Borgieman Strikes Back!
Fri, 19 October 2007
by: Borgieman
Ninja's note: Once again, it's time for another Buttonhole report on the Melbourne Anime Festival, otherwise known as Manifest 2007. If you missed Ichibod's feature on a previous Manifest, check it out here. This Manifest coverage comes to you courtesy of forum regular and newest Buttonhole contributor Borgieman, a cool guy who knows his Anime and has been known to play a video game or two. So read on true believers!
A Day at Manifest 2007
 | | Yoshi and a cute rabbit. Nothing more to be said on that topic. |
I gotta say even attending one of the three days of the festival, I still had a blast. It was a shame that I didn't organise to attend the entire three days, seeing as how different events were transpiring on different days.
The day started with a forty minute wait outside the building, because I didn't pre-register online!
For those thinking about attending next time, I strongly urge for you to pre-register so you can avoid the Long Line Blues (an old blues-bar favourite).
But even waiting in line I had a chance to take a good look at all the cosplay (costume play) that people dressed up in.
I gotta admit some people had some quite good ideas. Some good ideas in particular were
Yoshi - Mario's green dinosaur, Gaara and Kakashi from Naruto, Pyramid Head with three zombie nurses from Silent Hill 2, Solid Snake from, Metal Gear Solid, Jin from Samurai Champloo, Auron and a Tonberry from Final Fantasy X.
Squall from Final Fantasy VIII and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and and.… the list just goes on. I felt a bit out of place for not cosplaying. So I know to come better prepared next time rather than just put on my Green 1-up Mushroom T-shirt.
 | | If Starscream is Megatrons Bitch, what does that make soundwave? |
So after the tediously long wait, I walked around the display area. Many amateur artists had stuff to sell and some of the guys from Madman were also giving a lecture in a room about how they work with Manga and the like (I managed to step in halfway so I missed quite a bit).
Then there was a larger room showing off AMVs (Anime Music Videos) which were homemade by fans and brought in for judging in a competition. There is also another AMV contest, with a twist. They've taken an Iron Chef approach, showing them off what material they have to use (in this case the 'key ingredient' was Naruto manga stills) and within 24 hours they have to come up with an AMV using the given material. Obviously the best one wins.
I looked around a bit further after eating a fair amount of Pocky (as featured in Please Teacher), ramen noodles (as featured in Naruto and your local supermarket!) and for the first time in my life, Ramune (as featured in Steel Angel Kurumi).
It's an odd drink because as you observe the bottle, you will have to open it by popping out a small glass ball. I don't know why it was designed like that. But well I guess it was a way to avoid drawbacks when sharing drinks. It was quite tasty actually, like lemonade but if only I could find a place to buy some more.
 | | Too.. much.. cuteness.. Anime.. senses.. tingling! |
They had a chill out room, and they also had free play on video game consoles. It was my chance to show off my legendary skills in such games as Tekken 5, Super Smash Bros Melee, Soul Calibur 3, Guilty Gear XX and more. I was simultaneously owning and getting owned by many other gamers in the room. But still we had fun and some of the games were just nail-biting (especially Super Smash Bros.) There were also legit tournaments and those attracted a fair crowd.
There were also rooms where they ran marathons of the Animes people liked to watch.
I managed to sit through a Samurai Pizza Cats marathon. Seeing as how I only saw the show like 14 years ago, I think. Strangely enough I still think it's a cool show. I guess it's because of the bizarre-ness of the entire series that an Anime like this can only bring.
I mean it's cats...working at a pizza place, who get fired out a giant cannon and go around kicking butt for all that is good in the world.
Now another piece of advice for those going to conventions is this.... BRING LOTS OF MONEY. Seriously, they had like eight to ten shops set up selling DVD's, CD's, Manga, T-Shirts, Figurines, DIY Mecha, Videogames, Toys and other stuff people like us would buy impulsively. Why even at the end of the day I ended up coming home with a Ryu Figurine, a Tachikoma plushie, a Prinny Cap (this is with Beak, eyeballs, wings and all!) and even managed to snag the last copy of the Tales From Earthsea DVD from the Madman Stall. When I ran out of money I was totally bummed, there was still more great stuff to blow cash on.
 | | Relatives of Australian Ninja? Maybe not. |
Then there was this fantastic event called Cosplay Chess. Think human chess except people stick to their characters and just go on from there. A huge amount of laughs came out of that one. That very much brought my day to an end. Afterwards, I had dinner at Nandos (yummy!), so yeah overall it turned out to be a fun day.
If I realised there would be other cool different events on the other days of Manifest I would most likely have bought the three day pass. So would I attend next year? Yes I will, if only I can remember to pre-register at www.manifest.org.au so that I don't get stuck in another long line!!
 | | KRS - looking stylish in his awesome cosplay |
Ninja's Note: This feature was a real collaborative effort. Borgieman put in the hard work of visiting Manifest personally and writing up his report, and Manifest forum member KRS allowed us to use some of his Manifest 07 photos to run with the feature, thanks KRS!
by: Borgieman
More articles by Borgieman
A fantastic day of fun and strangeness | |
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