ANIMASIA : The Festival

Animasia is a festival about Asian culture, organised by the nonprofit organization called Mandora, in Pessac, France. Last weekend was held the 4th edition, where I set up with three friends an exposition, featuring what we are a lot collecting : anime character figures!
But I will detail our booth in a next article. In the meanwhile, here a description of other nice stuff I have seen when I was not in front of my stand.

To plunge visitors in the Asian culture mood, conferences were organised during the festival, which is a bit the non visible part of the convention. Topics were for example the Art and Archeology in the Greco-Buddhism, or some explanations about Haiku, followed by a little constest, and there were also three students from Laos, South-Koera and China who came to speak about their country and how was life in France for them.

A lot of games like sudoku contest or anime song quizz were organised too.

Otherwise, some inevitable merchandise and goodies sotres were selling stuff like traditional clothes or decorative stuff…

Most of the clothes, if not all of them, were for women. But katanas for boys I guess.

mmmhh… can imagine a lot of daring things with this kimono.

Tea sets and others tea-related stuff. Tasting was possible too.

…or back into the anime/manga universe, artbooks, shirts, bags, figures… as usual. Dont really like to see those last ones, but I must say it is the best chance for them to live a little bit longer, since those products are not selling very well in France, unlike mangas. But who knows… maybe this will change in the future, since figures are more and more appreaciated.

The remaining stands were amateur fanzines. A lot of nice drawing to see and/or buy, but I prefer doujins and H CGs ^^;

Fanart exposition.

Fanzine stand, with drawing on demand. Was too shy to ask for a Nodame mongoose drawing ^^;

« Clothing and accessories for undead lolitas ». Undead lolitas!? *LOL*
Ever heard about this clothing brand?

There was a big sheet of paper where people were invited to draw. Tiamat who was displaying figures with me took the time to add this nice character from one of his favorite universe : Le Chevalier d’Eon.

At the end of the festival, a young pianist performed various anime and video game songs, while video scenes of the corresponding universes were screening. Picture was taken while performing Bratja, from Full Metal Alchemist. The concert was filmed, will update this article when the video will be available.

Video Games

I guess any Asia-related convension (or should I say Japan?) in France must have its video games section to bring visitors. And this one was the most popular in the way it was the place where most people were gathering. Did not have the time to try anything, but there was some fighting games running on PS2, PS3 and Xbox360 like latest Dragon Ball Z, Soul Calibur, Naruto etc…

Classic dancing games, running on PC with custom playlists. I was surprised to hear a song from Hatsune Miku album!

Girls seem to like Guitar Hero. Have only play the 2nd game. Here the 3rd was running.

This arcade machine was very popular too. Did not recognise the game though =_=

Ball-Jointed Dolls

A very interresting stand, especially for us, anime figure fans, was the Ball-jointed doll exposition. For those who dont know what it is, here the wikipedia definition :

Ball-jointed dolls (BJDs) or Asian Ball-jointed Dolls (ABJDs) are dolls made of resin, and predominantly manufactured in Japan and Korea. They are fully posable with ball and socket joints in the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, torso, hips, knees, ankles and sometimes even fingers. Body elements are held together with one or more elastic cords that attach to hands, feet and heads, creating tension between the parts.

And since pictures are better than words, here what a BJD looks like :

Those dolls are easily customizable, and it was funny to watch them being made-up.

The other funny thing is that their owners were girls only, while at our anime figures booth, owners were guys only ^^;
And I must congratulate them for this very well decorated stand they had.

Those two were very impressive. “Dark” style suits this kind of doll a lot. I am not really into BJDs, but I must admit they are beautiful.

There are also amazing clothes for them. But if I had to describe them with my own opinion, I would say it is cute and scary at the same time. Hope I wont offense BJD fans though.

Cosplay

And to end with : the costume play! I wasnt carrying my camera all the time, so I missed some girls with nekomimi and neko paws, or some Death Note / Naruto cosplay which were the animes the most represented.

Quite a lot of Gothic and/or Lolitas, and I am sure some of them were not cosplaying, actually ^^;

Maybe the most beautiful costumes Ive seen this weekend : Athena and Shaka from Saint Seiya.

And at last one Haruhi. I would have been very surprised not to see one at least, but I guess she was the only one. And as you can see, shes holding the Max Factory Haruhi figure she kindly accepted to pose with.

And by the way, as you can see in the background of this last picture, there were a lot of informative charts all around the place, with many texts about culture, political situation etc… of various Asia countries. A game was organised as well, with questions about those countries, to motivate people to read them and find the answers.

Thats all for now. Next will be our figurine stand ^^