Melbourne Festival Awesomeness!

Hey everyone!

Hope you’ve all had a relaxing Anzac Day Long Weekend!

Our second "mini"-event for the year was on in Melbourne last Saturday!! Thanks to everyone who came and showed us that anime fandom was alive and kicking in Melbourne!

Morning entry proved relatively smooth though as always, Festival staff were on hand to help people get into the event as quickly as possible! This year’s stallholder layout proved popular as visitors crammed their way in and out of the U-shaped room. Art groups, game and DVD vendors showed off their wares and most visited of all were perhaps the gashaphon machines! I can’t count how many times people kept asking me for change to put into the machines!

The Main Stage was back in the Rydges Backlot again – can I say how much atmosphere is in this room? That room is the retro lover’s dream! But Animania gave is some extra pizazz with its host of stage events.

Now, I didn’t get to personally see what was going on with Animania Olympia but I have to say that I was running away from the Mikes (our MCs) when they tried to hug me afterwards. Super slimey Mikes are so WRONG!!! But yet, oh so much fun… XD

And then there was Cosplay. Melbourne, we were very impressed with costumes you have on offer for the traditional Animania Festival’s Cosplay Competition!! Winners details are as follows:

[Cosplay Winners]

BEST FEMALE

• WINNER Anna Ngyn as Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere
• RUNNER UP Emma Morton as Lorenza from LeChevalier D'Eon

BEST MALE

• WINNER Khoa Do as Kyouraku Shunsui from Bleach
• RUNNER UP Kevin Seminiano as Hatake Kakashi from Naruto

BEST GROUP

• WINNERS MorningStar Guild CosPlayers - Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles
  • Emily "Roxy" Cochran as Fai D. Flourite
  • Leanne Richards as Sakura
  • Matthew Griffin as Syaoran
  • Pat "Quarnz" Bruzzaniti as Kurogane
• RUNNERS UP Love and Peace is Gay Pro - Naruto
  • Cattypatra as Hyuuga Neji
  • Tsubaki-chan as Naruto Uzumaki
  • Hayley "Li" Cardamone as Naruto
  • Cassie "Boe" Cardamone as Sasuke
  • Kim "Phillip" Ferriere as Kakashi

BEST SKIT

• WINNERS Love and Peace is Gay Pro - Naruto
  • Cattypatra as Hyuuga Neji
  • Tsubaki-chan as Naruto Uzumaki
  • Hayley "Li" Cardamone as Naruto
  • Cassie "Boe" Cardamone as Sasuke
  • Kim "Phillip" Ferriere as Kakashi

• RUNNERS UP The NC - Naruto
  • Shivaun Haverkamp as Gaara of the Desert
  • Katrina Day as Kankuro
  • Deanna Kort as Orochimaru

The World Cosplay Summit Preliminary Pre-selection in Melbourne only had one offering, but it was still a pretty cool one. Congratulations to Melbourne’s first rep into the finals – the Kraftwerk Ninjas.

More information about these winning teams will can be found here. We look forward to possibly seeing more Melbourne entries at the main competition in August.

The staple comps and features also went down a treat. Wii on the big screen, Karaoke you’re your throats felt raw and Screenings of the latest new releases – what more could you want? Melbourne artists showed us their flair in the Doodling Competition too - samples to be made available on the Gallery soon.

And here were the competition winners for the day:

[Competition Winners]
Games
Tekken - Allan Vo
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - Special Cup - Xuan Quang Tran

Art
Themed Runner Up - Tyler Mueller
Themed Winner - Margaret Neira
General Runner Up - Jenny Jiang
General Winner - Chee Kah Fatt

Karaoke
Winner - P.Z.

Thank you once again to everyone who attended – next up is Brisbane! We’re looking forward to heading up to the Sunshine State and seeing what they have to offer in Cosplay and fandom!

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates!!

Time for triangle,
Amanda