Firsts of my first: Cosplay Mania 2015 (Day 1)

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All photos bearing the Cosplay Mania logo were taken from the Cosplay Mania official website and are linked to their original source pages.

Cosplay Mania is one of the most prominent anime conventions in the Philippines and it is one of the events that are looked forward to by the Filipino Otaku Community. It has been around for seven years, but it was something that never fit my elementary and high school schedule. Fortunately, fate has given me a chance to attend Cosplay Mania for the very first time last October 3rd.

Climbing my way to the halls

Almost all of my friends who like anime have been looking forward to attending this year’s Cosmania. As what I have heard from them through the years, Cosmania has always been about the good stuff, the good cosplayers, and the good events. Unfortunately, none of my friends (who were even raving about it) were able to attend during the first day of Cosmania. It was either because they had to do something on both days or they had no choice but to go on the second because of something important, so I just went alone. Yes, you read it right. For the first time, I went to an anime convention alone! At first I was totally uncomfortable with the idea but I realized that it would be nice to go without anyone tagging alone for the sake of experience.

Tickets

Because of my post-Ozine Fest 2014 trauma (which is obviously caused by not buying the ticket ahead of time), I decided to buy the ticket through SM Tickets in advance. There were three main types of tickets to choose from:

Bronze is for the peeps who just want to shop until they drop at Hall EX. (Php 198)
Silver allows you to buy stuff at Hall EX and watch evens at Hall S (Special Performance Hall). (Php 298)
Gold allows you to do what you can with the Silver ticket, but the additional part is you get to watch the Japanese Anime Music event a.k.a “JAM” at 7 in the evening. (Php 498)

https://instagram.com/p/8Sz_2tAiKv/

For a limited time, a type of ticket called Titanium was offered to the public. There were only 20 tickets of that kind available. You get the best stuff for a price of *drum roll* Php 5000.

The other tickets were dedicated to the meet and greet with the guests namely KANAME★, Hana and Baozi, Jesuke, Ladybeard, Ying Tze, Itsuki Akira, Aya Ikeda, Pile, and Loverin Tamburin (I think Vic Kumiko was also there with Ying Tze and Jesuke but she wasn’t a special guest). All of the meet and greets cost Php 700 except for Pile’s (Php 2500) and Loverin Tamburin’s (Free). And yes, I missed all these meet and greets because my Cosmania budget was allotted for buying stuff, not meeting people. Well, the great part is even if I didn’t buy any meet and greet tickets I still saw some of them at Hall S because of their short interviews and event appearances. Kaname and Jesuke were cosplay judges (I totally stalked Kaname since he was just two meters away from me) while the rest had interviews on stage.

I am the type of person that always has a curfew (so no concert for me) and is easily bored by just shopping in a con so I bought the Silver ticket. I totally had no idea about the event schedules (don’t imitate me), I just wanted to shop and stay somewhere after that. After elementary school, I stopped taking photos with people who come in cosplay so I usually sit down and watch stage events. I don’t read schedules too much (or at all)—I just anticipate what’s going on stage innocently. This is probably the reason why I was satisfied by the Silver ticket alone.

Enough with the explanations. According to Wikipedia, this ticketing system started just last year to provide more options: a diversion from the norm which is the “one price for all” system. Nice idea, because not all people want to watch cosplay skits; not all people love shopping. Besides this, buying the tickets from SM Tickets is a lot more convenient because all you have to do is buy tickets from the branch near you. You don’t have to do any meet-ups to get pre-sold tickets. Everything depends on you and want you want.

Crowd and Space

Surprisingly, the ground floor was not full of weabs. If you have noticed in my previous con observations, some people (especially cosplayers) who prefer the outside world usually lurk at the SMX ground floor. The other event that was going on at the same time probably caused this. Even the space outside the halls was not fully occupied! I’m not sure if it’s because most of the people are inside or only a few attended. But my point is it’s pleasing to a con goer’s eye!

I don’t really know if it’s just because it’s a Saturday, but in my opinion, Cosmania had planned just the right amount of space. However, the problem is that some booths at the left side of Hall EX were unoccupied and Hall S had too much space that it seemed empty at some point, since everyone was clinging to the stage area where Kaname was. I wonder if the hall stayed like that until the end of JAM?

Merch and Food

Cosmania is a very big event so I expected Hall EX to have a lot of booths inside. Of course, that expectation was exceeded. You definitely have a lot of places to choose from, honest.

As for the food, I can’t really talk about it. I totally avoided the food area because of what happened to me and Jeanne at ACPH last time. I even avoided lunchtime and bought merch with my lunch money instead!

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Entertainment

Of course, this is the best part of Cosmania. (If you want to check out the meet and greets, some fans secretly took videos of some of them and posted them on YT.) The guests are big time and you’ll never get tired of looking at them (or squealing at them). Baozi and Hana almost killed me with their sweetness (if you guys don’t know, they’re a real couple) and Ladybeard is definitely the coolest wrestler ever for me (because he wears dresses)!

Hall EX peeps don’t need to fret because there are always top rate performers at the Hall EX stage such as Seishun Kakumei! I had to leave my place beside Kaname for a while to watch this pretty Love Live-based group. Even if you paid for the lowest priced ticket, you won’t be bored in Hall EX.

There is one thing that I have observed in Hall S, though. There are too much gaps in between events that they’re totally making efforts of keeping the crowd from being bored. How? By asking questions, interviewing the audience about random stuff like “What are you looking forward to the most?” or the part where they grant special requests. I noticed it because sometimes they’re taking a lot of time that I’m losing interest in listening to the emcees. I don’t know who caused these gaps (maybe it’s the guests…?), but interviewing the audience all the time is just so repetitive. They should have thought about more things to do other than asking random peeps.

There’s one thing that I forgot to rave about. The lighting and special effects during the solo and team cosplay competition was superb. A round of applause for the team behind that! And thank you for the live feed screens by the stage, by the way.

Conclusion

To me, it is a unique experience primarily because of the special guests and the ticketing system. Of course there’s nothing special to say about the merch except that you can find almost anything for your otaku stash inside Hall EX. I can’t really talk about improvement and stuff right now, I’m obviously a noob with Cosmania, but I’ll definitely look out for it next year!

~Kairu