Otakon 2023: A Con for East Asian Culture’s Fans & Collectors!

For 23 years, I’ve been attending Otakon, a conference celebrating Asian popular culture (with a heavy give attention to Japanese media) that began in a lodge in Pennsylvania. By the time I began to attend the conference had moved into Downtown Baltimore, the place it grew to become a everlasting fixture in my life. While my curiosity in anime has ebbed and flowed, my curiosity in collectibles has solely gotten stronger. The con itself has additionally grown exponentially — a lot in order that Otakon left Baltimore a handful of years in the past, and strikes to the Walter E. Washington DC Convention Center.

This yr, Otakon noticed a complete of 42,000 individuals attend. As I’ve grown up with the con, I’ve seen firsthand simply how a lot this present has grown. From the sellers’ and artists’ alley sharing a corridor to the sellers’ room itself taking over one of many largest conference halls on the East Coast, it’s been a trip.

If you’re a fan of anime or Asian popular culture, Otakon is a good conference. If you’re a collector of classic video video games and anime, chances are you’ll discover some gems throughout the sellers’ corridor and online game room.

The Dealers’ Hall

Otakon 2023 had a whole lot of distributors promoting fashionable anime items, power drinks, automotive tradition merchandise, and classic video video games and anime. Many of the sellers spoke of how Otakon is all the time an enormous promoting present for them — with many making hundreds of {dollars} throughout the first few hours of the corridor being open. If classic anime is your factor, there have been a handful of sellers promoting such objects.

Laser Discs have began to see a rise in reputation with collectors. While the market continues to be in its infancy, it is vitally potential that we’ll see an LD renaissance within the subsequent few years. There is an LD grading scale which incorporates checking for Laser Rot (an unbelievable time period if I’m being sincere), and IGS does grade LDs! This explicit sales space — identify unknown as discovering sales space names may be very difficult — had honest costs in classic import LD and VHS.

The Sera Myu video within the above gallery was once a $75 import, however due to YouTube and common curiosity declining, this video was priced at $23 — a very reasonable value.

Prices on numerous LDs had been acceptable. Prices didn’t attain above $35 for a single disc, although full units had been overpriced by wherever between $50 – $100. My boyfriend had requested if they’d any wiggle room on an entire set of Neon Genesis Evangelion LDs (priced at over $200) as comparable units, with delivery, had been going for below $200. Unfortunately, this particular supplier wasn’t taken with haggling, which is an unlucky draw back to many anime sellers.

There had been loads of classic and imported video video games as nicely. Cartridges Galore had a formidable setup with hundreds of classic video games and consoles.

One merchandise that caught my eye was an open Panasonic 3DO FZ-10 REAL console. $300 appeared somewhat excessive for an out-of-box console. A handful have bought lately on eBay between $164 and $259, and there are loads extra listed for below $200. Other sellers within the corridor had very aggressive costs on import video games, so in case you are wanting for a sure import sport, Otakon is likely to be the place to be.

The Video Game Hall

Another room that continues to develop yearly is the online game corridor. This huge room options hundreds of import and home consoles, classic arcade cupboards, VR video games, card video games, board video games, and even cosplay meetups. This was a well-liked space of the con because it was near the principle entrance, and subsequent to a meals courtroom.

The most original cab on the ground was the Nintendo Red Tent vs. Balloon Fight machine. This was my first time seeing one in actual life as they’re onerous to return by. Nintendo had two kinds for the VS cab — an upright cab and the one seen above that had a display screen on both facet. The two Neo Geo cabs had been additionally a novel discover, alongside the handful of different classic cabs.

The lengthy card supplier had loads of ungraded Pokemon, Magic, and Yu-Gi-Oh! playing cards, in addition to a handful of graded playing cards. The Beckett Pristine 10 One Piece card the supplier had simply purchased that weekend for $500.

The group at Otakon is the perfect half. People from all walks of life and from all around the world come to the conference to precise their love of anime, video video games, and extra. If you’re a collector or a fan, Otakon must be in your to-do listing for subsequent yr!