I first heard of Otakon through Gilles Poitras' book Anime Essentials but never considered attending and shortly forgot about it's existence. In the summer of 2000, I happened to be downtown and passed by the BCC and saw somebody dressed as Vegeta standing outside and wondered what was going on. I looked through the windows seeing other people in costume then something clicked, "an event where people dressed up as anime characters for the fun of it?!" these are my kind of people! It wasn't until 2002 that I attended my first Otakon, I'll never forget that line that looped through the Charles S