Like the apostles at the foot of the mount, or Mohammed's whole deal with the rock, I wasn't prepared for what I was gonna see. Otakon's panels were, for me, an eye opening experience in many ways. Much the same way as an alcoholic takes their twelve steps, or how a wife beater stops, you know, beating his wife, I wanted to reform. I wanted to make right all that is with the world. I felt as if my sanity was ebbing, everything I ever knew and held dear seemed to be wrong. It was enlightening and it just wasn't fair. Let me say this at the very beginning. I went to this this with little to no backup. That means out of seven hours of panels I was alone for all but two of them. So while everyone else is out having fun I'm out jerking my bird in an attempt to get some real content for this site or something. It's ridiculous the things I go through for you people and I don't even think you understand. But you will. Oh, you definetely will.

They started off with a bang by putting the best panel first. Well, technically AnimEigo is first but fuck you if you think I'm going to a panel the hour after I got to the damn place. Actually, I would've went. I would've LOVED to go. But I was way too busy waiting in line for Joel because he didn't pre-register. Thanks Joel. Anyway, so, CPM. I know what you're thinking. It's "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?" because that's what I was thinking too. Because CPM, as a general thing, has always just plain sucked to me. I don't think anyone who reads the reviews on the site is a stranger to my twisted hate for them. John O'Donnel and Justin Sevakis totally turned me around. I'm not really sure if it was the casual way they shut up the whiney guy complaining about menu problems, the cool stuff about Grave of the Fireflies, or their vivid description of Night Shift Nurses cuts. But it was there. By the way, the Night Shift Nurses thing was hilarious. John : We didn't think anyone would really miss it. But we got tons of emails saying they did. So we put all that shit back in. If you know what I mean. Justin : What?! Ew...

That made my fucking day. But it also set an unfair tone for the rest of the festivities. Because as good and interesting as CPM was, and they had some cool titles to show, everyone else kinda paled in comparison. They were all cool in their own way. Except TokyoPop. They just plain sucked. Next on the roster was Bandai. Definetly the second best in show. Jerry Chu's casual dismissal of his raving two person fan club was a sight to see. Especially when one of them gave him a T-shirt. "I'm not going to wear this." is all he said, and it was all he needed to say. I think we could all find a hero in Jerry Chu, even if his attempt to shoot down a fan complaining about translations when horribly awry (pronounced awwww-ree in the Phillipines. Thanks Jerry!) as the fan proceeded to speak in perfect Japanese. Don't worry Jerry Chu! Because you're going to go to your hotel room and do lines of coke off of super models while he goes to his mom's basement and beats his bird to cartoon porn. Kinda makes your victory seem a little smaller, doesn't it anime dork? The thing I was most interested in was this game dot hack sign (however it's spelled). Sounds pretty cool. Some sort of internet rpg (that doesn't require you to connect to the internet, thank god.) Out in October. As for their trivia giveaways...all I know is some son of a bitch snaked a copy of Silent Mobius from under me. I've been training my whole LIFE to tell a con rep what the Bandai website was!

After that it was practically crappity crap crap. This was heralded in by Tokyopop, necomer to the anime field. I don't know who this Joel Barrell fellow is, or what a "brand manager" does. Well, that's not exactly true. I have a pretty good idea of what a brand manager does. Suck. Suck long and hard. Neither him nor his two anime bitches could interest me when their entire panel was "We're true to the Japanese manga style! Except when we're not like now!" and showing us clips of shit I've already watched at Jerry's apartment. Ohhhh, trailers that've been out for three months eh? That's awesome Tokyopop. Now die. And you too Leann Sentar, author of six and a half Sailormoon novels. I guess that means she translated them or something? Or is it something like S.D. Perry and Resident Evil? If so, die even more. You're horrible person.

Let's not forget ADV. Basically they announced that they had every anime ever. DRL, animeonDVD forum regular, showed off just how neat the menus and special features are for Excel Saga 2. Then it was off to the prizes! And prizes they had in plenty. ADV must be made of money or have some sort of tree that grows it. Because they were giving away prizes as if they did. I'd guess aproximately $500 worth and I didn't get a single one. The Blue Seed or Getter Robo sets would've been really nice. And I loved the box art on the Bubblegum Crisis 2040 set. Even though I own the whole show. That led to hilarious circumstances in the dealer's room.

And Mediablasters? They were cool in their laid back "We have absolutely nothing to say except that we have Berserk" way. This is when the fat indian fellow with the plastic sword and Kanji badana started to get on my nerves. I mean, I dealt with all of his stupid questions in all the other panel...but enough was enough. This guy was retarded, and he sure did seem to get excited about his shows for six year old girls. I could often make out what he was saying, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with touching little boys in their most private of private spots. Yeah, that guy was a freak. However, I was rather proud the Mediablasters guy. Not only are they releasing Versus, but he doesn't like Mezzo Forte. And that makes him okay in my book. They also apparently have the Iria OVAs. So, that's all good? Right. Except...I already own them.

Sunday brought its own trials and tribulations. Pioneer and Viz were both pretty boring, honestly. They both basically said "We already said everything we had to say at AnimExpo, here's a bunch of trailers." Add into the mix that basically everything pioneer showed looked like crap. Sugar, about a little faerie who goes around eating shit or something. Chobits, another cliched love story no doubt. And who can forget Mahoromatic? The trailer that looked awesome until all the breast jokes and maid outfits came in. Viz has Inu Yasha and Hamtaro and that's it. But apparently that's not good enough for some irate fans who want to know who they can "direct their rage at for the fact that Zoids is being released before Hamtaro." That quote's almost verbatim and I gotta give the Viz reps mad props for handling the crowd of jerk-offs so well. I hate anime so much.

And finally Manga. It's like they capped the beginning and end off with both the companies I love to hate. But now I'm just confused about it. Don't get me wrong, nothing Manga's really releasing interests me...except maybe Read or Die, all the same...they sent a large black man to their panel. It was almost as if they wanted to scare me into buying their DVDs. And I'm not gonna lie...I'm pretty sure it worked. Even better this guy, Keith Burgess, was easily one of the most knowledgable people at any of the panels. He answered questions without a problem and I know a caught a smirk or two as he replied to the hardcore obbessed jerk-offs. Keith was one of the guy's I'd like to be friends with and while my opinion of Manga as complete and total asses hasn't entirely changed...there's always gonna be a special place in my heart for Keith (but not in a gay way).

Taking notes at the Manga panel I used a pad instead of writing it on a laptop, it felt more...natural to me. Next year I'm getting a fedora and putting a "PRESS" tag in it. We'll see who's laughing then. Me. Also long as I'm not all alone at the panels AGAIN. Because while some were good times, it's like sitting through a class you like at school. You might like it, but it's still school.