Animania Festival Weekend 2008: Panda's Adventures

In its new location, the Festival had the new challenges of setting up ALL of its individual areas, rigging, lighting, AV/Main Stage, exhibition boothing, draping, and more from scratch. Getting there on Thursday arvo I was pretty excited about another year of Animania Weekend and looking forward to seeing the space we’d be working in. Now, I’d seen the Exhibition Hall at ATP before, but I was still flabbergasted at the amount of space we had. Having been in Sydney Town Hall for the last few years you tend to forget how big the Festival really is because it’s split over two floors. At ATP, it was amazing to see how everything would be laid out for all to see. And the space, oh the glorious space! I wouldn’t have to worry about being smacked in the head by someone’s costume!!

My excitement grew when I saw Animania’s new Main Stage, exhibition areas and some of the draped areas already up. There was still a long way to go, but we had a whole Friday still to go. I could already start the raw energy of Animania Festival Weekend 2008 starting to build.

We came back to ATP early on Friday morning to continue with setup, and boy was there lots to do! A lot of the draping still had to go up, more tables needed to be laid out, the stage crew still had HEAPS to do with the lighting and sound rigs, workshop rooms needed to be set up and oh let’s not even mention the packing of show bags!! I was so glad that we had more hands on deck that day though. Our fearless volunteer floor staff doggedly kept at the task of packing show bags and putting out chairs and pulling up drapes and putting up signs and heaps more till the late evening. Thank you volunteers!! As stallholders also started to filter through to set up, I could see more and more of the event take shape. This long day and night of set up ended with the rocking sounds of Argent la Rosa who had come down for a sound check. Man, these guys rocked hard.

Finally, Saturday, oh glorious Saturday, Day One of the Animania Festival Weekend arrived!

It was a beauuuutiful day and when we got to the venue at 8am sharp, we could already (already!) start to see the beginnings of a line start to form. I give kudos to those who can get up so early to be the first to get in the doors! Unfortunately, due to such a short turnaround time to set up the Festival’s registration area (setting up about 12 rego stations in under an hour really was a challenge T_T), we suffered a bit of early morning chaos, but we powered on through and were lucky enough to still be able to let people in by around 10am. Thank you to everyone in the line who was patient with us as we got everything together! Thanks also to all the stallholders, media and special guests who bared with us as we got their passes organised for the day.

Now I’m afraid I’m unable to say what I saw as people’s first reactions as they entered. I’d like to think that many people were just in awe of the sheer size of the hall, or that the Cosplay Expo made them do a double take as they saw the awesome costumes that were on display. Thank you to those who donated their winning costumes for the weekend to show off to visitors! I do know that in the first half hour or so most visitors would have gotten a taste of Argent la Rosa’s performance as they perfected their sounds for later that afternoon.

Why didn’t I see people as they first entered the Festival? Well, once the morning chaos was under control, I disappeared into the Animania Staff Room to get dressed! My little last minute project for the year was the Animania Festival Happy Brigade! Clearly indicated by their bright pink and blue sashes, these randomly dressed maids, loli’s and pop-geishas were tasked with the mission of spreading happiness and joy as well as a general helping hand throughout the weekend. I surprised a good many of the Animania staff who knew me XD (check me out with Nurse-witch Komugi and the other girls - oh the colours!). Once dressed and radio’d up, I took to the Festival floor and wandered around guiding special guests to their areas, handing out lollipops and also making sure staff were OK, though I’m happy to say most Animania Staff were having too much fun in their respective areas to need to be taken care of!

So what were some notable things that I saw on the first half of Day One of Animania Festival Weekend?

• HEAPS of people in the stallholder areas, omg, that corridor was packed!
• Animania Olympia kicking off the day’s events on the Main Stage. Omg, were the MCs pumped XD (and they asked me to apologise if they deafened anyone).
• Haruhi lessons! Omg so much v-signs over the eyes and general hand waving and yellow ribbon omg.
• People getting started early on their doodling comp entries and the enthusiastic people at the Origami workshop!
• So much awesome Cosplay just on that first morning!! Kirby Link! Travis Touchdown! Rose of Versailles omg so pretty.
• The yummy, yummy smells of takoyaki T_T but lunch was far far away...

My most favourite memory from that morning though would the Cosplay Games on in the Cosplay HQ, esp their rendition of the Battleships, which to me looked more like a random people version of Mario Kart’s balloon races XD (see the video below)

All in all, it was a good start to Day One – great crowds, mega venue and awesome frenetic and super genki energy of the morning got me pumped for the weekend ahead, and boy was there heaps more to come...

In Panda’s next Day 1 installment: Animania Insight/Classroom (aya!!), COSPLAY (psych!!!), dancing, art, caramelldansen (:\), ABJDs and more!

Photo at right, from top to bottom: Bumping in; morning crowd/art area; nurse-witch komugi and others + me!; origami workshop; and visitors in the vendor area.

Cosplay was the biggest thing at Animania Festival this year, especially because of the World Cosplay Summit’s first ever official preliminary being held that weekend. As I mentioned there were soo many awesome costumes and, whether competing or not, it was obvious that people had put in heaps of effort into their costumes this year. Some of the costumes I remember seeing:

• Marie Antoinette and Oscar from Rose of Versailles, such an elaborate costume!
• Kirby Link! Omg so puffy!!
• Travis Touchdown, Henry, Bad Girl and Thunder Ryu from No More Heroes – all very kick-ass~
• Princesses Tutu and Claire from Princess Tutu
• The Phoenix Wright Cosplay group – no objections! (haha I’m so cheesy I know XD)
• The Danbo carboard box robot from Yotsuba&!
• Akito from Airgear

And there were heaps more that I saw, though don’t know names XD. I did think though that this year’s theme was frills and lace because it felt like there was a lot more lolitas/maids about this year than before!

On the topic of Cosplay too, below is the list of winners for Saturday’s Cosplay Competition:

Best Female: Christine as Sora (final form) from Kingdom Hearts
Runner up: Corinne as Mushroom Heartless from Kingdom Hearts

Best Male: William as Tidus from Final Fantasy X
Runner up: Chris as Nowe from Drakengard 2

Best Skit: Spirited Away group
Runner up: Katekyo Hitman Reborn group

Best Group: Rose of Versailles group
Runner up: SAIUNKOKU group

Bankai Competition: Melanie with her prop for Sun Ce from Dynasty Warriors

A complete winners list with names is available here :)

But of course, there was more than Cosplay on this weekend (I’ll get to WCS in a minute XD)!

That morning, I also wandered over to the Insight room to check out how the panels were going and sat in for a little bit on the Expanding (Reading) Horizons panel. It was interesting to hear the different ideas on manga. Later on, I learnt that the panels had to move outside into the café area due to the unfortunate (and unforeseen) sound issues. These round table discussions proved more popular in the quieter area! Unfortunately we were unable to find a quick solution for the Art panels due to the AV requirements for the sessions :(. Apologies to those who struggled to listen to our special guest speakers do their presentations and thanks to our speakers for forging on!

In my wanderings, I still had my Happy Brigade mantle on and I got to go around with some other brigaders handing out lollipops and flowers :D :D. We also attempted a stage caramelldansen – a dance of super happy and joy (just like us!!) but it didn’t get the audience as pumped as we’d hoped. But we planned to try again the next day!

Around lunchtime I headed to the Food Fair to check out some yummy pastries (afternoon sugar high required!) and I passed by the Games section. I was surprised to see a huge crowds and couldn’t figure out what was going on so I put my camera up high and realised it was the Super Smash Bros Wii competition. I found out later that over 80 people had signed up to enter the comps and battle it out for the 1st place crown.

In the afternoon I finally got to see the ABJD and doodling art displays. There were so many beautiful dolls, which was awesome because it was the first year Animania was featuring these – thanks to all the doll owners who entered the competitions and let us put the dolls on display! I was also impressed, as always, but the sheer number of entries into the Doodling comps and the level of skill people showed in creating the timed entries too.

One of the most constant things I saw was dancing at the Action Studio. If it wasn’t an activity by the Action Studio staff (eg. Haruhi lessons) then it was non-stop hip-hop action provided by Dancekool and D2MG. These fabulous and patient teachers walked through heaps of moves, steps and grooves for visitors interested in learning how to freestyle hiphop. I would have liked to have joined in, but didn’t think hip-hoping in heels was such a great idea XD XD.

Finally it was time for the final round of the WCS Preselections. And I actually got to sit down and watch some of it!! The amount of effort the entrants had put into their costumes and the quality of the costumes were a sight to see. The skits were also very engaging, which really is important especially for someone like me who’s not familiar with a lot of anime! I couldn’t help but smile during the Sakura Wars duo’s really well timed dance!!

Finalists into the competition were the Sakura Wars duo, the Dynasty Warriors 5 duo and the Rozen Maiden duo. These teams would go on to the next and final round – the official preliminary round! The next day would show who would be the first ever representatives for Oz!!

Argent la Rosa rocked out the day’s end and I got to stand out the front with some of the volunteers to mosh away XD though in my heels, I have to admit I didn’t last very long! The band were so dynamic and their presence was definitely something to see – the j-rock look was awesome. And there were definitely lots of screaming fangirls XD.

My day finally ended where it started, out at the Registration area with farewells to visitors as they headed home! It was so nice to see so many smiles (and some bleary eyes from the long day too >.<) and people saying “see you, tomorrow!”.

And here my Animania Festival Weekend Day One adventures concludes ... for now!

In Panda’s next installment: Day 2! – more Cosplay, pocky~~, Yunyu, and more!

Photo at right, from top to bottom: The art entries display (strung up for everyone to see); the morning's panel; kawaii cosplay!; D2MG lesson; Travis Touchdown & Henry duke it out; the Smash Bros comp.

We arrived at the Festival again at 8am and there was some volunteer admin work to do, but once the volunteers were at their stations, I went to get changed into that day’s costume. That Sunday, I thought I’d join in the maid-tastic phenomenon :D.

There was a fair crowd that Sunday morning – kudos to those that managed to drag themselves out of bed so early! The Happy Brigaders (me included) tried to get the queue’s spirits up by doing little dances and of course, attempting a Mexican Wave. The video of this little success (I think it was anyway XD) will be placed on YouTube soon.

I spent some time that morning taking some happy snaps of the day’s Cosplay. Myself and another maid Brigader were impressed by the real ballerina Princess Tutu and relived our childhoods with the Sailor Moon group. A little later that morning I also did a bit of a “squee!” when I saw the GIANT POCKY BOXES. That’s right, you can’t go wrong with a bit of giant pocky. Especially if it walks right up to you! I wonder if they sung and dance as well... that would have been awesome!! :D

Some of the Happy Brigade were still getting dressed in the Staffroom (that Digicharat costume has heaps of accessories!!), so I went up to check on them and we managed to get a group photo in as well (aw!). Determined to get the audience more pumped, we also practiced our little fun dance that would go on before Cosplay. I really hoped it would work XD.

When I finally wandered back down, there were so many activities going on! The first thing that caught my eye was the crowd around the Action Studio. What was going on? Lucky Star Dance Lessons! But, not just any ol’ regular lesson, the participating visitors had already gone through all that. By then time I came by they were going through it as double speed! It was quite something to watch – like dancers on crack XD. Check out my capture of it here (my giggles included, also featuring a slow-mo version to see that they tried their hardest to follow all the steps!! After this, the guys did a half speed version which I joined in... but it was so painfully slow XD!!

Not long after, Cosplay chess kicked off and it was quite amusing to watch. I lol’d when “Bowie” yelled out “Dance Magic Dance” to overtake one of the queens. Not distinctly Japanese, but a cute fun Cosplay all the same ^^. You can catch some of that footage here,

I didn’t really catch the end of the Cosplay Chess (so I’m not sure who won I’m afraid T_T) to check in on the Yukata Workshop. These guys powered through the mornings of the Festival to teach visitors how to make their own yukata, despite sound issues coming at them from all directions >.<;. Thanks to everyone who stuck with it and super thanks to Kirsten, our resident yukata teacher who powered through the lessons despite having laryngitis. Super super gratitude also goes to her mother who came out to help as well. I hope that everyone left with an awesome yukata!

Now something I forgot to mention in my Day One installments were the Doujin Stage panels. These were on throughout the Festival and featured art talks on everything from wigs and fabrics for Cosplay to introductory talks on ABJDs. Again, despite the sound issues, these panels ploughed through. Thank you to everyone who participated >.<!! On the Saturday I did note the Cosplay Groups and Skits panel was popular with WCS finalists, the Love and Peace Movement, giving a run down on the ins and outs of preparing a skit. On the Sunday, I caught some of the WCS 2009 Q&A session, featuring our special guest, Akiko Okubo, the WCS representative from Japan. It proved useful and interesting for those keen to participate next year.

At this point in the day, I started to hear some familiar tunes and realised that YUNYU was playing on the Main Stage so I ran over to watch :D. I like to think that I was one of the first people to put Yunyu on the Last.FM map, having her songs on constant repeat when I was given her album. A couple of the brigaders and myself danced to some of her tracks, including the new release “Butterfly”, before needing to be dragged away on errands – sometimes I forget that as a member of staff we do have work to do after all XD. But it was OK, that afternoon while we were doing our Happy Brigade lollipop and flower rounds, I showed my appreciation to YUNYU by giving her some flowers too!! :D

What next? Well to kill time before Cosplay, I went around with my digital camera on a bit of a filming spree... filming what you ask? Well, that my friends, I shall leave as a surprise for my next and final instalment of my adventures at Animania Festival weekend!!

In Panda’s next and final instalment: the joys of dancing like a Chocobo, the results of my filming, and of course COSPLAY, including the WCS finals.

Photo at right, from top to bottom: Morning Mexican Wave!; Happy Brigade group photo; crazy Lucky Star double speed dance; Happy Brigade with Sailor Scouts (I'm in this one!); and Yunyu.

Once I felt I had enough random captures, I trundled over to the stage and got to see a little bit of the solemn sword movements of the Sydney Shinbukan Kendo group. Animania actually had 3 sword groups displaying their art form – thanks to all the groups that came!

Since I was there anyway, I decided to secure a seat near the front of the stage to watch the Great Debate. Someone had kindly given me some lunch so the Debate would be a good opportunity to kick back and enjoy it! This year’s topic was “In a fight to save Tokyo who would win: GODZILLA or NINJAS?” It actually proved quite ... energetic and definitely entertaining. Who knew that Godzilla could be bigger than the Xbox? Or, in fact, the moon? Despite the acrobatic antics of Ninja defender, MC Morris, and his attempts to prove how the awesome stealth and flexibility of ninjas proved their alleged obvious superiority to Gojira... the giant lizard trounced the horde of ninja by use of the inverse ninja law and squashing/eating them all at the same time. Being the mother of all lizards though, could we have expected any different?

The end of the Great Debate meant it was nearly time for Cosplay, which meant that the Happy Brigade would get another chance on stage to fire up the crowds. Waiting to go on, we were actually nervous and worried that the audience would not be excited but we were determined to share the joy!!! All these worries proved silly though because the audience seemed more energetic this time and as soon as we got on we were flabbergasted to see at least the first 5-10 rows stand up to do the CARAMELLDANSEN! It was pretty cool, especially with our little conga line of volunteers (and some reluctant volunteers in front of the stage too XD) helping out with spreading the happiness. And the joy wasn’t solely at the Main Stage either! We had also made the Action Studio blast it out too so there was a crowd doing the dance there at the same time too!! There was so much energy you could not deny but join in! Oh it was mighty fun - we hope we brought a smile to your face :D.

And finally, it was time for COSPLAY! Again, fans this year put in a mega effort. Here are the winners from the Sunday’s Cosplay Competition (click here for complete winners list):

Best Female: Melissa as Nuriko from Fushigi Yuugi
Runner up: Christie as Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII

Best Male: Chris as Raiden from Mortal Kombat
Runner up: Nick as Kirby from Hoshii no Kaabii (Super smash Brother's Brawl)

Best Group: Devil May Cry 2 group
Runner up: Vampire Knight group

Best Skit Naruto group
Runner up Deathnote group

Bankai Competition: Amber with her prop for Rikuson Hakugen from Koutetsu Sangokushi

After catching some of the Cosplay, I decided it was finally time for some takoyaki. Mmm yummy! The Colotako people had been working hard all day and the smell of tasty takoyaki was just too hard to resist! As I ate, I wandered around with another Brigader to look at some of the stalls that were around at Animania. Amongst the various merch stalls, there were heaps of plushies and DVDs to buy, but what struck my eye most was the Pinin stall – so many cute phone decorations, plushies (Canti and Mechazawa!!) and the Moofia omg. So cute it made my head hurt XD. There were lots of artist stalls this year with lots of fan art and original works on display, but I was most impressed with the number of maid accessories and neko-ears on sale! Maybe 2008 has not only been the the year of lace and frills but of fluffy too!!!

As I pondered the fluffy things, I could hear the Karaoke Finals happening on the Main Stage. Unfortunately I didn’t get to catch very much of it as I had to run off on an errand, but what I heard was pretty good!

When I got back to the Main Stage, the Karaoke Finals were over and the official WCS Preliminary had crept upon the day. Now, it would be time to see what the finalists would bring out as their second costume to win the title of first-ever Australian representatives to the 2009 World Cosplay Summit!! Just as I saw on Saturday, it was obvious that the entrants had thought seriously and very carefully about their costumes as well as the skits – the quality was amazing! I was completely enamoured by the "The Love & Peace Movement"’s Full Metal Alchemist cosplay, blown away by the awesome Ryuk in the "Oh My Bollucks" duo’s Deathnote cosplay, and thoroughly impressed with the Koutetsu Sangokushi cosplay by the "Go Wu Go!" duo. Who would win? After all the ‘show and tell’ part of the finals were done, we would have to wait for the official announcements during the Awards Ceremony.

As 5pm rolled around and the D2MG hiphop crew made their way onto the Main Stage, I realised that soon the Festival would be all over and so I had to make the most of it! I loaded up a basket with all of the lollipops and flowers we had left and decided to take once last swing around the entire Festival, handing out items to everyone I thought could do with a bit of happiness (basically anyone who I came up to going “ARE YOU HAPPY?!”).

I got distracted though... by CHOCOBO DANCING! That’s right, dancing like a CHOCOBO. All throughout the weekend, the Festival had a DIY Walking Tour, which involved everyone getting a stamp from each of the various sections of the Festival. If you got all the stamps, then you would be rewarded with a limited edition yellow Animania wristband. The thing was, to get the stamp, each section had devised their own unique stamp-getting challenge. The Games Zone, for example, asked that you pose in one of several classic anime/game-related character poses. I believe that was why were a lot of random Naruto squatters... Anyway, the Cosplay HQ had an old chocobo outfit and people had to wear it and do a little dance. It was awesome!!! XD The number of people I saw wear that thing and shaking their butt was hilarious!

Soon it was time for the Awards Ceremony and I had been asked to help hand out prizes (cos all the medals are not only heavy but get tangled up easily T_T). Once the day’s regular competitions winners were all announced, it was time for the WCS announcement!!

The first place in the inaugural Australian World Cosplay Summit Preliminary Competition went to Gabriella and Katherine from the "The Love & Peace Movement" duo!! That day’s efforts in presenting their Full Metal Alchemist costume was a fantastic show and won them the title of first EVER Australian reps into the WCS 2009 Competition!

1st Runner Up went to "Go Wu Go!’s" Koutetsu Sangokushi cosplay and then 2nd Runner Up to the "Oh My Bollucks" duo’s Deathnote cosplay. Congratulation to all the finalists!!

With the announcement of the first ever Australian WCS representatives came the official close of the Animania Festival Weekend. A lot of people were milling about the two glowing winning Cosplayers to congratulate them which quite a sight to see but most had started to head home after a long but definitely eventful weekend.

But... it wasn’t over just quite yet! At least not for the organising staff and volunteers! It was pack down time!

There was a LOT to do as we not only had to pack up all the Festival equipment, but all the staging, curtains and rigging all had to come down as well! Thankfully though this was not a long, drawn out process because of the EXCELLENT volunteer crew we had this year! The expansive flatness that is the ATP Exhibition Hall also meant that everyone was able to pretty much pack things down lightning fast without having to worry about having to get gear down extra floors like in Town Hall. We definitely had one of the best pack down sessions ever and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without the volunteers. Thank you heaps vollies!!

After some final happy group snaps, it was time to go home. There would still be lots of loose ends to tie up, but for the most part, the Animania Weekend was over. I was sad, but glad that we managed to pull off another Festival in a brand new venue. There were lots of kinks that we will need to iron out for next year (and we will!!), but otherwise I was happy that it all came together with lots of smiles in the end! Yatta!!

And that concludes my round-up! I hope it didn’t take too long >.< and that it was a more entertaining way to read about the event than the usual report!

Thank you to everyone who came to the Festival! We hope you had a great time and we will be working hard to bring you an even more awesome event in 2009!