The Waking: Manifest Report

I HAD to write up on Manifest – the first anime/manga convention I’ve ever attended. Actually, the first convention I’ve ever attended, but overall, it was a fantastic experience and I would definately be going to more conventions in the future. For those who missed it, Manifest is organised by University clubs in Melbourne and is held yearly at the University of Melbourne. This year it was held on the 23rd-25th September, on the same weekend as the Grand Final in Melbourne – meaning on our trip there we had to duke it out with all the Sydney Swan fans. And this is at 6:45 am in the morning.

 

Friday
Nothing much happened Friday. It was registration day, and we got our weekend passes. I stared at some cosplayers, and met up with the Oztaku folks from Monash University, but overall didn’t stay there for long. Oztaku is an Australian anthology magazine dedicated to publishing local manga talent, and run by the folks I met at the Manga Symposium in March (chiefly Kenny and Avi). I must say that I’m darn pleased to see a dedicated manga anthology out there, and that the quality of vol4 has greatly improved from vol3. It always thrills me to meet people who are interested in drawing MANGA, as opposed to drawing PIN-UPS, which seems to be the sort of artists many conventions are filled with. Ofcourse, I bought the latest volume of Oztaku.

 

Saturday
Somehow I ended up in the trader’s hall for the most of this day, because the convention doesn’t have an artist’s alley. This is despite the fact that I’m there to hand out flyers, not to sell anything, so I leeched a corner off one of my friend’s tables. I have NO idea how many flyers for “The Dreaming” I brought with me, but it was definately over 100. Probably 150(?), and over the course of the next 2 days, I only had 10 left at the end of the day. Which is alright – Manifest’s registration only allows a maximum of 2000 attendees (including traders, etc), and I believe there was less people than that.

How exactly do you interest people in manga flyers at a convention anyway? At first I wondered whether I should actively DO something. I wasn’t exactly handing them out to everyone who walks past because theoretically-speaking, you’re only supposed to hand out flyers to people who are interested in the manga – and conventions tend to be fannish places where people buy pin-ups more than manga. Or so I’ve been told. In any case, my favourite bit was talking to the fans about “The Dreaming”, and about working with TokyoPop; it’s always fantastic to see other artists encouraged by what I’m doing and being motivated to try something similar. Nothing is more rewarding than that – both at the “Manga Industry” panel and sitting in the trader’s hall.

That said, I have to give thanks to Ayvahrobby for helping me hand out the flyers – kudos to him for getting people interested!

As for what else I did – plenty. My inner fangirl continually clashed with my need to promote my book throughout the whole weekend. I mentioned earlier that I really enjoyed this convention, and it’s all because of the the fannish behaviour by the attendees. This was the same thing that annoyed the people I attended Manifest with – those who prefer to keep a straight face at conventions were irritated by all the squealing fangirls. Trouble is, I was one of the squealing fangirls – or at least I fit in well with the crazies. Some other manga artists I’ve spoken to were scared or annoyed by the cosplayers and idol contestants. Me, I LOVED the cosplayers and the obsessed Tekken-gamers (There’s a OMGSasuke cosplay!!).

This can’t really be helped. I’ve always taken manga as a serious art form, and can hold my own in a serious discussion – BUT I’ve always been an unabashed fan of popular entertainment. I read alot of weird alternative stuff, but I also love the excellent, squarely mainstream works. This sort of attitude leaks into the manga I do, since I write and draw with the aim of attracting as large an audience as possible. So yes, I love Naruto, and I love all the (good) popular anime shows, AND I love alot of blockbuster video game franchises. Naturally, I would be a screaming fangirl. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t.

Ofcourse I can’t sit in the trader’s hall all day (thanks so much to Katie and Paul). I snuck off to the Tekken 5 tournament, and had a thoroughly good 2 hours watching contestants beat the crap out of each other with the 3D fighting game. I’ve always preferred 2D fighters myself, but watching skilled players fight each other is extremely compelling. Bashing the computer player in Tekken isn’t much fun to watch, but Human VS Human is at another level altogether. The final showdown came to be between a guy dressed very convincingly as Hatake Kakashi, and another one who seemed to be Gai (both from Naruto). They even did a rock-paper-sissors game before their final match – which Kakashi lost. This was also the outcome of the tournament. And we need more girls in video-gaming… I think there was a total of 4 girls in the room – myself, Anne and two contestants.

 

Sunday
Sunday started off with what appeared to be a giant pink tampon outside the trader’s hall. The pink tampon was engaged in a ferocious hand-to-hand battle with Zazuba (Naruto again), but was defeated and scuttled to the Economics building. It wasn’t until I took a photo of him there that I realised that it was Kirby – though I needed the nametag to tell. Great cosplay, but would have been better if the costume was rounder (and thus more like Kirby).

I then headed off to the Manga Industry Panel, and I met Craig again. Craig is the “creator”, so to speak, of the Monash Manga Library – obsessed cultural anthropologist that he is (sorry, Craig). The Madman representatives were also at the panel, and they revealed some thrilling plans for the future that could spell Great Things for the Australian manga scene! But then it’s supposed to happen in the next couple of months so I won’t spill it here. That said, the panel was great. I need to practice public speaking more – I had a speech that I DIDN’T pratice for prepared, and ended up ad-libbing half of it while wondering whether I should read be reading off the paper all the time. Next time, I should make up my mind whether I want to read off the paper, or whether I just need to write down bullet points.

The fun part is the cosplay competition, which I missed on Saturday. I also missed on Saturday, to my great chagrin, the AMV competition. I like Anime Music Videos ALOT, and was mightily pissed to find out that the auditorium for that competition was full and I was unable to get in. That’s why I ended going to the Tekken tournament instead. So this time I made sure I was able to get into the cosplay competition – luckily I knew people who were ahead of the queue AND knew people amongst the cosplay volunteers. Problem solved.

The winner of the cosplay on Saturday was a friend – Kenny. He’s almost a professional cosplayer, and he cosplayed a moogle at Animania last year. This year he was Totoro on Saturday (I helped roll the Totoro costume at the airport), and Saint Seiya on Sunday. This costume is apparently able to transform into a lion… if he would do a few adjustments to it.

After that, I sat out the Madman Panel, and spent the 2 hours left sitting in the trader’s hall and shopping. I bought Neon Genesis Evangelion vol7, Chrono Crusade vol1, and finally Full Metal Alchemist vol1. Out of those manga, Eva was Eva, Chrono Crusade I hated, but I think I found my new favourite “critical mass popularity” manga with Full Metal Alchemist. I’ve been meaning to get it for ages, but now that I have, I finally understand why it’s so well-loved. Edward Elrick has just rocketed to one of my all-time favourite characters – maybe I’ll see someone cosplay as him at another convention.

That would conclude this con report. Overall, I would say the marketing “effort” for “The Dreaming” was pretty good, considering most people there weren’t even there for manga. Not at a convention with 24/7 showings of anime which I managed to miss ALL of. Still, I’m also attending Animania and Supanova in October, meaning that I’ll be seeing some of the same people again there. Both these cons have larger attendences too, so things are going to be busy in the next few weeks.