AniCon 2008... a few thoughts

AniCon '08 was held in SM Megamall at Megatrade Hall 3 last October 05, 2008. This was to be an Anime, Console, & Online Gaming Event. You can see the details of the con from the Otakuzine website at http://www.otakuzine-mag.com/.

I later found out that this con used to be the original GX-con which was revamped and renamed to Anicon. In my opinion a good move as the previously mentioned con did carry some, or in my case a lot, of bad blood. As a critique, I believed that it was my duty to re-evaluate the convention.

They held the convention in the same space they held it last year, which is by far the smallest convention area of the three Megatrade Halls. As you can imagine, it was cramped. From what I hear, the convention organizers got the Trade Hall at half price because no one had booked the location. The management of SM saw it fit to lease the hall at reduced price instead of leaving it unused on Sundays. This kind of caused last minute preparations for the convention. One of the exhibitors, whom I personally know, was given like a week for them to prepare for the convention. Talk about cramming.

I went with a friend to the convention. We paid PHP100.00 each for the entrance. This year they had freebies, not that it's important, but it's definitely welcome. I don't mind not getting freebies if I feel that it was worth my time and money to come. Though I wondered why they changed the freebies they were planning to give out last minute. Not a big deal for me, really.

eep... no space.  >.<

Again, the arrangement of the booths and exhibits were done in such a way that it left you with very little space to move in. This would be okay if you were expecting only a few people to come. But come on, anime conventions are now a big thing these days and people come in droves. The space to begin with was already an issue and that is just compounded by the lack of planning and execution of where to place booths and exhibits. Also, they insisted in keeping the console stations right in front of the stage area. I know that the purpose was to put the console games at the center of everything but I kinda think it would have been better to put them to the side because people are going to go there anyway. It's a small space people will eventually get there. In my review last year, I pointed this out and it seems, we are not learning our lesson.

They also set up the maid cafe and matsuri festival area.  They cordoned the area with those white wooden walls normally used by SM for booths at their convention.  So it looks like there is a separate room for the matsuri area and then a separate room for the maid cafe.  Because there's a wall, you can't move freely from those said areas to the rest of the convention hall and vice versa.  Also, the wall served as a hindrance from seeing what was inside the walled areas. As a spectator, I would be wary going in because it looks like a restricted area.

  
matsuri area - wish tree and stargazing

On a positive note, they did away with the 3-minute console demos and decided to have the gaming communities handle the console demos for them. Since the gaming communities know more about their consoles, they are best fit to do demos for other people. Tales of Vesperia and Devil May Cry 4 were some of the games that were on demo. And of course, they had Soul Calibur IV as they had a tournament for the game. It was interesting and it gave me a better view of what an Xbox 360 has to offer, not having one myself. It was also good that this time the tournament was organized by the gaming community as they would best know how to handle the tournament rules and guidelines.

As soon as you enter the convention hall, High Street 5 is the first thing you'll see.  High Street 5 is new to the online gaming scene in the Philippines and they were pulling out all the stops to get their new game recognized.  High Street 5 is published by a brand new online gaming company, EagleGame Int'l.  The game had booth babes~! Yeah.  Lol, sorry hormones talking.  XD.

    
High Street 5 DJ's/Tech Crew and Gaming Stations

Noticeably though, the big players in the online gaming scene like Level Up and E-games were missing or simply not visible.  Level Up! is suppose to be one of the sponsors but I don't really remember seeing them at all, if they were there at all for that matter.  E-games was not their either.  AMDG, who was there last year to promote Lineage II, was also not there.  After the treatment that AMDG got last year, I would not be surprised that they decided to stay away from this con.   For a con that was suppose to focus on anime, console, and ONLINE GAMING, there wasn't much in the realm of online games.  It would have been better if they left out the online gaming in the highlights of the convention and I would have been more delighted that they featured it even if it was not part of the con.   The disappearance or lack of visibility of Level Up! may explain why the last minute change not to give out Level Up cards as freebies at the entrance.  I can only imagine that Level Up tried to back out of the convention.  But that's just speculating on my part.

Event was rushed I suppose

Like I mentioned earlier, this year the convention decided to have a maid cafe as part of their offerings.  In fact, it sounded like they were so proud of it.  A friend who didn't go to the convention told me, "what?? they went through with it?!".  I could feel her utter shame in the idea.  Her feelings did not really come without merit. Being that the con was a bit rushed, I was kinda confused as to where this "maid cafe" was suppose to be.  Again, the organizers did a splendid job of not putting up signs.  It was a walled area, they could have put up big signs like "this way to the maid cafe" or "come here for hot maids"  or something like that.  I'm already being a bit sarcastic but I found it annoying.  If it wasn't for the fact that there were guys holding up papers saying that this was the maid cafe (which wasn't there the whole time) I wouldn't have known. 

There were supposed to be 4 maids.  When my friend and I was there, I only saw 2 of them.  I have nothing against the maids and I will not comment on how they look as that would be rude to them but I do have to say that it was hard to determine whether these maids were part of the maid cafe or just cosplayers.  Being that their maid costumes were different from each other it made it look like they were cosplayers.  I personally think they should have at least color coordinated or made costumes with similar styles so that there was uniformity in what they were wearing.  This is basic.  If you are to run a shop or service it is necessary that you are able to identify the people who are working there and that is why uniforms were invented.  I am not saying they should all look identical but the differences were so glaring it's hard not to notice it.

What my biggest gripe is that the organizers advertised that the maid cafe would be serving especially-made Japanese food.  Especially-made would connote that they had some special Japanese cuisine or that there was a menu of sorts.  I go there to find out that their "especially-made" Japanese food is from Yoshinoya.  Come on, that's not especially-made.  No offense to Yoshinoya, I like eating there, but fast food does not equate to especially-made.  If there was any fail in advertising, this would definitely be it. 

especially-made Japanese food brought to you by Yoshinoya.  =_=

What about the actual program for the convention?  Well, to be honest, I wasn't taking much notice of it.  It was the typical programs that they had for most cons.  I did hear that one of the hosts was not prepared and did not even recognize the games or its characters.  Whether that's true or not, is beyond me.  I'm just glad I didn't see "Mao", one of the hosts from GX-Con.  But what I said about my review of Animania Con, the hosts must always be prepared.  They should at least do some research about the theme of the con and find out more about the people who would be there.  This applies to hosts in general.   And we can't just say because they didn't know, that they're only human.  That's a sorry excuse for not doing your job. 

Cosplay as usual was the main event of the convention.  It's the main event of most conventions.  Unless you are a cosplay event, I really don't appreciate the cosplay being the main event of a convention.  It's a cop out for most conventions that they have a cosplay event because it's a crowd drawer.  I do agree it is, but if you have to resort to cosplay events when the focus of your convention is not just so you can draw crowds, then in my opinion you fail as a convention.  If you can promote a convention as it really is supposed to be without relying on cheap tactics and still get the crowds then you have done well.  Yaoi Con would actually be a good example.

On a side note, I did take time to stop and look at the group cosplay competition.  I saw two group cosplays and I have only one comment.  When did group cosplay become a dance competition? I couldn't help but say it.

So in conclusion, was the convention a success? Perhaps, it was.  That's a big perhaps, though.  Was it any better than last year?  In fairness, it was.  Did it live up to what they had advertised the convention to be?  Not at all.  It was still poorly organized.  The gaming communities took up the slack for the convention and really if it wasn't for the exhibitors efforts this convention wouldn't even be any good. 

This is perhaps what happens when a convention is done to just make money and just a barkada thing instead of actually thinking of what they could do to provide quality experience to their exhibitors and the spectators.  As a public event, they are subject to public scrutiny and criticism and it's really sad that last time I made a review they were not able to take it with an ounce of civility.  They say I shouldn't compare the convention to others, but if you have been to one convention and enjoyed it, you get certain expectations with other conventions to do the same or better.  I personally know people who have organized events and conventions and I know how hard it is to organize an event, but they are able to do it well.  This is not to say that they are perfect and did not make mistakes but if one convention is able to do well then as an organizer you should at least try to match it.  They have been in the anime and gaming scene longer than most other groups and by now we come to expect a bit better from them.

That's it for me now.  I will be going to Cosplay Mania this Sunday.  Expect a review of that of as well.

Signing off.