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Umm...at the risk of sounding like an idiot-which would not be hard-what the hell is Otakon? Yours in puzzlement, Steven Thipps.

Well Mr. Thipps (mind if I call you Steven?).  Otakon is a wonderful and magical land of dreams.  Ok, not really.  Otakon is an anime convention, one of, if not the, biggest on the east coast.  Averaging around thirty thousand attendees, and lasting three full days.  For fans of anime, it is a huge event with a lot of big name guests, panels, showings, contests and, of course, cosplay.  Cosplay is short for costume play, and it is where people make (or buy, since now mass market versions of many characters are available) costumes of their favorite anime or game characters and attend.  There are photo shoots, skits, contests and a lot of random fun things that happen spontaneously (I once started a musical number while waiting for an event, for instance).  It may seem weird to people who are not part of the fanbase, but for the rest of us it is a great time.  We go and take over the city of Baltimore for a few days, shake up everyone's lives in the area a bit, and just have a lot of good fun.  In fact, Otakon is such a huge event that the city of Baltimore actually built a hotel at the convention center just to keep it from moving to a new city.

You can find the official convention website at www.otakon.com if you wish to know more.  You can also serach on google or deviantart for photos from this past convention, and all the previous ones (future ones are not available, unless you are a Doctor Who fan).

I hope this answers your question!