Reprinted from my column on theOtaku.com

Welcome to the Otaku Survival

Guides, a series of guides that ventures into different aspects of the otaku lifestyle. Now, with the

help of theOtaku, the main articles of these guides are brought to you as a series of weekly columns,

with a different topic each month.

This month, to start us out on the right foot,

we’ll talk about how to get the most out of your first or fifteenth anime

convention.

It’s like your first day of high school. Sure, you’ve got the program and

the schedule of events, but where the hell are you actually going? And why is Vash making out with a

distinctly female Miroku?

Welcome to an anime convention.

You’ve picked out

the con, pre-registered, gotten a hotel room, sworn to your parents that they would not be hearing from

the local authorities, and now you are finally standing on the threshold of a new part of your

life.

Sooner or later, you’ll have to come out of the corner and interact. Hopefully

you’ve brought some friends, maybe they even know what they are doing. So where do you go from

here?

Let’s take a look at why you came to the convention. Is it your love of

anime? Did you come along to socialize with your friends? Looking to put yourself in debt buying things

you can’t usually find on this side of the ocean? Planning to educate yourself with panels? Or

did you just have to meet that certain voice actor?

You never know

what or who you are going to find at a convention.
Art by

href="http://www.blk-kitti.net/">Zeda

All right, so think about those above questions. Does one of them strike you as your

reason for existence at this mecca of anime?

Conventions are hectic and overwhelming, even

for a veteran. So take a few minutes (or maybe a lunch break) and think about what you really want to

accomplish this weekend. The Dealers Room can have long lines, as can the cosplay and AMV contests, not

to mention if you want to get the autograph of a popular voice actor. Thus, we must create a strategy

as if we were at Disneyland, trying to figure out how to ride on every ride in one day. If something is

important for you to do this weekend, mark it. Personally, I like to bring different colored

highlighters to mark up my program.

Maybe it would be helpful to go over what some of these

common events are, so that you know exactly what you are doing or

missing.

Registration
First things first, you need a badge to be able to

get into all the events at the con. There are usually two lines, one for people who pre-registered and

one for those registering at the con. The advantage of pre-registration is that the line should be

faster and the price should have been slightly cheaper. Some conventions have started mailing out

badges in advance, so if that happened for you, make sure you bring it. This is your passport to gain

entry to everything you want to do this weekend. Have your ID ready, so you can prove who you are and

your age. Even if your badge says you are an adult or over eighteen, you will still most likely need to

show it again at adult events. This is to prevent minors from getting badges from friends.

So ends the first column, leaving you ready to start your first day at the convention. Next

week we’ll look at what events you can participate in at the con.