ACG events seem to be piling in this year, taking up almost every weekend, but a team of ours still managed to experience one of the most anticipated events in April. The said event being AnimeXOver that was held in SPCC (Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre) on the 8th and 9th of April. The event was hosted by AnimeXOver and garnered more attendees than expected despite its late announcement on the happening of the event.
AnimeXOver, read as Anime Crossover, is an event where fans of both eastern and western fandoms come together to experience the best of both worlds. The event was filled with cool activities and stage performances throughout both days and we’ll be talking about those in a moment. Here are the most notable highlights of the event!
Highlights
Cosplay Competition
The cosplay competition was one of the best stage activities on Day 1 of the event. The contestants were shortlisted from online audition via video submission, and so, the best of the best were set against each other in this competition. Various acts played out on stage such as skits, singing and dancing.
Among the questions that were asked by the judges were why certain costumes were chosen rather than others, why the contestants chose their character and the like. The competitors were dressed up in all kinds of costumes from different fandoms. Some from Disney, others from anime. One contestant even cosplayed Cinderella as an anime character! The judges were constructive, critical and very relaxed when giving their thoughts so there wasn’t as much tension as there would’ve been despite the strict criteria for winning the competition. Unfortunately, a technical issue had caused a contestant to not perform at her best for her part in the competition.
Among the many amazing costumes that we saw on stage, I’d like to commend the cosplayer that cosplayed Kabuto’s Hyper Form from Kamen Rider. His costume seemed like a real feat to move in, but despite that, he managed to stay in character throughout the duration of his performance. Finally, we would like to congratulate EXP who took home the grand prize of RM2000 for their Touken Ranbu skit. The choreography of the fighting seemed pretty well thought out and there were no mishaps during the clashing of swords. The synchronization of the voice acting and their lip syncing was impressive too.
Booths
Plushies, t-shirts, kigurumi, artwork, badges and tons more! There was no doubt a huge variety sold at the booth section of AnimeXOver but the general layout of booths were not as impressive. It was quite inconvenient to browse and look around with how the booths were placed; you wouldn’t know if certain booths were of one booth owner, which could cause people to take more time than you usually would just to browse through a few booths… but enough of the technical stuff.
Moving on, we have the other booths which includes Pop Vinyl, of course, selling Pop Vinyl figurines of all different kinds of characters. Not to mention the Oishi booth that promoted the new VR technology where you can draw in 3D or play Fruit Ninja if you purchase one of their drinks.
E-Sports
A part of the event that was overshadowed by the concerts and booths was the E-Sports tournament event which consisted of a Dota 2 tournament and a CS:GO tournament. The tournament was hardly ever mentioned nor did it receive any spotlight until the very end of the event, after the concerts and announcements. The only part of the tournament that was broadcasted on stage was the final game of the CS:GO tournament in which we had Orange Esports, one of the best CS:GO teams in Malaysia, facing off against VELSPRO in the map Overpass. Orange Esports won with the prize money of RM3000.
Meet and Greet + Concert
The meet and greet sessions were held on stage for all to see and the guests were very cooperative, especially Anna Yano who went out of her way to personally thank and bow to a fan who offered her a gift. It was definitely heartwarming to see such an interaction between an artist and a fan! She also revealed that if she were to cosplay an anime character, she wouldn’t choose just one but multiple such as Yazawa Nico and Sonoda Umi from Love Live! and Hoshii Miki from Idolm@aster. The meet and greets went by smoothly from one special guest to the next. The Pikachu meet and greets were especially cute with the event giving free meet and greet passes for a picture with Pikachu on stage.
On the other hand, the concerts were amazing! Angela had a huge crowd and blessed us all with her epic performances, all the while interacting with the audience and making sure we were having fun by encouraging us to jump, dance and even form a wave. Her performance drew an impressive amount of reactions from the audience, some people in the crowd even brought their very own glow sticks. Not to mention, she stated she likes satay!
Ram Rider had plenty to offer too as he remixed music from all kinds of sources such as games like Pacman, Super Mario Bros and Street Fighter. One of the emcees was dancing on stage with his awesome Mario cosplay too. Other than games, he remixed music from various anime, western entertainment and even the video of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The visuals during the concert was enticing, and all in all, the concerts were very much worth attending for!
Overall
The event was honestly quite generic. You had the usual booths, cosplay competition and stage activities, other than the concerts and what not. It was a fairly decent event.
