Narufest
Went to Manifest yesterday at Melbourne University, which is really just a weekend fan fest from Friday to Sunday on anything anime related with nobody from the core industry attending (kind of hard and expensive to arrange for artists and seiyuu to come here from Japan). I'm not big on conventions so I only went for one day. The Friday thing is new this year, it used to be just two days.
Manifest has been traditionally an event held in August but the organizers, through their infinite wisdom moved the show to late September, pissing off a lot of people, and messing up plans for people who either had holiday plans or had tickets to the AFL Grand Final, which, as far as most Melburnians are concerned, is the SuperBowl and was held yesterday.
I don't give a shit about Australian football so it made no difference to me either way. Supposedly they're moving it to coincide with the school holidays but it never concerned them in the past.
Last time I went was I think 2001, which was also my first Manifest and it cost $15 back then. This year it's $25 per day or $35 for Saturday+Sunday though you do get a tote bag filled with promotional junk as well as event guides and program book.
With events like ikebana display, origami class, kendo demonstration, japanese fashion and music seminar, singing competitions, video game competitions, Taiko sessions and Go tables, they sort of branched out from their core, becoming more like a japanese pop/sub-culture festival. What's missing from the Japanese Festival at BoxHill I went to a few months ago were anime and manga booths.
Of course, the core and traditional events are still there like the anime sessions (more but with seemingly less emphasis), cosplay, trader's hall, auctions, anime panel discussions, industry insights from people in the distribution channels, and art competitions but with the locations being much more spread out covering more areas of the university, everything is less obvious and the whole convention became less concentrated.
You could see people wandering around lost in the halls of the university trying to find their ways either outside or to lecture theaters for anime showings.
Cosplay (or LARPing as some would say) has always been a highlight and this year it's no different but I got put off by the many Naruto wannabes. There must've been at least 15 of them wearing full Naruto character costumes but there were countless others wearing just the bandana. You couldn't have missed those people especially those who came as Naruto himself, even girls.
Their bright orange get up stood out in the crowd and for some reason a lot of them were near the State Emergency Services and Firefighter stands handing out barbecues and safety guid... wait, those were SES people. Can't blame me for mistaking them, they had the same colored uniforms!
There were plenty of other cool looking costumes but apart from the few standout ones, they got drowned in hurricane Naruto. Chi from Chobits was popular, I counted five at least, but then again, they came in a group with one Hideki so they probably didn't count. I spotted 2 Squall Leonharts from FF VIII, one guy, one girl, but the guy's got curly hair O_o and a few came as various characters from FMA. My bro wondered why there were so few FF VII characters given that FF VII: Advent Children just came out but I'd say they already planned their costumes months ago and didn't really anticipate the new movie. Would've been cool to see a bunch of Clouds around but then all you have to do is look up.
*ducks*
The convention continues today though I'm just here at home playing pranks on the cat. My bro is out taking more Manifest pictures for me so once he gets back and I get my camera from him, I'm gonna upload some pictures to flickr and put one up in this entry.
P.S: I told my bro to come as a Genshiken character but I don't think he cared ^_^#
Manifest has been traditionally an event held in August but the organizers, through their infinite wisdom moved the show to late September, pissing off a lot of people, and messing up plans for people who either had holiday plans or had tickets to the AFL Grand Final, which, as far as most Melburnians are concerned, is the SuperBowl and was held yesterday.
I don't give a shit about Australian football so it made no difference to me either way. Supposedly they're moving it to coincide with the school holidays but it never concerned them in the past.
Last time I went was I think 2001, which was also my first Manifest and it cost $15 back then. This year it's $25 per day or $35 for Saturday+Sunday though you do get a tote bag filled with promotional junk as well as event guides and program book.
With events like ikebana display, origami class, kendo demonstration, japanese fashion and music seminar, singing competitions, video game competitions, Taiko sessions and Go tables, they sort of branched out from their core, becoming more like a japanese pop/sub-culture festival. What's missing from the Japanese Festival at BoxHill I went to a few months ago were anime and manga booths.
Of course, the core and traditional events are still there like the anime sessions (more but with seemingly less emphasis), cosplay, trader's hall, auctions, anime panel discussions, industry insights from people in the distribution channels, and art competitions but with the locations being much more spread out covering more areas of the university, everything is less obvious and the whole convention became less concentrated.
You could see people wandering around lost in the halls of the university trying to find their ways either outside or to lecture theaters for anime showings.
Cosplay (or LARPing as some would say) has always been a highlight and this year it's no different but I got put off by the many Naruto wannabes. There must've been at least 15 of them wearing full Naruto character costumes but there were countless others wearing just the bandana. You couldn't have missed those people especially those who came as Naruto himself, even girls.
Their bright orange get up stood out in the crowd and for some reason a lot of them were near the State Emergency Services and Firefighter stands handing out barbecues and safety guid... wait, those were SES people. Can't blame me for mistaking them, they had the same colored uniforms!
There were plenty of other cool looking costumes but apart from the few standout ones, they got drowned in hurricane Naruto. Chi from Chobits was popular, I counted five at least, but then again, they came in a group with one Hideki so they probably didn't count. I spotted 2 Squall Leonharts from FF VIII, one guy, one girl, but the guy's got curly hair O_o and a few came as various characters from FMA. My bro wondered why there were so few FF VII characters given that FF VII: Advent Children just came out but I'd say they already planned their costumes months ago and didn't really anticipate the new movie. Would've been cool to see a bunch of Clouds around but then all you have to do is look up.
*ducks*
The convention continues today though I'm just here at home playing pranks on the cat. My bro is out taking more Manifest pictures for me so once he gets back and I get my camera from him, I'm gonna upload some pictures to flickr and put one up in this entry.
P.S: I told my bro to come as a Genshiken character but I don't think he cared ^_^#
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on Sunday, September 25, 2005 at 9:12 AM.
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