The Very First Madman Anime Festival

Kimmy Ragefire Cosplay & Gamma Inkk Cosplay as Blake and Yang from RWBY

Last weekend, the first ever Madman Anime Festival was held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The convention ran over the 3^rd and 4^th of September and was packed with attendees over both days.

Despite being the first ever Madman Anime Festival, or ‘MadFest’, it didn’t have the disorganised feel of a very first convention. It felt like everything ran quite smoothly!

In the very front just inside of the event area, there was an information stand with booklets, official merchandise and other products. Alongside a very large Madman run stall with an extremely large range of anime and other products, there were a number of other Melbourne-based merchandise stalls including Critical Hit and many others. You could buy anything from DVDs and Blu-rays, to figurines and plushies, to snacks and so much more.

Towards the back on the right hand side, was a section called the Creator Zone, where smaller, home based artists and merchandise creators were able to sell their merchandise, posters and the like at a physical stall rather than just dealing with online sales.

They had an area allocated to signings and meet and greets for the various guests that had been called to Melbourne. The guests ranged from voice actors (Japanese and American), to directors, character designers and cosplayers. Many of the cosplayer guests were professional Australian based cosplayers, but they had also invited esteemed cosplayers such as Tomia from South Korea, it was also her first Australian appearance and a much anticipated one at that.

Though, the sheer number and high calibur of the guests was not the only thing that made this convention stand out amongst the crowed of other conventions where anime is not the main theme, MadFest also featured a Tokyo Ghoul and Death Note Exhibition, where you could see exclusive behind the scenes sketches, art work and character designs or props and photographs.

Namco also had a booth where attendees could play Square Enix’s new games, including Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts, but there were also a number of Namco games to play as well. Exclusive screenings were held in the Anime Lab where they screened some films that had not yet been released as well as some well-loved anime series.

The Madman National Cosplay Competition was another popular event, and is always a big hit at Melbourne conventions. I stayed to watch some of the cosplay parade, which is similar to a competition, but is great for cosplayers who are new to the cosplay scene or have not made their own costumes and just want to get a feel for the stage.

As per usual with Melbourne anime conventions, the quality and skill level of the cosplayers was high! Check out some of these great costumes I managed to get photos of on the Saturday.

You can find the links to their pages below their images!