Animania, Day One

Today was day one of Animania 2003, Sydney's only dedicated Anime convention. Sure, there are things like Comicfest and Supanova, which are larger and have lots of anime content, but Animania is different because it is fan-driven and devoted entirely to anime.

Well, and Street Fighter and Dance Dance Revolution... But we'll ignore that for the moment.

I missed the first couple of hours, since today was a Saturday, and I never get up on Saturday mornings if I can help it, and because Animania is being held this year at the University of New South Wales* which is miles from anywhere and rather a nuisance to get to.**

But I did get there in time to see Haibane Renmei, which I was quite enjoying, right up until the Bavarian Fire Drill. Complete with real fire engines! If you want to see what an anime convention looks like decamped onto the lawn outside the Scientia*** at UNSW, I've got pictures and will be posting them tomorrow.

Then, after the building spectacularly failed to burn down, back inside for a rather good panel on model making from an artist who's worked on the recent Star Wars and Matrix films, and then the Cosplay (costume) competition, the highlight of any anime convention.

One of the nice things about anime, as opposed to my other hobbies such as programming, computer and role-playing games, and science fiction, is that it is very popular with the other half of the species - you know, girls. In fact, the audience looked to me like about a 60:40 girl:guy ratio. Lots of cute girls, and even better, lots of cute girls in anime costumes.

Lots of photos of the cosplay contest, of course, and I'll post the best ones after the second round tomorrow. My favourite of the day was the girls from Magic Knight Rayearth doing their DDR routine. Cool!

The day ended with Who's Line is it Anime, a series of improvisational comic skits with an anime theme. It was during this that I started wondering why so many of the female contingent kept referring to yowies... Until I realised that I had never heard the word yaoi spoken before.

Anime... Truly something in it for everyone.

* A.k.a. Kenso Kindy, yes.
** I studied there for three years. Trust me on this.
*** That wasn't there fifteen years ago!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:39 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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