While Otakon certainly has plenty of “industry” panels for companies like Bandai and Funimation to get the word out about their latest acquisitions, or for voice actors to take Q&A from the fans, the vast majority of panels at the convention are run by the fans themselves.  Running the gamut from “Crafting Your Own Manga” to “Live Catgirl Whack-A-Mole,” odds are that you’ll find at least something that strikes your fancy to attend.

For me, as you might guess, I gravitated towards the game-based panels, of which there were plenty to choose from.  I started off with the Shin Megami Tensei panel, which promised to be a look at the history of this long-running series.

Now, I knew SMT had a deep history, but I didn’t realize just how far back it stretched.  The two panel leaders walked us through the origins of the series way back on the NES in the form of “light novels,” and worked their way forward through it’s various incarnations across a range of platforms.  It was interesting to watch the ways the series has re-made itself over time, leading up to the Persona model of recent years that I am most familiar with.  By the end of the hour, I was armed with a list of older titles I’m ready to seek out to get a taste of what the “olden days” of SMT were like.

Next, I slipped over the Secret Life of Megaman panel in the hopes of finding out what nasty secrets were hiding under that blue helmet.  As it turns out, the panel was not about his midnight trysts with Metal Man or any such thing, but instead a look at the ways Megaman has influenced fans over the years into creating their own (ahem) non-cannon bits of the MM universe.

To me, this panel really demonstrated something I’ve said before, which is that good games can really affect people on a level far deeper than when they are playing it.  I know that when I was young, I used to doodle my own Megaman and Mario levels in notebooks, and this panel showed that I was certainly not alone.  From simple things such as fan art and crudely-drawn cartoons to fully scripted videos and music, people are still busily cranking out fan-made materials for this twenty-plus year old series.  Perhaps the ultimate example of this is one fan who has gone as far as producing a full-length Megaman movie entirely of his own creation.  While the movie is still being completed, trailers are out there and the production quality is actually quite good.

The Blue Bomber

Next up was the Tales Of… panel, which, much like the SMT panel earlier, was dedicated to looking into the history of another long-running series.  With over twenty “core” games and offshoot titles, the Tales series certainly has plenty to talk about.  Again, I was surprised to learn about a number of titles that I had completely missed despite being a fan of the series, and we also got some nice looks at Japan-only titles that, unfortunately, may never find their way to our shores.

Finally, to wrap things up, I headed over to the Video Games That Push Our Buttons panel.  I recalled this panel from previous years, though I had never attended, but I had always heard good things about it.   Turns out I would not be disappointed.

While not the most scholarly examination of gaming you could find, our four hosts (Spiderman, Megaman, Deadpool, and… some guy) did manage to take the audience on a clever trip down memory lane by taking a look at some of the oldest, most common, and still most repeated cliches, bugs, and general absurdities of gaming.  Why do all brawlers have food hidden in trashcans, and why would anyone ever care to eat it?  Why is the ambulance driver in Madden 97 such a sadist? These questions, as well as many more, were answered for us over the course of the hour.

Oil Barrels: For All Your Turkey Needs

One important fact I learned during the panel was the answer to something that had always bugged me: why did the story for Blaster Master make so little sense? Not that any game stories from those days made a particularly large amount of sense, but Blaster Master always seemed extra absurd – your escaped pet frog finds a nuclear reactor in your back yard and becomes a mutant? Then escapes down a convenient hole to an underground empire where you find a high-tech tank just waiting around for you?  Maybe I was a picky child, but that stretched the limits of credulity for me.  As it turns out, it made so little sense because it was not the actual story.  In the Japanese version, the game was about the player being the last hope of the oppressed, armed with a high-tech tank, taking on an evil empire.  Shallow? Yes.  Believable? Thankfully, yes.  It seems that when the game was brought to US shores, someone decided that was too weighty a plot for Americans to handle, so they decided to try and go a more Ninja Turtles-esque route with it.  Well played, Sunsoft.

With that, my selection of panels was complete.  All in all, I was impressed with all of the panelists and the effort they put in to creating entertaining hours for their audiences.  As I’ve said, a motivated fan can do amazing things in spreading the word about the subjects they love, and they are usually more than happy to tell you about them.  So, if you have the pleasure of being at Otakon next year (or any other convention, for that matter), make sure to take some time out and stop in to see what the fan panels have to offer; just try to avoid the live-action Catgirl ones…