Pandarific!!

I know it's 2010 already but hey, it's ok. Read on and hope it gives you a good idea about what comic fiesta is like!

What an event! Comic Fiesta 2009 was certainly the cherry on top of the cake, ACG wise. The committee this year has outdone themselves and i’ve only got praises to sing for them, it was bigger, better and more action packed than chilli padi in tom yam soup. And that’s a good thing!

A few things that got me excited about Comic Fiesta this year was particularly the new lineup of events they had, the cosplay competition had a new twist called the one true pair (OTP) where two characters from an anime series are paired up and the cosplayers act out a scene. The industry seminar had inspiring speakers which not only gave useful information to those who were aspiring to enter the creative industry, but they also gave insight to what the real deal is, what employees are looking for and what to expect. One speaker, who was a scriptwriter for BigBeak.pictures actually took the trouble to look through all the artwork and doujinshi at the doujinshi booths and he gave his frank remarks about it, one of them was that the artist need to improve on their storytelling, however he adviced them to seek out writers and to spread out the work so that they need not do everything by themselves. A few new facilities were provided too, like discounted Aeroline bus tickets and hotel rooms in sunway pyramid hotel, all for the convenience of the attendees.

There were a few things that were changed and it really helped to make the event better, one of it was the layout of everything. I liked that the stage was in the middle and not at the end like last year. This way, i could even hear what the MC’s were talking about at the Doujinshi booths. Some sponsers were located outside of the hall and that was a good idea because this way, everyone is not packed up like a can of sardines in the hall. (this reminds me of the PC fair and how horribly crowded it is) There’s actual breathing space! Plus, the sponsers were put on the way to the entrance so people would still visit their booths, smart move there. The art contest area was also relocated outside, another factor contributing to more space and the artists would not get distracted by the crowd and the noise, giving them more peace and louder reception from their muses. Negative side to it though is that people wouldn’t even know there was a art competition. Oh yes! Storage space! The staff was friendly and we can take out our stuff as many times as we like. The guy even told us to put all our stuff together so that we only pay RM5, that’s so sweet of him.

If you were in comic fiesta you would have definitely heard the funny voices of the two MC’s Alfred and Zen. From Megan Fox references, twilight and Edward bashing to impromptu jokes, these guys kept the crowd laughing and the cosplayers wanting to slay, slash, kill, stab, attack and make them servants. I’m hoping to have them as MC’s again next year! Good job guys! And before i forget, i really love the CF booklet this year! They brought back the comics, it’s bigger and i love the cover! I’m definitely keeping this one nice and safe. As for the backdrop, which was drawn by neversummer, i honestly didn’t notice the anime references on it till the MC’s had the competition to identify them, as i see the artwork at a close up, it’s really cool how the artist blended everything together, haha i can only identify a few things though....sad.

Now on to the doujin booths!! For Hetalia and Vocaliod fans out there who didn’t come, well let’s just say you missed out on ALOT of beautiful artwork that was sold at CF. Almost every booth i went to had Hetalia and vocaliod based work. Too bad i’m not into them, i went for the Code Geass and Naruto Shippuden stuff,lala. Pandabaka from Thailand was there, and she sold all the stuff she drew, i bet all her fans were really excited to see her. I was surprised to see Harvest moon work sold at CF, wanted to buy the bookmarks, sadly they were a work in progress and i didn’t want to pay postage. Maybe next year! The figurines area was crowded with people as usual, the detail on the figurines are amazing, too bad they’re so expensive to collect...why doesn’t money fall out of the sky?

On a happier note, there seems to be more and more cosplayers every year, which shows that people are slowly accepting the idea. Although to non anime fans this is a really weird thing to them, i had to explain to some people what was going on, and they were staring at me as if i was speaking ancient greek. The trend this year was Vocaloid and Hetalia. There were many miku’s around, though in different versions, there was a whole Hetalia group and many others, some people decided to cosplay characters from anime’s that were older which brought back many sweet memories for me.

As for the cosplay comepetition, it’s just getting better and better each year as more people start to join and we can see a whole lot of creativity in the group cosplays as they work with the item and theme given. Just a brief mention of what was done by the groups, the first group did a video game kind of thing, it’s those two characters versus each other and there’s lots of background music going on. The next was a mix of elements from bleach and death note, actually the group was cosplaying bleach and their special item was a death note book. The third group was a vampire knight group, personally this groups performance was really funny because they mixed in lines from twilight and it really matched what they were doing and saying. The last group had their own guitars and were doing a fighting for the mike thing. One of the girls decided to hit the other two on the head with a banana, which was of course their special item. Next up is the One true pair cosplay competition which saw five pairs from different anime series which includes chobits (sumomo and kotoko), naruto shippuden(Naruto and gaara), vampire knight(Yuki and Zero), Bleach (Ichigo alter ego’s) and Devil may cry(Dante and Trish). Again i liked the vampire knight pair, their performance was really good, i think it’s because of the audio, you can really feel the emotions though their words.

The last thing i would like to comment about would be the solo cosplay competition. Out of the 23 contestants, most of the characters cosplayed would slash/kill the MC’s or judges, i pity the poor MC’s having to get jumped on or stabbed multiple times. In the end, it looked like the MC’s were doing a lot more acting than the cosplayers. Some made them into servants, and according to the MC’s there was a lot of ‘stripping’, meaning taking off their jackets. Only a few cosplayers stood out, like Tamaki (ouran host club) serving tea to the judges, instead of you know, killing them. Tobi (Naruto Shippuden) who did a break dance. And Sky who cosplayed Taikoubo had her horse and it’s backward flying stunts.

If you think i’m being biased, well then i have to say that this is really how i saw it. I know there were problems happening during the event (i read the comments in the forum) , however i personally did not experience it for myself and so i will not comment on something someone else said happened. Overall, as i have mentioned before, it was a great event, i rate it Awesome with a capital A! Hoping that the committee will keep up the good work and surprise old timers like me (oh dear i sound old).