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Tags: fail fanart art critique convention catwalk catwoman cosplay review
Published : 10 months ago (Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:47:01 PDT)
Searched: catwalk
http://seedsop.livejournal.com/26627.html 0 links
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I never imagined a convention could do worse than GX-Con 2007 until Animania Con 2008.
As of this writing I was in the office, so excuse me if the article is not neatly done.
I heard of this Animania Con around Tuesday of last week, September 09. A friend of mine had informed me about this con. She linked me to the website (http://wowenkho.com/animania/) and I was stunned. I said to myself that this had the makings of failure. Apparently, the con was scheduled on the 13th and we're only hearing about this now. No advertising whatsoever, and It heavily relied on the website for promotion and word of mouth.
Word of mouth is good only if you plan the con months ahead. It gives time for the details to spread to the various communities, that when you officially launch the con a few weeks prior to the event, you will get the hype that you need. Sadly though, it wasn't the case here.
The website, I might point out, was badly designed. The title name, "ANIMANIA", had a really poor logo designed which looked like a hodgepodge of colors reminiscent of the 60's. I need to mention the BOOT. We still haven't figured out why a boot though. Then there was the vector art. I wonder why they picked out Cloud Strife, Suzumiya Haruhi, Rei Ayanami and Pikachu as their mascots. It's so totally random and the art style wasn't something I could appreciate really. I didn't understand what they were wearing and why Pikachu was wearing anything at all. It took me forever to realize that Cloud was actually holding a camera and not "Barret's Gun." Website looked like it was rushed when they uploaded it. The layout used was confusing. The terms they used were kinda weird as well (YEY TO PARAPHERNALIA!)
 front page of animania con website
I could probably point more things wrong about the website but then we would never get to the actual convention, right?
So anyway, on the 13th, a bunch of us decided to go to the convention just to see how it would be. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt, I thought to myself. I came from the office that day as I had just gotten off. I was probably the first one to arrive at around 2 PM. They had just started and was in intermission. They had advertised that they would start at 12 PM and end at 6 PM but it took them 2 hours more to get ready? They were extremely late. Makes you wonder, what they did from the time they arrived at the venue (assuming they were allowed inside the mall before 10 AM for ingress) to 2 PM.
My first impression wasn't very good. As to be expected, there weren't a lot of people. In fact, there was a lot of space, which in a way is a good thing. Most, if not all, of the audience inside the convention area were cosplayers to begin with and the rest were random people passing by and only then noticing that there was an actual convention there. Most of the crowd was "outside" of the actual convention area.
One good thing that I did see was their catwalk area. The stage was setup in an S-shaped form allowing the audience to get a good view of the cosplayers. Too bad that the audience were the also the cosplayers so it ended up being vacated when they went on stage.
stage area and vacant seats
A band was playing when I arrived. In fairness to the band, they were okay, but the sound system was bad that like my friend said, that the drums overpowered the rest of the band, even the vocalist. They were playing some English song, that I have not heard at all. In fact all of their songs were English except for one Japanese song, which neither me nor my friends could actually identify. Sadly, the organizers were only able to get one band. Just that band for the convention.
I couldn't appreciate the hosts of the convention either. We have to take note that this is an anime convention, and so one very important thing is to know what your crowd will be and adjust your personality to your crowd. What they did was kikay humor, reminiscent of the "conio collehiyala" stereotype. I suddenly remembered that Miriam student I overheard in Katipunan saying "I have to go na, the driver is making POTPOT na me." I didn't appreciate that they would stop mid-sentence just to pose for a picutre then go back to what they were doing. "Welcome to Animania..." *pose* "...Con 2008."
The hosts were also ill-prepared. As hosts, it is your duty to research the subject you are hosting and not just go to the event and "wing it," so to speak. This holds especially true with cosplay as you will definitely encounter different characters and so you should know what your talking about. Don't ask a cosplayer who is doing Hao Asakura if the character is from Pokemon. Besides, how many Filipino cosplayers do you encounter who even cosplays Pokemon characters or monsters?
Hosts should also never mention things that should not be mentioned. "You see those colorful backdrops? The artworks will go there, we just didn't have enough time to put them up," quoted from the hosts. Um... maybe you would have sounded a little less inept if you did not mention that. Seriously, you could have left it the way it was and we would not have noticed.
ooh, colorful... cartolina.
Now because they did not have time to post the artworks on the backdrops, they did a wonderful improvise. They did an artwork catwalk. Now the idea is original and interesting but it does seem weird and raised more than a couple eyebrows. Basically, they had the artists walk the stage area towards the judges to show off their art. If it sounds strange, it's because it is.
Not that the cosplay catwalk was any better. When they decided to do the catwalk with all the contestants, they had them go through the stage area, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It wasn't a surprise when it created problems with stage blocking. But I can forgive them, they're cosplayers after all and not professional models. But when the hosts themselves also turn their backs to the audience while talking, it's just really sad.
It wasn't really clear what the prices were either. The website does not mention what the prizes for the winners are and when "Charity Maysala" asked the people manning their registration booth what the prize for the cosplay was, they said...
"GIFT CHECK ATA, AND SOME CASH PRIZE, DI RIN AKO SIGURADO..."
I couldn't help but laugh at the thought that they were giving out gift checks. Even more so that the people organizing the even did not know the information. Even if they were just manpower, they should have been briefed this information. Though a friend of a friend confirmed that the third placer got like 1k.
Alodia was there too. It is actually a good marketing strategy to get a well known popular cosplayer to come and judge the event. They expected that the Alodia fans would come and flock the convention. There were fans. Yes. But enough to actually make a difference, highly unlikely. I personally think she's overrated. She's just lucky enough to have cash to spend on costumes with great accuracy. I think there are better cosplayers out there, but they just don't have the same amount of funds. To be honest, the majority of anime, manga, and jpop/jrock fans do not come from high income families, so fandom sometimes need to take a step back from other more important things in life.
So what was the point of this convention? The website said that this was organized by Miriam College Events Management Majors to help with the Miriam College Scholarship Fund. In short, it was *suppose* to be a charity event. Well it's the first time I have been to a charity even where they did not charge entrance and did not have sponsors. The only sponsor they had was Miriam College. Any event, may it be small or large, costs a lot of money. You have to hire sound and video equipment, lights, labor, let's not forget the event space also has costs associated with it. So as far as I see it, even if they charged the cosplayers with registration, they won't have enough to pay for everything.
I need to say I found the winner of the cosplay really funny. Quoting the website...
"Nudity/Partial Nudity is not allowed - so as revealing costumes. We have the right to disqualify any contestant that is judged to be offensive."
...and the winner was CATWOMAN...
this is not partial nudity at all
So, you are AGAINST partial nudity but the winner IS partially nude... I love the logic!
The event ended in record time. They concluded at around 4:20, which means the whole event was only a little over 2 hours. I can watch a movie and it would have been longer than the convention. At this point, I refuse to call it a convention and would like to call it a show. They started late and ended early. It makes you wonder how'd you go through a fan art contest and cosplay in just 2 hours.
This convention ended with this...
"MABUHAY ANG COSPLAY! BURGER, BURGER, BURGER..."
...say what now????!!!!1111
That kept me laughing for about 5 to 10 minutes. Since the con ended about 2 hours earlier, we just ended up asking each other, "what do we do now?"
I try to be objective when I review something. I do not even have biases against the organizers or the Miriam College, and I did try to restrain myself from actually going into bash mode. But when it's this bad, it's hard to sugar coat it. It was really bad. The lesson really here is, let's not cram and plan this better next time, that is, if you plan a next time.
*Pics were taken from a friend's LJ. I do not claim them as mine in any way.
**Review is only that of my own and is not explicitly shared by anyone else, unless they agree with it, that is. XD
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