Greetings, everyone! I’ll cut right to the chase: Otakon was great! I really enjoyed it. Everything about the convention was highly enjoyable (except for the lines, but I’ll get to that in a minute). The first thing I did once I got into Otakon was head for the dealer’s hall. Now the dealer’s hall is huge. Otakon wasn’t joking when they said that an F-16 could take off in their dealer’s hall. Since the dealer’s hall was so large, I had no problem finding any of the items I was interested in. In fact, I snagged a few items that I didn’t think I’d ever find (Gundam: Ecole du Ciel volume 4 is finally in my possession!!). While some may not like large cons due to the amount of people, I think that large dealer’s halls are certainly better than small ones. The artist’s alley, similarly, was also pretty cool. I should point out that the artist’s alley itself felt like it was almost as large as Anime Boston’s dealer’s hall. Not only did it contain the artist tables, it also contained an art auction, where some artists auctioned off their works. As a result, there was a neat little gallery type thing on one end. Additionally, many people got to see the making of the large Otakon ’11 banner. Combined with the number of artist tables, the artist’s alley is definitely a place people who buy art shouldn’t miss.

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