Otakon has come and gone, and next year’s has already been scheduled (July 30 – August 1, 2010) although I haven’t bothered to book the room yet. The photo above I took with the camera on my phone: that’s the second generation USB flash drive from the Webcomic Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki (I actually have the first generation, too) with the paper sleeve up top with the comic logos on it and the signature of the author/artist Kittyhawk on the drive itself on the bottom!

I bought a ton from Kittyhawk actually – I was so glad she made it up to Otakon this year, and she apparently had a good enough time that she wants to come back next year. I’ll have to buy more frames so I can buy more of her prints. Speaking of which, here we are together! Obviously that’s me on the left, and Kittyhawk on the right. She’s so thrilled and so nice to her fans, I can’t even believe it! She even bowed when she thanked me for reading and buying!

According to Rachel and Hannah, I managed to speak english the entire time and not dissolve into a garbled drooly mess, so I like to think I made a pretty good impression.

Oh, and before I keep you in suspense any longer, here’s the entire gallery of all the photos I took at Otakon 09. I haven’t captioned them, but I managed to get a ton of photos this year – it was actually kind of thrilling to stop people and take their pictures. I really dug the black Code Geass costumes with the gold trim and the hand-embroidered fleur de lis on the neck like this gentleman was wearing, over my blue-grey version with the white/silver trim. I didn’t like the black one this much last year, I don’t know why. I might pick it up for next year, if I don’t go and do something silly like pick up a whole Zero costume with the helmet/mask and everything. I think I might prefer that.

In any event, you’ve seen some of the views from our hotel room, here’s another one. Seriously, we were on the 20th floor of the Hilton – top floor. Executive level. Pretty classy. We didn’t take advantage of the free continental breakfast or hors d’oeuvres during cocktail hour in the lounge, but maybe next year.

So, to narrate some of the photos, I managed to catch this group of FLCL cosplayers together – the Haruko on the left was adorable and wasn’t really with the group but got her picture taken anyway – even after the group dispersed. Gotta love the boots on the Haruko on the right though – and the poor Conti in the middle, getting beat up on.

My friend with the hand-made Ryo of the Wildfire armor from Samurai Troopers (known in the US as Ronin Warriors) was back this year with an actual booth in the dealer’s room, comissioning out armor and costume pieces. Want to see him in the costume? Here he is at Otakon 2006. Yeah, you don’t forget a costume like that.

Of course, much love for our sullen-looking Afro Samurai, and wait, is that a Fallout Pip Boy? The woman who wore that one explained how it took several weeks to get the head just right, but the rest of the costume was a little easier to deal with – still, it’s remarkable. She was accompanied by a scout from TeamFortress 2, one of many many TF2 cosplayers I saw – it made me happy since I love the game so much. Speaking of which, that Pyro’s a spy!

Moving on, we have the lovely Hannah as Wolfwood and Rachel as Vash The Stampede from Trigun. I roomed with these ladies for the weekend, and they brought cupcakes. I brought the cheese. I know you’re jealous.

Look! It’s Billy Mays and Vince Offer! You should have seen the crowd that gathered around them to take their pictures – it was nutty, but so worth it. Caught a really good Street Fighter IV cosplay as well – Ryu, Crimson Viper, and Dan (left to right), all of them nicely done. I like how Ryu brought a blue bowling ball to be his hadoken.

There was a very barely dressed Leeloo, from The Fifth Element (as if you needed me to tell you who she was), and a very heavily dressed Caboose, from Red versus Blue.

Ghost in the Shell fans will love this: Not only have your eyes been hacked, but you lost the game. This guy was standing on his phone between two pillars inconspicuously – I think he was doing it on purpose.

I haven’t seen Flag yet, but based on Dblume’s recommendation I’d like it. So I took this Remy photo for him.

Let’s see, what else. This Duke Nukem had it goin on – he did a great impression. Knives (Rachel) and Legatto (Hannah) meet Hard Gay in artist’s alley, and we made a friend on the way to the “How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse panel, which was much much larger than previous years and in a HUGE room.

While we’re being silly, let’s see – some of my favorites: Rachel is going to blow my head off(see me sweating? she’s serious!) but not before Hannah molests her gun. ::fans self::

Ah, good times.

It was a lovely con, it really was – feel free to troll the rest of the album to actually see the pictures in the order they were taken. The crowds were impressive this year – panels I never thought would fill had lines for them, and the pre-reg pickup line on Thursday night was so long it wrapped around the convention center entirely and not everyone could get their badge that night (luckily, I did). I met some new people and made some new friends, which was pretty much my major goal for this year’s Otakon, so I’d call it a resounding success.

Now when I get my prints framed and my figures unboxed, I’ll share some photos of those too. You might notice there were a lot of C.C.s from Code Geass this year – well, it didn’t hurt that I made a point to take their pictures when I saw them. I also snagged a C.C. figure in the dealer’s room – I didn’t spend a ton of money this year, but what I did spend was on figures and prints/gear from my favorite Webcomic artists. I’m kind of eager to unbox that figure.