[darktruth]

OK, so I'm recovering from attending the 2007 Melbourne Anime Festival that was held for just over two and half days a few days ago and I'm ready to post up my review of the con. I assume it's going to be a long post so I'll break it up into sections.

Friday
Seeing how I had already pre-registered through the anime club I'm in, I was able to skip the huge queue of people who pre-registered through Manifest themselves and those who chose to turn up on the day to register. Now when I'm talking about a huge queue, I mean it was a REALLY HUGE queue. Take a look here.

So thanks to the anime club I'm with, they had their own table set up near the entrance that was right next to the one where the huge line of people were entering. I entered, gave my registration number and got my badge and program booklet all in less than 20 seconds. Now they had accidentally made two badge passes for me as I was registered twice in their database (this was due to me filling out the registration through the club online a few months earlier where the internet was lagging after I hit the submit button so I pressed it again before it went through).

The guys at the table asked me if I wanted the second badge as well but I told them they could keep it, if only I knew that I could've taken it and given it to one of my friends who was planning to go but didn't turn up because he realised he had to pay (he was planning to be a volunteer worker at Manifest this year but probably backed out when he found out he also had to register and pay like all the other people - I'm assuming he didn't turn up cos I didn't see him at all throughout the whole two and half days at the convention).

After I picked up my badge, I browsed around the venue for about 20 minutes before leaving as there wasn't much events on this day as all the popular and good events would start on Saturday. I was planning on coming in early on Friday to check out the first set of AMV screenings seeing how I submitted in one this year but missed out on it as I came just when the screenings were finished.

Saturday
I arrived at around 10am as the AMV competition started at 10:30 in the morning and I intended to go to that. The first thing I did as soon as I arrived was head straight up to the traders hall to see if there would be any interesting items being sold. I was rather disappointed though as nothing caught my eye. The only thing I bought when I got there the first time was a Mad Band from the Madman booth (that's a Madman wrist band if you don't know) and I managed to scab two free posters there from a whole box Madman left for the people to take. I told my friend to take them before they quickly run out as many other attendees would take the rest but he said he'd get it later. There was only one type of poster Madman was giving away anyway and it was double-sided (one side was Bleach and the other side was Hellsing Ultimate) but I grabbed two copies seeing how it'd be convenient to have two to show each side.

So the stock at the traders hall was a disappointment for me, me and my friend headed towards the main events theatre to see the AMV competition. As you'd expect with the quality of AMV's shown at big anime conventions, there were quite a few good ones but one that stood out the most to the audience (as well as to me and my friend) was a One Piece spoof on a anti-piracy ad that's usually thrown onto DVD's. I'll keep it short and sweet, "Piracy.Kicks.Ass" and "It's a pirate life for me" from the AMV XD. The whole theatre was roaring with laughter and cheers and I think it ended up winning best comedy AMV.

TO BE CONTINUED....so here's a photo I took to show you guys before I update in the next post.



and here's a list of photo albums available taken by other people at Manifest.

[GabeXorn]

Friday
Seeing how I had already pre-registered through the anime club I'm in, I was able to skip the huge queue of people who pre-registered through Manifest themselves and those who chose to turn up on the day to register. Now when I'm talking about a huge queue, I mean it was a REALLY HUGE queue. Take a look here.

On behalf of myself, my friends and everyone else who were in the line on Friday who had pre-registered, I hate you and all you stand for.

3 fricking hours of waiting. That pictures only a small sample of the people in that line

The on-the-day people can rot in hell

[Stormfalcon]

Sounds like you had a fun time.

SOUNDWAVE...SUPERIOR.

[Moelman]

Sounds like fun Darky! Looking forward to hearing about the rest.

[darktruth]

@Gabe - LOL! That's why it helps to be in an anime club that helps Manifest happen.

Saturday - continued
After watching the AMV competition, me and my friend decided to head to the video games room. I was surprised to find a trader in there and it seemed like most people weren't really interested in the stock they had (it was mainly Geneon licensed soundtracks and a few PC anime games). Nearly all of the games were taken up by other people except for one, Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball lol, we decided to try out that game seeing how it was literally free and no one else seemed interested in it.

I had never played that game before so I didn't know the control on how to play it properly but I did manage somehow in the end. Likewise, my friend had also never played it before but it ended up being a close game with me winning the match point (this was partly due to picking Ayane as my partner and setting her level to confident). We then moved onto King of Fighters game on the PS2 and I must say I haven't used a PS controller for a looooong time so my arms started aching after just two matches (my friend ended up winning even though I had beaten two out of his three fighters earlier).

The cosplay competition was due in about an hour and half and we were getting hungry so we decided to leave the venue and head to the city to buy some lunch but not before heading to the chocs and drinks section. I bought two ramune bottles from there (that lemon soda bottle you see Megumi buy in RahXephon for those who've seen it). We got back to the venue about an hour before the cosplay started so we chose to head down to the fan traders area. I gotta say I was impressed with them this year as they seemed to had more interesting items than the commercial traders from the traders hall.

There was quite a few Ouran High School fan merchandises but since I only brought around $100 this year, I had to hold back from buying many of it as I was hoping there'd be some better stock at the traders hall on Sunday. The only stuff I bought from the fan traders on this day was 4 Ouran High School badges (Chibi Kyouya, Chibi Tamaki, Chibi Mori and Non-Chibi Kaoru) and a double-sided key ring of Kyouya and Tamaki.

While we were busy checking out the fan traders, we hadn't realized how long the line for the cosplay competition had already started and it was still around 40-50 minutes before it started. The line had already stretched to the book shop outside the building by the time we got outside. We ended up being somewhere near the end of the queue and waited for what must've been like an hour as the cosplay competition started rather late. What sucked though was that we didn't make it into the theatre for the cosplay competition as it was full just when we were at the entrance for it, so because of that we had to rush up the stairs to the panels room for the live feed from the theatre.

The feed was quite bad to be honest as we could hardly hear any of the skits properly when the cosplayers had no microphone with them. There were quite a few good cosplay costumes made such as the Soul Calibur group and Witch Hunter Robin cosplayers but the standout for this day was probably the dead nurses from Silent Hill as they were hugely popular and received a lot of praises from the crowds.

Other standout cosplays to me were a Hunni-senpai cosplayer. This kid was originally going to have his friends cosplay the rest of the Ouran gang but they ended up ditching him at the last minute so he was all alone (how sad). The MC and a lot of the crowds asked him where Mori was XD but he ended up being quite popular and attracted a lot of attention (specially from the fangirls lol). Fortunately, someone else cosplayed the bunny Hunni always carries with him and he was called back to pose with the bunny cosplayer giving the audience some fluffy moments XD.

Another interesting cosplay was this costume from an anime or game I don't know but it was amazing how this girl managed to walk in that for a few seconds (she ended up losing balance and nearly tripped, lucky she didn't break her leg or anything lol). There was also a Yoshi cosplayer from Mario XD.

I think the cosplay competition is getting more popular each year at Manifest as I read it ran about 1 HOUR OVER TIME due to so many entries for it. Last year had about 30-40 entrants but this year I heard it had about 70. There was also A LOT of Kingdom Hearts 2 cosplayers this year with many skits putting in some yaoi fanservice to get the fangirls screaming.

Me and my friend didn't watch all of the cosplay competition as it was starting to get boring and the live feed was atrociously bad with the sound so we left about 3/4 into it. If I can remember from this point, we ended up heading back to the traders hall to see if any interesting items had popped up but again there wasn't. It was also at this time I told my friend to see if there were any free posters left at the Madman booth and just as I warned him, all the free posters had been completely taken and the box was completely empty.

We spent the next half an hour wandering around the venue and popping into random theatres that were screening anime to see if anything interesting was being shown. We watched a little bit of Samurai Pizza Cats that had a marathon running for the whole day and I gotta say it was hilarious to see these cats drawn in chibi sizes and wearing armour, the anime was also being played in its english dub which added to the hilarity of it. So after watching SPC for about 20 minutes, we headed back to the video games room and by this time it was rather full and some new games were put in but we didn't get to play any as it was all taken up. I also ended up buying the first OST of Chobits from the trader in there seeing how it was only $20 and was the cheapest price out of all the traders from the hall.

It was around 5pm this time and we headed to the video games tournament to see the Tekken 5 game competition. My friend seemed more into it than I did but there was quite some good fights where the player with less life energy ended up kicking their opponents ass from a super combo. So we watched about 40 minutes of the competition before heading down to the main events theatre for the Anime Idol heats only to find the Iron Artist competition was still running. We waited and waited and waited for Anime Idol until my friend couldn't be fucked anymore that he decided to leave and meet up again the next day.

Needles to say, Anime Idol started at 7:30pm when it was supposed to start at 6pm causing many people to be frustrated. I only watched about 5 performances of the heats before deciding to leave and end the night by watching some animes that were still screening in some theatres. Out of the 5 performances I watched, 4 of the contestants didn't sing loud enough to hear their voices because either they were very nervous or just didn't hold the microphone close enough to their mouth. One girl sang the 1st OP theme from Shakugan no Shana (Hishoku no Sora) and the background music wasn't loud enough taking away the atmosphere and energy of the song.

I ended the night by watching one episode of Kekkaishi in one theatre before heading to another to see an anime called Kiniro no Corda which looked interesting and I might pick it up later.

Whoo! That was a long post wasn't it? Hope you enjoy reading that as I'm yet to post on the things I did on Sunday but here's a taste:

*Auction event
*Sunday Cosplay competition
*Madman panel
*Closing ceremony
*Yuri & Advanced Yaoi Panel - look forward to that one girls as some very interesting things happened XD.

[Flynt]

Sounds like a great weekend, like to see more of it soon.