Wow, I can't believe it's finally over! Not just the con, but also the entire "pre-con" season was highly stressful! However, the event was certainly memorable~ Knowing that most of my online friends wouldn't be here this year, I made it a point to bring along some of my offline friends :) Cons are no fun if you don't have friends with you :(
Again, like last year I went on both Saturday and Sunday. I had planned on going on Friday as well, but because of the AFL grand final parade in the city, plus other obligations I decided against it.
Saturday
It was a very hectic morning, considering the night before I was up till about 2am. Poor
Tobias got very little sleep as he was up helping me the whole time. In the morning went to get ready and waited for Dee, Andy and Anthony to arrive at 10am. Once they did, Dee put her wig on (personally, I was blown away to see how beautiful she was) and we were off.
Once at the car park at Manifest, it took us 30 mins just to put our costumes on. Both Dee and I were dressed as almost identical characters, me as Kaoru Kozue and Dee as Himemiya Anthy. Putting on these costumes was like making a wedding cake. So many layers! Not to mention the struggle we both encountered trying to get through doors once the costume was on.
We soon left the car park in full costume, Dee was extremely nervous and doubtful the entire time, not being an anime fan and having never cosplayed did make her feel very uncomfortable when she was quickly surrounded by photographers. Still I'm so grateful she did model Anthy for me, I don't think anyone could disagree with me when I say she was the perfect Anthy!
We left the car park at 11:40am and I realised I was late for my judges appointment. So I handed over my bag to Tobias and asked him to collect my Manifest badge for me while I search for the cosplay competition hall. Running around the grounds was no an easy task in my huge dress! But somehow with the help of a very kind Manifest volunteer I made it into the cosplay hall to be greeted by another judge and the cosplay coordinator Sefie.
Being a cosplay judge was beyond awesome. The other judges were very kind to me and
Sefie was extremely sweet. All of this good since it was my first year as a judge and I was very nervous as to how I would be accepted.
The competition soon began and Tobias and Anthony finally found me in the hall. All while Dee with Andy tried to find shelter from all the photographers. The cosplay entrants were really wonderful, the quality of some of the costumes were truly outstanding. While marking them was pretty hectic as times, I had no clue that tallying and working on the top three of each category would be so much worse. Thank goodness I'm a computer programmer, it made simple multiplication and addition very easy. I suppose the more annoying thing was all the people crowded around us trying to take photos of both the entrants and us. While I can understand their boredom and need for photos, I found it inconsiderate that a lot of them would go as far as to step on my dress just to get photos. That experience certain dampened my attitude for the moment.
After the competition in the winner was announced and I was off to see
Setsuna concerning business matters. I checked on Dee first, whom I found hiding in a secluded theatre, hiding from photographers. It was good at Andy was there to watch over her, I would hate for her to be alone considering how scared she seemed. She even complained that a few people tried to hug her because they loved her costume so much, I think it's sweet but I know how much that scared Dee.
Soon I ventured off to find Setsuna in the trader's area. I should add that walking around the convention ground was very difficult. I kept stepping on my own dress so many times, luckily I didn't fall over. How painful and embarrassing that would have been! Plus, traveling anywhere on the grounds was slow since I got stopped every few metres by photographers. Honestly though, I didn't mind in the slightest.
Finally arrived to see Setsuna, who later yelled at me for not making in on Friday. Luckily, I retaliated with force over the fact that he didn't have a mobile. At the trader's centre Liching and her friends found us. Liching, never short of any "witty" remakes on my costume, but all in good fun.
Once Setsuna managed to get a break from his job (working as a trader) he took he to go meet some people in the business that I will be working with later on. It was pretty clear Setsuna was getting annoyed by all the photographers that kept stopped us to take my photo. At least the time was not wasted, as he informed me of the magnitude of the upcoming project. He introduced me to quite a few nice people, I'm very happy to meet them and look forward to working with all of them in the future.
Once done, I grabbed a sleepy and scared Dee for some photos. I knew she would probably never wear the costume again, and so I desperately wanted some good photos of her in the costume. Dee is a girl filled with giggles and she never really got Himemiya's ethereal look down pat, but I was grateful that she at least tried. (Photos can be viewed under the costume section).
The entire process took a long time as both Anthony and Tobias discussed possible good photo locations. Soon Karan arrived to meet us, he kept us all company throughout the photo shoot and after.
Few hours passed and as the sun began to set we decided to call it a day. It felt great to remove my costume, and Dee couldn't wait. Infact she practically stripped it off just outside the trader's room.
We all left exhausted and starving as we didn't have time to eat lunch there.
Sunday
This time it would just be Tobias and I, which was fine as my costume today wouldn't be as big and hard to walk around in as my last. I went as Shia from Pita-ten. Tobias and I spent a long time trying to tighten my corset, it was made out of very thin satin so it was difficult to tighten, but I'm very happy with how Tobias managed to fix it.
We went to find Setsuna to return the cosplay CDs we had borrowed, and headed over to the cosplay competition for judging. I'm really glad that I got to meet
Widya properly too, even if he was wondering why I found him so scary. I think his qualities of being both a famous icon and well-known photographer got me scared both this year and last. I always become very self-conscious around people whom I've admired for a while. But Widya put all my doubts and worries at ease, and proved to be just a normal human being too. A very friendly and mature one at that!
The competition was much more organised this time, scoring wise. It went by faster and Sefie was kind enough to yell at people who were crowding around us as we tallied up the score. She was a great cosplay coordinator, if I were in the same position, I'd probably throw a hissy fit and cry in a corner, some of the entrants were very inconsiderate of how much work Sefie had put into the entire event.
After the winners were announced Tobias and I left to look for more cosplayers to photograph. In the end we found very few, so we were lucky that he took many photos during the cosplay competition. We took a few more photos and decided to call it a day, as we were both exhausted by again staying up late till 2am working on costumes.
Conclusion
I think
Joey was the only online friend whom I met, the rest of them didn't come, which made me very sad. It was the major disappointment with Manifest, but nevertheless I still had some fun.
And I should probably take this opportunity to thank Tobias and my mother. My mother and Tobias helped me a lot with all the last minute details of my costumes, put up with me complaining, and Tobias took tons of photos for me and generally was being the fantastic boyfriend that he is. I love you so much Tobias, I really appreciate you helping me out during this stressful period.
Photos
Saturday
