Anime-Otapia was a pleasant and unexpected surprise for many. The convention was a week after MagFest at the beginning of 2026, specifically January 16-18, and held at the Rockville, Maryland Convention Center inside of the Marriott. MagFest itself had sold out by December, so this offered local DMV cosplayers who were unable to go and didn’t have a convention to attend something to do until February’s Katsucon. Lately, DC’s cosplay conventions have been held primarily during the first quarter of the year, with Otakon in late summer, Anime USA in the fall, and Big Lick, Fairfax Comic Con, Risu, Station Unity, and other smaller, yet fun ones spread out. Magfest, Blerdcon, Katsucon, and Awesome Con have all been held January through April, and now Anime-Otapia has joined them.
Anime-Otapia had a lot of celebrity guests and influencers, including many Chinese and Chinese-American. Much of the convention’s focus was on Vocaloids and they had Hatsune Miku’s voice actress Saki Fujita as a special guest. This was also her first time in the United States. Other celebrity guests were Asami Shimoda, Rin Tateishi, Jessica Calvello, Jessie James Grelle, and Brian Beacock.
Much of the merchandise in the Artist Alley revolved around Vocaloids and Wendydydy, one of the guest influencers handed out special Vocaloid gift boxes to all attendees. There were Vocaloid photo meetups and cosplays throughout the whole weekend.
Miku was a big hit this year.
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Friday night’s main event was the Vocaloid concert with headliner Utsu-P and openers ATOLS and Natsuyama Yotsugi.
Utsu-P performing Friday night
Some cosplayers even dressed up like characters from Utsu-P’s music videos.
Syntheticspector below.
Local cosplay interviewer Shimmerwali was a special guest this year.
Shimmerwali preparing for interviews
Yaya Han was also invited. She hosted a panel, while one was unfortunately canceled. Here she is cosplaying as Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier. The character’s voice actress/singer May’n was also at Anime-Otapia.
Alien Stage had its own setup and Kanalyss was cosplaying as Mizi.
Itashas were setup outside the convention area.
Wendydydydy and Mikou_cosplay (Mikou in traditional Hanfu) were guest influencers but also worked inside the Dealer’s Room.
