26 September 2006, 8:40 PM
My 4th year going to the Melbourne Anime Festival (Manifest). This year's Manifest felt a little lackluster and didn't really contain the same energetic feel as last years but I still managed to have a good time, part of the reason why it felt crappy were events being disorganised, the Manifest committee making numerous errors in screenings and possibly the biggest stuff up of all was them losing the pre-registration badges on the very first day which delayed everything in the scheduled program booklet by 2 hours. But enough of that, this year I happened to take part in an event than my usual wandering around the convention but I'll talk about that later.
The festival began on Friday afternoon around 3pm when it should've started earlier thanks to the badge stuff up from the committee. There wasn't much events running on Friday as most of it would start on Saturday and the traders hall was still being set up so I spent much of my time watching some of the animes they were screening in various theatres. Watched Zero no Tsukaima which is kind of like the anime version of Harry Potter only the main character is a girl who summons a young Japanese male commoner as her companion instead of magical creatures, Shakugan no Shana which contains a very catchy opening theme, it's a magical fighting anime and looks very promising in a good action story and the third one was some futuristic anime called Pale Cocoon OVA which I didn't really understand. That was what I basically did for Friday.
Saturday morning, I arrived early to the convention waiting in line for the traders hall to open to see what stuff I might buy. The queue was even longer than Friday's queue for the badge pick up line but seeing how I picked up my badge on Friday, I was able to walk straight into the traders hall without having to wait in line to get in. I didn't really buy much other than a Samurai 7 wallscroll and Fruits Basket's Memory For You soundtrack but I heard at the Madman stall they were selling the 3rd tin of Fullmetal Alchemist ahead of the October release date. After that, I mainly just walked around attending various events such as the AMV competition which had some quite hilarious videos such as an Excel Saga one with Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang" and a 23 second Tenchi Muyo AMV and watched the Cosplay event. The rest of the time I was mainly wandering around back and forth to the traders area looking to see if there'd be any items that would catch my attention, heading to the video games area watching people play and just randomly watch the cosplayers who would pass by lol.
On Sunday I arrived kinda late at around 4pm so I missed out on the auction and cosplay events which I really wanted to see. The auction event, from what I heard, was a outrageous spectacle. There were people bidding ridiculously high for such random items, the weirdest (and possibly the most funniest) was 2 McDonald's Pokemon toys selling for $22 but there was also a box full of magazines that sold for $150. I submitted in my spare Samurai X box and RahXephon Vol 1 & 2 DVD's for the auction which all got sold for $21 in total. I was alright with that seeing how I've had that spare Samurai X box for nearly 2 years now where it was just collecting dust and my spare copies of RahXephon DVD's were items that I didn't need as I already have a boxset of the series. I was speculating on whether I should've submitted in my Fullmetal Alchemist tin 1 for the auction but didn't in the end lol.
It was time to head back to the traders area, most of the items were still being sold at full price even when it was close to closing time except for one stall called Shin-Tokyo which had reduced most of their items by 50%. I went to the Tamarket stall browsing through the anime soundtracks and singles they had. One of the ladies who was there asked me if there was any particular cd I was looking for as she remembered I had bought 2 Fruits Basket soundtracks from them already, so from that she brought out a box full of anime cd's and singles for me to look through.
It was surprising to find the Bubblegum Crisis Collector's File 1999 soundtrack in there (I would've bought it if I hadn't already gotten it from Yahoo Japan Auctions about 2 months ago) as I was holding it and then was about to put it back down until some other guy next to me saw it and gasped in excitement asking me to hand him that cd (so I assume people still remember Bubblegum Crisis 2040). There wasn't really any other cd's in there that caught my attention except for the Fruits Basket image single. In the end I bought two more cd's from Tamarket which was the Fruits Basket image single and Porno Graffiti's Melissa single (First opening theme for Fullmetal Alchemist for those who don't know) both for $30. It would've cost me $36 if I didn't get that small discount from the lady selling the cd since she realised I've bought a fair few cd's from their stall.
Now back to that event I was talking a little bit about, this year I entered the Anime Idol competition which you would guess is about singing lol, only that you sing an anime song for both the heats and finals if you make it in. I sang the acapella for Fate/Stay Night's Disillusion even though I was supposed to have the backing music playing as well but the cd stuffed up at the last minute for some weird reason. Despite that small issue, I still made it into the finals and sang RahXephon's Hemisphere for it. Now here's the surprising part...there was a girl who sang Bubblegum Crisis 2040's Y'know for the finals and she even dressed up like Priss for it with the mullet-style wig, red shirt and leather pants XD. Well I didn't win the competition but I don't mind about it since it's quite fun to just sing in front of a big audience, not to also mention the fact only 4 boys entered the competition (including me) out of 21 contestants and me and 2 other guys made it into the final 11 for the finals. So overall I had a fun time at Manifest 2006 despite my friends not going on Saturday or Sunday (I did however meet up with a few other people I knew outside of school at the convention and hanged out a little bit with them).
Here's the list of things I bought from the traders hall:
Samurai 7 wallscroll
2 Prince of Tennis wrist bands
Fruits Basket Memory For You OST
Fruits Basket Fours Seasons OST
Fruits Basket image single
Porno Graffiti Melissa single
so you can see not much as I only brought $120 altogether for the convention although I made $21 from the items I handed in to be auctioned off.
Now what would this be if I didn't include photos from the convention? These photos weren't taken by me (I didn't even bring a camera anyway lol) but they should at least give you some ideas of the cosplays shown at Manifest.
http://forums.manifest.org.au/viewtopic.php?t=3025
The festival began on Friday afternoon around 3pm when it should've started earlier thanks to the badge stuff up from the committee. There wasn't much events running on Friday as most of it would start on Saturday and the traders hall was still being set up so I spent much of my time watching some of the animes they were screening in various theatres. Watched Zero no Tsukaima which is kind of like the anime version of Harry Potter only the main character is a girl who summons a young Japanese male commoner as her companion instead of magical creatures, Shakugan no Shana which contains a very catchy opening theme, it's a magical fighting anime and looks very promising in a good action story and the third one was some futuristic anime called Pale Cocoon OVA which I didn't really understand. That was what I basically did for Friday.
Saturday morning, I arrived early to the convention waiting in line for the traders hall to open to see what stuff I might buy. The queue was even longer than Friday's queue for the badge pick up line but seeing how I picked up my badge on Friday, I was able to walk straight into the traders hall without having to wait in line to get in. I didn't really buy much other than a Samurai 7 wallscroll and Fruits Basket's Memory For You soundtrack but I heard at the Madman stall they were selling the 3rd tin of Fullmetal Alchemist ahead of the October release date. After that, I mainly just walked around attending various events such as the AMV competition which had some quite hilarious videos such as an Excel Saga one with Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang" and a 23 second Tenchi Muyo AMV and watched the Cosplay event. The rest of the time I was mainly wandering around back and forth to the traders area looking to see if there'd be any items that would catch my attention, heading to the video games area watching people play and just randomly watch the cosplayers who would pass by lol.
On Sunday I arrived kinda late at around 4pm so I missed out on the auction and cosplay events which I really wanted to see. The auction event, from what I heard, was a outrageous spectacle. There were people bidding ridiculously high for such random items, the weirdest (and possibly the most funniest) was 2 McDonald's Pokemon toys selling for $22 but there was also a box full of magazines that sold for $150. I submitted in my spare Samurai X box and RahXephon Vol 1 & 2 DVD's for the auction which all got sold for $21 in total. I was alright with that seeing how I've had that spare Samurai X box for nearly 2 years now where it was just collecting dust and my spare copies of RahXephon DVD's were items that I didn't need as I already have a boxset of the series. I was speculating on whether I should've submitted in my Fullmetal Alchemist tin 1 for the auction but didn't in the end lol.
It was time to head back to the traders area, most of the items were still being sold at full price even when it was close to closing time except for one stall called Shin-Tokyo which had reduced most of their items by 50%. I went to the Tamarket stall browsing through the anime soundtracks and singles they had. One of the ladies who was there asked me if there was any particular cd I was looking for as she remembered I had bought 2 Fruits Basket soundtracks from them already, so from that she brought out a box full of anime cd's and singles for me to look through.
It was surprising to find the Bubblegum Crisis Collector's File 1999 soundtrack in there (I would've bought it if I hadn't already gotten it from Yahoo Japan Auctions about 2 months ago) as I was holding it and then was about to put it back down until some other guy next to me saw it and gasped in excitement asking me to hand him that cd (so I assume people still remember Bubblegum Crisis 2040). There wasn't really any other cd's in there that caught my attention except for the Fruits Basket image single. In the end I bought two more cd's from Tamarket which was the Fruits Basket image single and Porno Graffiti's Melissa single (First opening theme for Fullmetal Alchemist for those who don't know) both for $30. It would've cost me $36 if I didn't get that small discount from the lady selling the cd since she realised I've bought a fair few cd's from their stall.
Now back to that event I was talking a little bit about, this year I entered the Anime Idol competition which you would guess is about singing lol, only that you sing an anime song for both the heats and finals if you make it in. I sang the acapella for Fate/Stay Night's Disillusion even though I was supposed to have the backing music playing as well but the cd stuffed up at the last minute for some weird reason. Despite that small issue, I still made it into the finals and sang RahXephon's Hemisphere for it. Now here's the surprising part...there was a girl who sang Bubblegum Crisis 2040's Y'know for the finals and she even dressed up like Priss for it with the mullet-style wig, red shirt and leather pants XD. Well I didn't win the competition but I don't mind about it since it's quite fun to just sing in front of a big audience, not to also mention the fact only 4 boys entered the competition (including me) out of 21 contestants and me and 2 other guys made it into the final 11 for the finals. So overall I had a fun time at Manifest 2006 despite my friends not going on Saturday or Sunday (I did however meet up with a few other people I knew outside of school at the convention and hanged out a little bit with them).
Here's the list of things I bought from the traders hall:
Samurai 7 wallscroll
2 Prince of Tennis wrist bands
Fruits Basket Memory For You OST
Fruits Basket Fours Seasons OST
Fruits Basket image single
Porno Graffiti Melissa single
so you can see not much as I only brought $120 altogether for the convention although I made $21 from the items I handed in to be auctioned off.
Now what would this be if I didn't include photos from the convention? These photos weren't taken by me (I didn't even bring a camera anyway lol) but they should at least give you some ideas of the cosplays shown at Manifest.
http://forums.manifest.org.au/viewtopic.php?t=3025
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