Otakon 2024 Highlights: Cosplay, Events and More

Anime Atelier team visited Otakon in Washington D.C. on August 2-4, 2024. Otakon is an annual celebration of Japanese and East Asian popular culture, and also one of the largest gatherings of fans in the United States. You can experience many events involving shopping, cosplay, anime industry, music, dance, fan panels, video screenings, autographs, J-fashion, and more in this three-day event that attracted more than 46,000 people earlier this year.

Cosplay

The cosplay scene is always super high level and has a lot of variety and creativity as it's one of the biggest long-running anime cons on the East Coast. You can find the hottest fandoms of the recent anime season to obscure older fandoms being represented at conventions, and Otakon 2024 was no exception.

Highlighted Events that We Attended

• Otakon's 30th Anniversary Exhibition
• FLOW Concert on Friday night
• Fashion Show on Saturday afternoon
• Now Presenting Idol Festival on Sunday afternoon

Fashion Show

There was an variety of brands with new debut looks inspired by different J-Fashion substyles.

Brands included: Iris Garden x Haenuli, DykeMint, John Vincent Salvino, Nightwhisper, Sweet Mildred, Ronova, and Belladonna.

Other Highlighted Events

There were so many guest industry panels and events throughout the entire weekend. We couldn't make it to all of them, but here are some highlighted events below.

• Laid Back Camp: Onsite Research and Camp Food
• Orange Presents: Making of IDOLiSH7 the Movie BEYOND THE PERiOD
• Live Drawing with Studio Trigger
• Bandai Namco Filmworks Industry Panel
• A Reunion of a Different Kind: The Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Panel
• The Process of Turning Something Into a Manga From an Original Work [with Hinoki Kino and Kyoko Aiba]
• BLUE LOCK Panel – Meet the EGOISTS at Otakon! [with Koki Uchiyama and Shinnosuke Tachibana]
• Masquerade [Otakon's Cosplay Contest]
• WE LOVE ANIME OST MUSIC Feat. Anime Composer Yuki Hayashi and Producer Hiroya Nakata

Other Highlights From the Exhibit Hall

There were big name booths such as Bandai Namco, Diskotek Media, Kinokuniya Bookstore, TBS/TMS, and more with lots of known convention staples inside of Otakon's huge Dealers Room and Artist Alley. Some things that stood out included a banner & flower stand for seiyuu Aya Uchida and a soju booth.

Overall, we had a great time at Otakon. The venue is spacious and can hold a large crowd easily, while still allowing the intimacy of panels with the guests of honor. Line control wasn't a huge issue, although some anime industry panels were at full capacity by the time we tried to line up and the official merch booth had long lines. We got lost a couple of times, but there are roaming staff and customer service booths that will assist if you ask for directions. Luckily, we didn't have many issues, but hope that the convention takes feedback seriously to improve their event.

Thank you Otakon for an amazing event and we hope to stop by next year!