Asian College of Science and Technology 2008 Acquaintance Party

My sister works at the said school and she invited me at the said event because they featured Pinoy bands – Sandwich, Imago and Kitchie Nadal. I like Imago so I decided to go but I never thought that the party is anime themed! I was surprised to see there were cosplayers, of course they were students. And that reminded me how common cosplaying had become nowadays. Nagi told me how she hated the idea of cosplay going mainstream and I couldn’t agree less. 8 years ago, cosplay is a new and cool thing that only devoted anime fans did it but now, as anime went mainstream too, cosplaying had become a normal activity for normal people. But as I told Nagi too, there are ways to make you feel it’s as exclusive as ever. For one thing, the cosplayers I’ve seen in the party are very amateur. I had a very hard time identifying the characters considering they are portraying popular anime characters. The colors of their costumes are not very powerful. Plus, they can’t do a skit that would identify them. It’s highly acceptable though since it’s not an anime or cosplay convention. There are so many good cosplayers nowadays but only few justify the characters they portray. Back to the party, I didn’t have to remind myself that I was there for Imago and the cosplay thing was just a bonus. And yes, Imago ROCKS! Woot!!!

When I was watching the cosplay parade though, I realized that it would be wonderful to hold anime conventions on a stadium. It’s big and everyone gets the chance to watch cosplay while sitting. Booths can situate at the flat form, I think that would be fare enough.

Over the years, I feel like the organizers are not very sensitive of the audience’s convenience. The average admission fee for an anime convention is P100 and what do you get? No freebies, no loot bags or whatever. The main attraction of conventions is the cosplay catwalk but even cosplayers are asked to pay the entrance fee. Everything’s done for money, there’s no way you could feel the “from fans to fans” spirit. IMHO…