So, Animania is one of three major Anime, Manga and Japanese Culture Conventions/Festivals/whateveryouwanttocallthem, with SMASH! and Supanova being the other two. Animania spans over two days at the Sydney Technology Park, this time on September 11 and 12, and also earlier in the year, in March.
So, the following photos should basically give you an idea as to what the convention was like. If you’re looking for photos of the cosplayers at the event, they’re on this separate post.
As usual, there’s a long line… Advanced ticket holders line is longer, but generally moves much faster. Yay for the Weekend Pass!
Some people bring big luggage to conventions…
Uh-oh! Watch out!
Lots of hardcore gaming here. Like Mario Kart 64!
And as always, Anime Merchandise is very popular, and lots of money is spent and made.
An interesting way of posing a figma…
See anything you want?
There was an increase in the number of *armaments this time round…
Places to grab some grub.
Takoyaki? More like… Tako-yummy!
A large supply of Pocky is a must at Anime Conventions.
The Main Stage, where most of the events are held.
Just a few cosplay dress exhibitions here.
Nice ride eh?
Hakuuu~!!!!!
The photoshoot area.
I love a good light-box.
Just a few dolfies that were on display.
And a piece on the Graffiti Wall that was interesting to me… I wonder what the answer is…? =P
As the seats fill up, ready for the Cosplay Competition.
As always, quite a few artists, not as many as SMASH, but still all talented! (Way better than what I can produce…)
Where all the crafty people hang-out, cause they’re good at stuff… =P
And, lots of people for the cosplay contest!
Day Two of Animania, and as always, numbers weren’t as many as Saturday, but nonetheless, there is enough of a turn-out for the overall convention to be a ‘success’.
And Takoyaki still sells. (As it should…)
Just one question asked at Animania’s game show “Who wants to be over 9000?” Do you know the answer?
Last year’s Australian World Cosplay Summit representatives redo their performance. Which, like their costumes, was very impressive.
And, this years winners. They too, will be representing Australia at WCS 2011 in Nagoya, Japan. They both pulled off their characters really well, and I was very much impressed.
Rika Matsumoto was the guest of honour at Animania Sydney of September 2010. A singer and seiyuu, most well known for her role as “Satoshi” or “Ash” in the English version, of Pokemon.
She is really energetic, and I her performance for us was truly awesome. I’m sure there’s a video of her performance somewhere, If I find a high enough quality version of one, I’ll be sure to post it here.
In someways, she reminded me of “Simamiya Eiko”, one of my favourite Anime OP and ED vocalists. (who, sadly, currently has thyroid cancer)
Though there was less of a turn-out than Saturday, the quality of cosplayers on Sunday wasn’t compromised at all… I’m kinda jealous of all these cosplayers…
I was disappointed to find that Madman (Australia’s main distributor/licensor of Anime) wasn’t a vendor/sponsor for Animania this time round… Though, when I queried them on Twitter, I got this response.
Anyway, so that’s pretty much a wrap of what I saw at Animania, (minus all the cosplay), I still have a lot of photos to sort through, and a whole lot of exams this week… So expect some delay in the posting of those photos, but if you’re interested in finding out more about Animania, you can visit Animania’s website at http://animania.net.au.
For some further reading: I’d like to recommend a few other bloggers who were also at the event:
— muki.dorifuto.com – Gives a bit of an insight as to what happens during preparations for the event, with some much higher-quality photos, as well as some interesting information that you probably didn’t know about the festival. He’s also a pretty good photographer.
— Pixels on Pireze – Has a diverse coverage of cosplayers, and also provides some higher-res versions of their photos. The site also has quite a nice collection of photos from location-scouting. I’d imagine it’s some good material to get some inspiration for photoshoots of anysort, whether it be cosplay, or just model shoots.
— What a big camera! – Look out for photos to be uploaded. Much of the cosplay photos on the site are very impressive!
*The probable reasons for the number of armaments available for purchase:
There is an increase in the amount of trolls in photos this year.
As well as an overly-friendly-to-young-children bear…
Some of this post is also over on Figure.fm if you want to do some photo annotations
What’s in pedobear’s box….