Events Archive: Anime Overload Festival

Good Lord, my legs hurt so bad >_< (Quick jump to pictures! And more added by channak! And lots more here!)

And so it goes that Anime Overload Festival has just concluded, with it being the third convention I have ever went. And I must say, this was a bit better than the previous two I have went to.

 

First up, some general things about the event:

First, regarding the venue: It’s SMX, what do you expect? Of course it is better ^_^ Overall, it is generally more spacious and the ventilation is so much better. There’s just a distinct lack of places where to sit down, so my legs are currently killing me (SL tomorrow? lol). The stage area isn’t that crowded, so even during the cosplay catwalk, it wasn’t overly crowded.

However, they had the issue of the dance groups having to perform out of the stage and just beside it. This meant that people further in the back can’t see them, which is bad… Another problem they had was booth distribution. There are certain booth areas that are quite crowded, and it was so hard to move around them. But just beside this block was open space >_< I’m guessing that they meant the area for general picture taking, but still… (And what’s with random group of guys sitting down on the floor taking an entire booth space to play PSP? Was that their booth???)

Second, regarding the contents: There’s the usual booths you’d see like Otakai (which tells you to buy real figma figures, but doesn’t exactly show you how… so still end up buying the fake ones >_< ), and the ones selling all those figures and random stuff. However, there weren’t really a lot, so the choices were quite limited. And that’s sad, because people end up having money they meant to spend being unspent…

But here is what I really really liked. A booth was setup towards the size where local artists were either selling or giving away their original manga works. I think this is a good sign for our local industry. I’m pretty sure the Filipinos aren’t lacking in talent, we just need to organize our effort. Looking forward to reading their stuff (I bought from all those local authors) and seeing how good these are. If these are good, I think investing in local manga publication is a good idea (note to self!).

Third, a little something about the logistics: Time management was quite good for the event. By seven p.m. the cosplay competition was already over, which is something the other two cons I attended failed to do (damn it, end on time!). The program proper itself (the ones going on the stage) was generally good and prompt, with acts being continuously served. Of course there were times that the next act wasn’t ready yet, but the hosts managed well to make sure no dead air was present (a little something more  scandalous on the hosts later…).

On the other hand, the hosts may be a little too attention-grabing at times, especially during the cosplayer catwalks. While the focus should be on the cosplayers, they tend to draw the attention away from the cosplayers and towards them with their banters. Entertaining? Guess so… but not quite excellent hosting in my opinion.

Fourth, about the cosplay and cosplayer: The group presentations were either hit or miss. The misses were the pure utter weirdness of what some groups did. There were some groups whose presentation makes you ask, “What exactly is happening?” even while that particular presentation kept going and going. To be honest, I was having the slight urge to shout, “Next!” But that would be evil ^_^

The hits were quite excellent on the other hand. The Kengkoy Interpretative Dance, although they had no cosplay theme, provided excellent entertainment with their interpretative dance of Anak. And they were kengkoy, but kengkoy is entertaining ^_^ The ones who did the Knights of the Round from Code Geass started quite unremarkably, but pulled out an overall weird yet entertaining show. Quite a lot of randomness with what they were doing, but they managed to pull out random fun. And the Illusion group who did Anbu’s from Naruto were excellent. I normally dislike Naruto cosplayers because of the sheer quantity and the general lack of quality, but I’d make an exception for them. They had excellent stunts, REAL stunts, actual pro-wresting moves. There was a double choke slam, an F-U and even leg scissors to name a few. And they pulled out Ultraman in the end in a utter OMGWTFLOL move. Priceless.

The cosplayers in generally were still quite the same: sheer quantity with not a lot of quality. Sadly, the level of what Filipino cosplaying can reach might get stuck here. A lot of cosplaying were off, there were some decent ones, only a few worth writing about, and almost none worth going international with. And there were multiple cosplayers who reused what they did in previous cons… I guess it saves time, effort and money, but it gets boring… Oh well…

 

Now, for my personal notes on things:

- Blood is clotting on my leg as small spots… DAMN…

- Still didn’t enter the Maid Cafe.. LOL… Chickened out 3 out of 3 times… ROFL…

- Me = Epic fail of a photographer. Pictures were all blurry. I have  to admit that I suck at taking pictures. I need to get someone with an sophisticated camera to take photos for me instead >_<

- Cute girl cosplayer sighted! She had a huge white cross behind her as props, but I had no idea who her character was.

- Remember the girl who went as CC in Cosplay Fusion showing her abs? She’s also here… showing her abs once again. LOL.

- I stalked the L cosplayer for a while, I’m impressed he kept in character even while walking around the venue. Slouching like that is hard mind you.

- Spent less than 1,500k in this event… Guess that’s still tolerable.

- I so wanted to buy a Saber figma, but the one being sold had bad details, so it looks fake.

- Lolz at kid cosplayers. A baby as Luffy? Cute, but so inaccurate >_<

- I suddenly heard a familiar voice being thrown out the speaker. I turned and saw, to my amazement, that one of the hosts is a senior of mine at work! Oh my goodness! I never imagined him/her to be at the event!

- I wanna get more involved with these events. Either I coerce my friends to cosplay with me or join a cosplay group. But cases has almost 0% chance of happening >_< All else fails, maybe I should just volunteer as a butler in those cafes XD

- I so wanna see K-ON cosplayers perform on stage. Maybe we should look for girls who’d be willing to form a group as that. I’ll help with whatever I can (whatever that’s worth lol).

- Endless amounts of Bleach and Naruto cosplayers >_<

- cvhaoson cosplays… ^_^

- Someone cosplayed a character from the anime being watched by characters in Genshiken. Two thumbs up from me ^_^

- ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!!!

- Quite a number of cosplayers of old shows, just a few of new shows…

- Going to these events alone is so sad… so sad… so sad… I have no friends… (who’d go with me lol) <kills himself now>