Melbourne Anime Festival’s tenth anniversary has come to an end. Victorias, and no doubt Australians largest Japanese Culture festival finished off on a good note with most, if not all attendants. After much hard work over 10 years of Manifest, this years festival has no doubt been the best received. Manifest has been through its trouble times, after almost closing before the 2008 festival due to lack of organisation and bad reputation from its predecessor of 2007. The committee of the festival pulled through onto a fresh start with strong determination to make the Manifest of 2009 the best one yet.
And they did just that.
Moving from its crowed home of Melbourne university, Manifest moved to the superior Showgrounds, providing more space, more facilities and better organisation. While the showgrounds lacked the “already available” screens, seats and accommodation that the Melbourne university had, it didn’t take long for the committee to find the businesses to supply such needs. The main events room at the university could fit a maximum of 500 people, at the showgrounds, it could fit 1400 (which still managed to fill). Since Manifest has entered the “main stream” category of conventions, legal rules have been emplaced for what anime they screen. While in previous years, there have been 5-7 screening rooms, each running with fan dubbed anime and already licensed anime, this year the committee has done things differently receiving licences for all sorts of anime, some still airing in Japan (Saki, Natsu No Arashi) while others have no license for Australia (Clannad). This year featured 3 screening room, which was enough to keep anyone from being bored, showing a variety of anime from the 80s, 90s and now. As well as screening, Manifest had plenty of other things to do, gaming, drawing, traders, maid café, cosplay shoots, panels and main events to name a few. Most of all, it was spacious!
The community is really what makes Manifest what it is, the gathering of geeks to share in a fun filled weekend, the friendliness (most of them) of each person, very willing to take part in chat and have a cosplay photo taken (or many!). While spread all around Victoria, and even Australia, when we all come together for a single event, its great fun meeting new and interesting people that have the same hobbies of you. Its even better when you meet someone cosplaying as one of your favourite characters.
Cosplaying is highly recommended, it increases enjoyment a lot.
Pros
Cons
- For those of you who are new to the anime scene and have nobody to go with, don’t come, you will bore yourself easily.
- The Weapon Policy was all over the place, there was a massive inconsistency with what could be kept as a prop and what couldn’t (even with permission from committee)
- Each Panel I went to seemed somewhat basic, but that may have just been me.
Manifest this year has no doubt been the best, and I hope to see many of you there next year. Feel free to tap me on the back!
Manifest 2010: August 20th – 22nd
Manifest: Here
Manifest Forums Profile: Here
