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There are some fantastic Sailor Moon cosplayers at Otakon this year- there's more where this came from.
Last year, Otakon featured a panal called, “The World of Sailor Moon,” hosted by Yosenex of Genvid.com. This year, it seems like con organizers made an attempt to streamline the schedule, and one of the casualties was our dedicated Sailor Moon panel.
Instead, two fandoms were put together into one panel, run by college students Tina Maiese and Brandon Auman, who covered SM and Dragonball Z, respectively. While the hosts were friendly and the crowd was enthusiastic, this combo panel seemed to occur at the expense of SM fans- about 75% of the panel ended up being devoted to DBZ.
Auman and Maiese gave a basic overview of both series via Powerpoint presentations, then opened the floor up to questions. While most were about DBZ- and why people care so much about which Marvel superhero could take on Goku, I really could not tell you, but apparently they do!- a few questions closer to our hearts crept in there. Interestingly, fans wanted to know about dubbing, with questions about whether the series will be redubbed, or whether Stars will ever be dubbed period. While she isn’t employed in the industry, thus could only speculate, Maiese said that she hoped that a redub was in the cards, and that she felt that FUNimation would probably be able to handle the content of Sailor Moon Stars, unlike Dic and Cloverway.
However, perhaps the most interesting question was “Who would win in a sexy-off: Moonlight Knight, Tuxedo Mask, or Vegeta from DBZ?” and I am pleased to report that both hosts put in a vote for Tux; otherwise, I might have had to confront them after hours.
Frankly, not much went on at the panel- most of the fans there probably already knew the information presented in the series’ overviews, and the event served more as a venue for fans to meet up and discuss their favorite shows- and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I do wonder, however, why we got this panel this year instead of the formerly more in-depth SM panel. Did the group from last year decline to apply? Or did the organizers reject proposals for individual SM and DBZ panels out of a questionable desire to kill two birds with one stone?
In short, I don’t want to be too critical of the panel hosts because it was obvious they both loved the material they were presenting, however obviously, I would prefer one of my favorite series to have a more weighty representation at Otakon. With the manga rerelease right around the corner, this is the brightest time to be a Sailor Moon fan in years, and I can’t help but think Otakon’s lax attention to the franchise this year was something of a missed opportunity.
Nevertheless, check Moon Chase over the next few days for some more SM-relevant tidbits from Otakon, and tons of cosplay photos. I don’t know if I just missed all the awesome cosplayers last year, or the amount of great SM cosplay has tripled since then, but I’m seeing Senshi everywhere I go at this con and it pretty much rules. I’ll admit, I have yet to see an adorable toddler dressed as Chibi-Chibi, but perhaps we can’t have everything we want in this life.
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