Anime World Order Show # 211 – Otakon 2022 Report With Dave no Kawaiikochans & Carl of Ogiue Maniax

We’re graced by a dangerous duo of mecha/mahjong enthusiasts this time around: Dave Cabrera (@Sasuraiger) and Carl (@SDShamshel) join us for a convention report of Otakon 2022 which was held in Washington D.C.

Intro (0:00 – 22:54)
Carl of the Ogiue Maniax blog and Dave of the Kawaiikochans webcomic and GamesoftRobo Substack introduce themselves. Both were panelists at Otakon 2022, and Carl was also Press like us; check out his interview with voice actor Mariya Ise.

We were initially going to jump directly into the con report, but wouldn’t you know it 24 hours prior to the recording it was revealed that Sony’s monopoly of the anime industry continues to grow, as Crunchyroll has acquired Right Stuf Anime. What does this acquisition mean for anime fandom in the US? We don’t know. Are we still going to be sponsored by Right Stuf now that they are under the Sony umbrella? That we also don’t know; note there’s no promo this time around since well, who do we even invoice now? For now, the only thing we DO know is that all merchandise previously classified as “erotica” has been de-listed, to now be sold on another site…which doesn’t yet exist. It’s possible that future episodes will be sponsored by Right Stuf once more, but now is probably a good time for us to start setting up that Discord and pushing some more Patreon incentives, huh?

Convention Report: Otakon 2022 (22:54 – 2:09:37)
The downside of going to conventions is that you don’t REALLY get to see people a lot, especially not in this COVID era (yes, contrary to what you see on TV, COVID is still very much a dangerous thing) which leaves us personally still gun shy about going to room parties and group dinners and what have you. If you see someone, it’s often in passing while they’re on the way to attending one thing and you’re on the way to attending another. On the bright side, it does enable us to expand our coverage of the convention, as Dave, Carl, and ourselves each went and saw a variety of things. There were, of course, multiple instances where all of us were present for the same event or guest, so all of us can weigh in on our thoughts.

There are also things we totally forgot to talk about at all which happened over the weekend, but that’s what the pictures are for:

The cost of the ride was as much as the meal, but where else can we get hand-pulled ramen noodles?
Gerald bought a slew of ultra-cheap tacky anime shirts. We were worried people might find them cool, but once we saw Justin Sevakis react to how garish they were, we knew we made the right call.
We got two such shirts for Mike Toole. Here he is in the Touch one. This image was selected for being the most unflattering of the set. Very important to catch him mid-blink.
Mike also got a Macross shirt, which he wore to the Bigwest panel since “we’ll all wear these shirts there!” We then did NOT wear such shirts. Confession now that it’s over: it wasn’t a prank, it was because we didn’t actually HAVE goofy Macross shirts of our own to wear. (At the time, we played it as though we had betrayed him.)
Move over, itasha dealer’s room occupants! The MODEL TRAIN OTAKU~! are on the scene. There were tons of fun little details in these dioramas as the trains made their loop around the track.
Among several other interesting historical artifacts, Carl Horn was carrying around this pristine copy of the August 1st, 1983 edition of Time Magazine. He may think his voice isn’t great for podcasting, but neither are ours! We recorded his Dark Horse panel for our own records, since it’s not just an industry panel but a historical retrospective of US manga fandom. He was there for it!
Here’s a new thing: gachapon dispensers in the dealer’s room! We were already surprised to see Bandai-Namco rolling these out in our local shopping malls, but they’re not going to have City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes merch like Otakon did. Gerald got Saori and Umibozu; Daryl got Kaori and Ryo/Kaori.

List of Titles Shown at Otakon 2022

For those of you who attended Otakon 2022, here’s a list of the titles shown during our panels. We did say we’d put this up so you wouldn’t have to write everything down, didn’t we? If you liked what you heard, we’ve done plenty of anime reviews, so take a look at our Review Index and read Otaku USA Magazine.

Thirty Years Ago: Anime in 1992
Sailor Moon
Yu Yu Hakusho
Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still
Tetsujin 28 Go FX
Tenchi Muyo! (Ryo-Oh-Ki)
Tekkaman Blade
Video Girl Ai
Bastard!!
Tokyo Babylon
Cooking Papa
Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf
Flower Witch Mary Bell
All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku
Porco Rosso
Run Melos
Lupin the Third: From Siberia With Love
Genesis Survivor Gaiarth
Macross II -Lovers Again-
Ushio and Tora
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Golden Wings
Green Legend Ran
Ranma 1/2 Movie 2: Bring Back the Brides aka Nihao My Concubine
Spirit of Wonder: Miss China’s Ring