LOL! maybe I was a bit early I showed up just after 8:30 so I planted my bottom on the grass in front of the main entrance.
And when the clock struck 9:00 people just randomly started appearing out of the bushes, and started queuing in front of the main entrance.
And at around 10:30 the events area was pretty much packed making moving from point A to point B a bit of a mission.
And of course the table top games people were in attendance, including the hordes of Warhammer fans.
Otaku also had a stall at the event, which included a merchandise, PS3, Anime Music Video section, fan art corner and of course the Anime screening.
The Good:
* Nice Venue and secure parking.
* Cheap entrance fee for either a day or weekend pass.
* Proper refreshments at a pretty descent price.
* Enough merchandise to make any fanboy happy and keep them busy for a day.
* Loads of activities to take part in including Gaming, Roleplaying and Cosplay. The Guitar Hero and Teken on the big screen was a really good idea, same with the wall drawings although it wasn’t the smartest to leave your number on there for everyone to see. And a great way to meet like minded people.
* The Anime Music Video competition, even though most of them were horrid and broke the cardinal rule of no watermarks or subs in your videos.
The Bad:
* The Layout of the whole event was just horrible getting from point A to point B a bit of a mission, and you kept bumping into people and it was just a big mosh.
* The cosplay, and no I am not dissing the people who tried there best at making there cosplay outfits I have issues with the people who think that wearing less with lots of cleavage and leg showing is cosplay. When in fact the whole idea behind cosplay is to look as close as humanly possible to you favorite Anime character. Without well looking like a…….you get my idea. People in South Africa will start associating these people with those who actually do proper cosplaying. And no I dont have issue with cleavage being shown but it has to be done in proper and tastefull manner.
* The Anime music video section wasn’t though out properly. (No offense to the people who organized it.) But having 3 small LCD’s and a couple of desktop speakers for sound is just not going to cut it. You couldn’t hear what was going on half the time due to the background noise. And it did also not help that the table was located next the the main entrance of the Anime screening and the Otaku stand. Meaning people were constantly in the way and there was no sitting area provided to sit and watch some Anime Music Video’s.
* The Anime chosen for the screening was really poor with the exception of the new Apple Seed movie. The rest of the shows were really mediocre fanservice shows and to slow moving to really keep you interested for long. And showing only 2 episodes of a show didn’t give the viewer enough chance to get properly introduced with the shows and its characters. And the fact that no one actively watched over the screening meant, people had to wait for someone to come change to the next episode. And the episodes went out of full screen a couple of times during the screening leaving it in windowed mode more than a couple of times.