakon for the fiasco since it was completely out of their control. Regardless, Otakon did an excellent job handling this matter.

These were most of the negatives that I feel turned Otakon 2010 into a mediocre con experience. Please feel free to comment on anything here, whether it be agreements or disagreements.

This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things!

A couple days ago, I posted a reaction post on Funimation's Dance of the Vampire Bund controversy. Now I am going to attempt a more analytical view of the events that transpired.

The whole event began with Funimation's announcement:

FUNimation Entertainment is known for releasing the titles we license in their original, uncut form, as their creators intended. However, after viewing the unedited as well as the Japanese broadcast edit of the series Dance in the Vampire Bund, we have determined the series contains controversial elements which, when taken out of context, could be objectionable to some audiences.

With this in mind and with approval of the licensor, we will edit select scenes from the series in streaming and home entertainment release. These are scenes which are inappropriate for U.S. viewing and are not essential to the storyline.

Dance in the Vampire Bund is a complex and dark drama cited by press and fans as one of the best anime series out of Japan this season. Its strong story is what brought the series to our attention and why we are bringing it to the U.S.

I don't know how much time Funimation's PR department spent on this announcement, but this is where the nasty starts. First of all, they start of with a lie. Sure they had a good track record with censorship for a good period of time, but Funimation has censored things in the past. Then they say that some people might not like the content in Dance of the Vampire Bund. Okay. Every anime has controversial elements that, when taken out of context, could be objectionable to some audiences. I am sorry, but this sentence will not give you pity and understanding for what you are about to say in the next paragraph. We don't really care that you got approval from the original creator. Many times, they agree to anything, but saying that everyone in the U.S. cannot handle some material in Vampire Bund is not only an insult to the show's fans, it's an insult to all your customers! Apparently everyone's too dumb and sensitive to handle Dance of the Vampire Bund in it's original form! Great! Thanks Funi, this will guarantee sympathy and agreement. Vampire Bund is definitely, a complex and dark drama, thanks for dumbing it down for us! Maybe I am reading too much into this. Maybe I am just getting old, jaded and bitter. But this PR is a kick to the groin.

But then what brought about this decision? People quickly pointed out the Handley Case for the main reason why Funimation stepped back and decided to censor their anime. To an extend those people may be right. Handley may have given American Otaku a bad rep and put Anime and Manga companies in the cross-hairs of legal enforcers. Whether that's true is pure speculation. However, there is definitely not a legal reason because of the Miller Test that was going to be used against Handley (except he pleaded guilty and so we didn't even see it used). Dance of the Vampire Bund would, without a doubt, pass the Miller Test and would be cleared of any obscenity charges. If this was a legal precaution taken by Funimation then they either didn't ask for legal advice, or were too dumb or lazy to deal with it.

Scott of Anime Almanac was quick to defend Funimation in his blog post. After all, the folks at Funimation are fans like us and work hard to get localized anime to the United States. You can't really bad mouth all of Funimation for this incident. Scott also attended a workshop at Katsucon on the various dilemmas an Anime company goes through. He describes a scenario where there is a massive fan outrage. The choice is whether to appease the fans or go ahead and release the product anyway. This a decision whether to support the fans or whether to support the company. As a person, I understand why a someone would pick a scenario that is theoretically better for the company (in the short run). And this is exactly what (someone at) Funimation did. BUT, the fans are your customers; the customers buy your products; sold products provide revenue. Stab your fans, your customers in the back, and they will never come back to buy your products. Lost sales = lost revenue. In the short run, this isn't a big deal. However, it will take years and years for these fans to reconsider and come back.

Analytical posts have delicious pie graphs like these. Data taken from Mania.com.

(Click on the Pie to enlarge)

What will Funimation do? They are yet to respond to the outrage. The best thing they can do right now is to provide some ointment on the wounds of the pissed off fans in a form of PR. But, I am afraid that they will simply stay quiet and hope everyone just forgets about this whole thing and laugh it off like it never happened. (This won't happen.) The worst thing that Funimation can do right now is to pull off other titles and censor them to conform to their new 'appropriateness' standards. Whatever Funimation will do, it is pretty clear as to what many of their customers will do. They will simply not buy the anime during DVD/BD release. Some will never touch a Funimation product again for some time. Unless of course, until Funimation once again places the fans, their customers first again.

A (probable) picture of their projected sales after the announcement.

(Click on the Pie to enlarge.)

On the bright side of things, The Dance of the Vampire Bund manga distributed by Seven Seas is probably doing very well due to the controversy. Ironically, many fans have said that the Anime diverges quite a lot from the Manga and is therefore inferior.

UPDATE: Funimation has responded to the outrage. More interestingly, their response fits my "this is the best thing that Funimation can do right now" scenario that I came up with.