Saturday

A theatrical showing of the MACROSS PLUS MOVIE EDITION in Japanese was supposed to open the second day of Otakon, but a certain air courier lost all the film reels en route from Japan. Nevertheless, the rest of the video and live programming still continued. SPRING AND CHAOS, Studio TAC and Kawamori's biographical homage to literary figure Miyazawa Kenji, prefaced an EVANGELION: DEATH AND REBIRTH showing after some room seating difficulties.
Aro and Kawamori also held their first autograph sessions as well as their panels. Aro used his panel in the afternoon to discuss his humorous works and field questions. The panel also gave him the chance to see with his own eyes the overseas fans he already has, even before Studio Ironcat's English release.
Kawamori's panel drew so many attendees that it was moved from a live-programming room to a video room. There, he also fielded questions—the majority about MACROSS, but also a good number about ESCAFLOWNE and non-animated works. Kawamori explained why MACROSS II is a parallel world story separate from the other animated MACROSS works (no Studio Nue involvement and he hasn't seen it yet) and how he dreamt up the original VF-1 Valkyrie (early robots designs merged with VF-14 Tomcat's lines after a stroke of inspiration). He also reiterated the origins of ESCAFLOWNE (his global trips and desire to explore the mysterious) and the reason for Hitomi's final look in the animation (director Akane Kazuki's discretion).
In addition to reminiscing on past works, Kawamori also gave the inside scoop on his current projects. He is working on ARMORED CORE 2 for the Sega Dreamcast game console and an unrelated mecha fighting game for arcade release. He is also editing the story for the upcoming ESCAFLOWNE movie, whose differences from the original series he described as being at least as wide as the first MACROSS series and film's differences were. Finally he hints at two television series treatments he is working on for possible release next year: a human drama/action series and a mystical mecha series.
Saturday evening's masquerade drew the most people of any of the con's events. The costume players included a surprising number of mecha, such as the EVA-01 (EVANGELION), the AV-98 Ingram (MOBILE POLICE PATLABOR), and Priss's hardsuit complete with a street-legal motorcycle (BUBBLEGUM CRISIS). Animals and demi-humans were also well-represented by the twin leopard girls Naria and Eriya (ESCAFLOWNE) and the roly-poly panda Genma (RANMA ½). The latter's belly-dancing prompted character voice Amanda Winn Lee to reprise her Anime Central dollar tuck to the audience's approval. However, Michael O' Toole stole the show with his remarkably convincing costume of everyone's favorite cat from the future, Doraemon.
The usual Saturday night con insanity then ensued. In addition to the Club Otaku Dance Party (with its predilection to techno), the con showed fan parody videos, and the fans held private parties.

Sunday

With Saturday's parties and overnighters, Sunday was naturally the quietest of the three days. Aro and Kawamori held their second autograph sessions for those who missed the Saturday ones. Fans and professionals also ran the last remaining panels on the controversial topics of dubbing and subbing.
The relative calm of Sunday gave many a chance to see the video gaming room, the dealers' room, and the art show. The art show was highlighted by an exhibit of original artwork by Kawamori, including some never shown publicly in Japan. The artwork included imageboards for MACROSS: DO YOU REMEMBER LOVE?, never-animated mecha designs which later became the inspiration for MACROSS 7 mecha, and ESCAFLOWNE pre-production mecha sketches. The art exhibit even included work from his MACROSS and MACROSS 7 colleagues Miyatake Kazutaka (image drawing of MACROSS 7) and Mikimoto Haruhiko (original cels from the MACROSS 7 ending animation).
The traditional art auction and con feedback session concluded the con as fans and guests filed home or looked forward to sightseeing at Washington's museums and monuments. While unable to avoid some of the usual con mishaps, Otakon staff could nevertheless breathe a sigh of relief after completing another enjoyable con.

Photos of Kawamori Shoji © Dana Weaver