It was an OtakuHELL of firsts. Shiokazecon was the first OtakuHELL of the year and it was the first time we tried to have a HELLraffle. At certain points during the show (For example when the AnimeHELL Gremlins delayed the show) Nurse Katie would pull a name from the HELL-o-lantern and we'd give the winner a TOTALLY LAME ANIME DVD.
Congratulations to the big winners of the Shiokazecon OtakuHELL raffle:
Michael Rodriguez
Alan Wright
Richard Berti
Jason Van Dyke
Milissa Bishop
Edsel Soto
These fine folks walked away with factory sealed DVDs of SPACE TRANSFORMERS and THUNDER PRINCE!
Besides being a fun filled give away the HELLraffle allowed me to do a little data mining. At the bottom of the raffle ticket I asked: "Is this your first HELL?" The results were surprising. At least to me:
NO - 22
YES - 58
Neither - 3
I'm not sure what to make of that.
It's been decided that the HELLraffle was a big success and you can look forward to another big HELL drawing at A-Kon in June.
OtakuHELL was held in Panel Room One, which turned out to be a sub-section of Main Events. This was in fact the largest room I'd ever done a HELL in. And it was outfitted with a fantastic sound system and an excellent video projector. The Shiokazecon AV staff had done an incredible job setting the room up. It made for a great show.
After years of fine tuning I've assembled a crack team to assist me with the show. I started with International Author of DRAW MANGA Bruce Lewis on the mic. Then I added Voice Actor Michael Tatum (You may have heard him as Rikichi in SAMURAI 7) on another mic. Together they fight crime, and they chat up the audience and throw candy and basically entertain while I'm cueing up the clips. This con we were joined by Nurse Katie who assisted those souls who were overwhelmed by the horrors of OtakuHELL. And Nurse Katie helped with the raffle, too. And last but not least the whole shebang was recorded by Joshua Roberts who took all these cool photos. Thanks Josh. Go team!
As usual the show was a freeform affair. I didn't keep a running list of what was played, so you'll just have to take my word that it went pretty well. I'd like to thank the dozen folks who stuck with us to the bloody end. We love you guys.
I hope to see you at the A-Kon show!
Check out the entire gallery of OtakuHELL HERE
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