Well! That certainly sounds exciting! And huge! Bigger than AvCon? Bigger than SMASH!? Bigger than Manifest? Wow. I started getting excited.
{This is a *long* review. So I've got the pros/cons at the top. there's also a summary at the bottom.}
Pro’s
- Fumiko Orikasa was amazing
-Maid Café cake was nice
-Most volunteers very friendly
Con’s
-Extremely Expensive (everything)
-Extremely poor Layout
-Hardly any Anime screenings
-Hardly any Traders
-Hardly any panels
-Hardly any events/activities
-Extremely low turnout
-Lots of bootlegs
-Very poor advertising before the event
Getting There
Myself and two friends got the train to Redfern, then worked out how to get to the venue. As someone who had not been to the venue, or station, before, the lack of signage wasn’t helpful. Thankfully my friends had been there before so knew where to go.
As we wandered up to the venue there was one thing I noted – a lack of people. At other conventions (and not just anime ones), there is always lots of people milling about, photographers doing photoshoots, etc. The area was just empty. Even as we walked up to the main entrance there was less than 20 people milling about. This was about the stage when I started getting worried. Maybe everyone was just inside. Maybe a big event was on and everyone was inside theatres.
As we walked into the lobby of the venue a friend joked about animania being nicknamed “lobby con” where people go to the venue to hang out with friends – but not to pay to enter.
I was eager to enter – I’d only just discovered via their uploaded event guide that Fumiko Orikasa was a guest!
Pricing and Entry
Another surprise was that there was no lines. At all. The staff at the sales counter looked bored. And then I got not a surprise, but a shock. I saw the entry prices. $40 for a single day, or $55 for a weekend. OUCH! But then I reminded myself – this is a convention that claims to be the biggest anime convention in Australia. Surely it’ll be worth it! So I begrudgingly handed over my cash, only to be waved to another table to get my wristband. We then walked on in, getting our showbag on the way.
Layout
Upon entering the first thing you see is a giant black wall. Upon later consulting the map, it was marked as the ‘photoshoot area’, but there was no signage of any kind. There was no signage pointing us in the direction of any of the other activities, and it was extremely counter-intuitive. That was true for the entire layout. I am used to conventions having wide aisles, and a really good flow. Animania had none of that. I honestly felt like I was a rat in a maze hunting for some cheese. I walked past the guest booth several times before figuring out where it was. We were constantly referring to the map because, despite the small size of the venue, there was little to no signage and I constantly felt lost or unsure of what direction to go.
Guests
As I mentioned before, Fumiko Orikasa was a guest. If you don’t recognise the name – she’s the Japanese Voice Actor (otherwise called a ‘seiyuu’) for many well-known characters (Rukia in Bleach, Riza Hawkeye in Full Metal Alchemist (FMA), Azusa Fuyutsuki in Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO), Miss Valentine in One Piece, Saori Kido / Athena in Saint Seiya and Chun Li in Street Figher 4 / Marvel vs Capcom 3). I had only realised she was a guest the day before the event when I downloaded the event guide to check out the trader list. There was no recent posts on their website or facebook, either. There was hardly any information prior to the event about Fumiko – no mention of prices, if she had items available to purchase for signing, or if she was doing a photo session. The only things about here were that she had a signing session each day (Sat 11am-12:30pm, Sun 1:45-3:15pm), and some stage appearances (Sat 2:30-3:30pm, Sun 11am-12pm).
Once I had initially found the guest signing booth (and searched artist alley for some art to get signed as there was none provided or on offer), I returned to the signing area. Which was empty. I checked my watch. Had I lost track of time? Had she finished signing? I asked a volunteer what was going on, and was told that she was still signing, but waiting in the back room, and she could be fetched if I wanted an autograph. It felt extremely awkward, I always hate having to ask guests to do something special for me, but I was told that it was fine. I said ok and I was then informed of the prices. It was $29 for an autograph, and $39 for an autograph and a photo. (I should point out that you were paying for the RIGHT to take a photo. You had to provide your own camera.) I was quite taken aback – Normally there is no fee for voice actors or seiyuu. There might be a small fee (under $10), or a charge to purchase items to get signed (prints, etc), but nothing on the scale of what I experienced at Animania. Despite the cost, I am a big fan of Fumiko’s work so paid up. (A personal niggle was that she was not using sharpies or permanent markers – I had to wave my print for 20mins while waiting for the ink to dry). She was lovely and gracious and I’m glad I took the time (and money!) to meet her.
Activities
One of the major differences between an Anime convention and a general Pop-Culture convention is that the anime conventions place a heavy emphasis on activities. I was expecting a swath of drawing activities and competitions, games, and maybe some area’s to learn some new crafty skills. Once again Animania seemed to disappoint greatly. There was a chess mat (for cosplay chess), a giant twister mat (someone please tell me that that ISN’T a lawsuit asking to happen), a small ‘drawing area’ (which seemed to be used more for people chilling than any drawing), Karaoke, and a video games area. There was also scheduled sessions for origami and papercraft in the drawing area. Most of these areas seemed either empty or only a few people there at any point; they never seemed ‘full’ or overflowing.
Events (cosplay, main stage, etc)
One of the major highlights of any anime convention is the various cosplay events. At Animania this is more than usual – as they are hosts to the World Cosplay Summit. It’s at Animania that the cosplay team to represent Australia is chosen. One of the odd things I noticed is that they split the regular cosplay over two sections – those with skits early in the day, and then the ‘cat-walk’ in the afternoon. I sadly missed both parts of the regular cosplay but, despite a low turnout, the entrants had fun and the cosplays themselves were of a high standard. I was fortunate enough to see both the skits and the finale of the WCS. As with the regular cosplay – there seemed to be a disappointingly low amount of entrants for the WCS. Originally 4 teams, with one dropout, left 3 entries.
While the quality of the skits themselves are high, I had some issues with the running of the show, from an organisational point of view. The teams were introduced, then there were a few awkward, boring, minutes while we watched as the animania crew set up the set and props. The lighting during the skits felt unorganised – randomly turning on and off, changing colours, etc, with no real connection to the skit itself. The first skit seemed to reply heavily on there being LED lights in their set, costumes, and weapons, and the stage lights seemed to come and go with no real sense to anything. The second skit had one of the team members high off the ground, and there was no lights at all on her for most of the skit. The third skit used video, and while it was effective, again the lighting was very odd.
The announcement of the winners was even more awkward. There was meant to be a video, which took forever to play, before third place was announced. Then, with no mention of who came second, First place was announced.
It’s worth noting that during both WCS events the 300 seat main theatre was no more than half full. This was the, perhaps, the biggest event at Animania, and they couldn’t fill a 300 seat theatre. I feel like that experience alone sums up the entire event.
The theatre during the WCS competition.
Screenings
Another thing I enjoy about conventions is chilling out and watching some anime. At Animania I noticed a distinct lack of screenings. They had a single anime, Little Witch Academia, screening for half an hour each morning. Most of their other “screenings” were tourism adverts, or previous World Cosplay Summits.
Traders
One of the things I most enjoy about going to an event is meeting artists, and going on a shopping spree! I, like most others, will save up before an event for this very purpose. Animania had 34 vendors, broken down like so:
-4 were food vendors
-1 was the guest signing area
-2 were Animasia merch booths (merch + gashapons)
-10 were retailers
-and the remaining 17 were artists.
Animania has a reputation of having an extremely lax bootleg policy, and of the 10 retailers, I found this reputation to hold true. I spoke to quite a few of the artists and traders, who all seemed to feel that the table/booth costs were extremely high, and the extremely low attendance meant that they were going to have trouble covering their costs. Upon looking at the trader pack myself, it’s worth noting that the tables are more expensive than other conventions, and only come with 1 pass, with additional passes costing $90 each. Many artists commented on this, as it’s a LOT more than most conventions.
Looking down the vendor hall, mid Saturday afternoon.
Maid Café
I have run the Maid Café at Manifest for the last two years, so I am probably biased as to what a maid café ‘should’ be. What that is, is a fun, warm environment, with cute maid/butler service and tasty refreshments. To be honest it was probably the only area in the convention that I felt was good value. For $10 you received a large slice of very tasty cake, plus a cup of coffee, tea, or juice. Sadly the ‘café’ itself was dark and bland. It felt like someone had gone to their attic and collected some lace doilies and fake flowers. The maids were friendly, except that they were extremely forceful about the 20 minute limit. During the middle of a busy day, kicking your patrons out at exactly 20 minutes makes sense. During an extremely quiet period, with only my group and a pair of volunteers in the café, we felt like it didn’t make sense to kick us out – we didn’t even get to finish our cakes.
Summary
I paid $40 to get into a quiet, unorganised, empty event. I don’t know what Animania has done in previous years, but it’s not working. The event is obviously dying. I don’t think they can call themselves “Australia's largest anime and manga event” anymore. I get the feeling that that has not been the case for many years.
To be honest, I feel like I wasted money and I most certainly won’t be returning.
So. Many. Photos. Can't fit them all into this post unfortunately.
...Or can I?
Anyways. I realised that it was nice to recount the vaguely significant things that happen in my life so here. Take it.
Woke up early. I thought that I had more time than I actually had to get ready, cue the running around and chucking random stuff into my bag. Apparently, all the stuff I needed happened to be some of the stuff I did chuck in there so yay.
The train came late, and when it did we went from the land of the sun to pouring rain. T'was pretty terrible walking through the rain, and I now have a high chance of sickness happening.
So we got there, had to line up, got separated due to me not having a pre paid ticket. So, after paying for my ticket, I realised I actually had not a substantial amount of money for buying anything besides something from $1 bargain bins and a fortune. And thus began my quest for an ATM. If only I had brought my camera.
I went in a massive fucking circle, and found a road leading to Randwick, and the Airport. I was gone for almost 2 hours. I went past a convenience store, but like an idiot, walked right past it. The ATM where my phone first told me to go to was a bank, which was closed. And then the next took so long to get to, and I found it inside an ALDI store. Then I picked up some fried chicken which was supposed to come with a mushroom (?) but swapped it for some questionable coleslaw. Finally, at around noon, I made it back.
I spent most of my time at the main stage, firstly watching the live action anime (which I suspect may be Final Fantasy), a new Witch themed anime which gave my cousin and I intense feels, cosplay, dancing and martial arts.
After wandering around. taking photos of people cosplaying (all of whom were very nice) and buying things, we went home and I did nothing for ages. I actually cleaned up my bed to take photos of my awesome key :D
i know i sorta ok not really cosplayed the same thing at supanova as well but this time i'll wear a coat and maybe a beanie/ cat ears so its slightly more recognisable, i would've done a canon nepeta cosplay (like w/ horns and stuff) but i only found out about this convention a few hours ago (and i already bought my ticket so)
basically it'll be my first time actually cosplaying ye
