Founded in 1994, Otakon (https://www.otakon.com/) is one of the biggest Japanese pop culture (anime, manga, music, movies, video games, etc.) conventions in the U.S. This year, Otakon was held in Washington D.C. from August 11 to August 13, 2017, and nearly 30,000 people attended.

At Otakon, there were Cosplay and Yukata contest, Art Show, Movie Show, Japanese culture workshop and more. Also, there were over 100 panels which discussed Shinto and Anime, Osamu Tezuka and Shigeru Mizuki, Teaching with Anime, Kimono, and so on.

 

“Sake 101” was one of them. Approximately 200 audiences were in the Sake panel, and 80% of them had experiences of drinking Japanese sake.

It shows that Japanese sake is now very popular in the U.S. The panel talked about the history of sake, the manufacturing process, tips for sake shopping, etc.