Otakon 2024 Cosplay Gallery And Writeup
Otakon returned to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on August 2-4, 2024. Around 46,000 people traveled to the venue in the nation’s capital this year to celebrate the convention’s 30th anniversary. Otakon is an annual celebration of Asian pop culture and its fandom, which is run entirely by volunteers under the non-profit organization Otakorp Inc.
The three-day convention featured a wide variety of panels and programming aimed to both educate and entertain the tens of thousands in attendance. Panels covered topics and fandoms including anime, manga, fashion, music, cosplay, Japanese history, and much more. Otakon also held workshops where the audience could actively participate, make, or perform for a “hands-on” type experience. Attendees could enjoy such activities as making their own plushie, learning origami, playing bingo, or competing in a trivia game during these workshops.
The convention hosted numerous guests from across the nation and world to meet and greet attendees, including popular voice actors, authors, directors, and producers. Takashi Otake, Susumu Tosaka, Taketo Gompei, Kaoru Wada, Takuma Kishida, Shinnosuke Tachibana, Aino Shimada, Michael Bain, and Kikunosuke Toya were among those in attendance this year.
Otakon featured a vast dealer’s room and artists alley where attendees could browse a variety of wares. A wide array of clothing, video games, figurines, cosplay accessories, manga, confections, collectibles, artwork, and much more was available for purchase by convention attendees.
The gaming hall was located in Hall D&E on the second floor of the convention center this year, which by my estimation was the second largest area in the venue behind the dealer’s room and artist alley on the lower level. Video games from all eras were on hand in this area, ranging from classic arcade cabinets from the ’80s, to the latest games on current generation consoles. Whether you were looking to see if you still had the skill to beat the first level of Ghosts ‘n Goblins, or duke it out with some friends in Street Fighter 6, Otakon had you covered.
The cosplay photoshoot/meetups were also held in the gaming hall this year. More than 80 meetups were coordinated in this area throughout the duration of the convention. Several large backdrops were provided in the area for these meetups, which was a nice feature that I don’t see at very many conventions. This area was where I took all of the photos that you’ll see in the photo gallery linked at the end of the article.
Some of the many other events and attractions at Otakon this year included a formal ball, a masquerade, an AMV contest, a maid cafe, a car show, and a concert held by Japanese rock band FLOW.
For full disclosure, I should mention that this was my first time attending Otakon since the convention moved to the Washington, D.C. venue, and that I only attended the convention on Saturday. As such, I can’t really give an in-depth review of much of what the convention had to offer.
Reading through some of the feedback posted online, most attendees seemed to have a positive experience overall at Otakon this year. While there were some complaints pertaining to long lines and crowding in some areas, I saw a number of people state that they thought things were handled pretty well considering the record high attendance of “about 46,000” attendees, according to the official press release.
I also took note of discussion comparing this year’s event in comparison to previous years, and the majority of people seemed to agree that Otakon has made plenty of improvements. It’s always great to see convention management listen to feedback and use it to build a better convention year after year. Between what I was able to see for myself during my short but sweet visit, and the feedback I read after the convention, Otakon 2024 gets a thumbs up from me, and I hope to be able to budget for a longer stay next time around.
Otakon will return to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on August 8-10, 2025.
Cosplayers in this gallery include bethanime19, onion.cosplay, pikaglove, jacyndaling, ezziemayycos, zeldoinks, last0fthe0rder, cupcake_kisses_cosplay, mythwishcosplay, jinafiire, rosyguillotine, myfictionalworldo, brandnewboricua, mr_kittenzz, twink_god_cosplay, hello_kay_kay, au_yeah, and many more.
We now use Smugmug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.
To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.
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