Post Asianim 4

All the things Asianim promised it delivered.

Location was OK. The Palais du Congres is, well, what the name states, a congress hall. Asianim had two amphitheaters: one for entertainment purposese like quizzes and games and one for cosplay and concerts. Brilliant idea. They worked out great.The was devided into 4 spaces: downstairs: traditionl Japan, upstairs: game/food hall, vendors’ hallway and amphitheatres.

Food was good. Hats off to the asian guys that worked so hard in the food section.

The avatar village was a let down  partly because it was preceded by the oh so cool Star Wars  fan village last week. So I was expecting igloos, benders of all races, and fire nation ship models. Other activities; didn’t have to do origami this time as people at belorigame had a full table all day long. The martial art demonstartion were cool! as all the other things well.

The cosplay was brilliant; That comes to show what a real stage, proper lights and actual music can do for such an event.  With comfy seats in the hall,  we sat through the entire 3h cosplay event  featuring  3 categories: individual, group and catwalk .

Merchadise. The vendors were located in the hallway in front of the amphitheatres, which was a beautiful hallway bathed in light from the  glass façade which could be translated info fucking bright light that made us crawls into the dark corners of the cosplay room. 23 might have been the biggest number of vendors to participate at Asianim however that didn’t translate into a lot of stuff. Luckily the few vendors that were there had good stuff: Bleach swords, nice trinkets, good cosplay outfits. Some second hand manga was available however the new editions where only available from Slumberland at €8-€9 a piece. Again expensive! At Forbiden Zone in Brussels you can get new manga for around €5-€6 so I’d expect big retailers and editors to sell it for less.

All in all Asianim was a fun event intended for 3 days. We only attended it Sunday and after spending about 3h – 4h  in the cosplay event  and the mandatory amount of time staring at the goodies on sale, we barely had any time left for games and other activities.

Here are some pics of the event taken from the Asianim facebook group

Asianim 4

Belgians love their anime so a week after FACTS we have Asianim.
The fourth edition of the Asianim festival is taking place on the 24th & 25th of October in Luik/Liege at the Palais des Congrès. The activities of the festival will be focused around 3 themes:

1 - Traditional Japan

• martial arts demonstrations -Karaté – Aikido – Jujutsu – Kobudo- by JAPAn asbl
• Sumi-e –traditional painting- by Suely Shiba
• Shogi, Japanese cooking  by Passerelle Japon
• Go by Club Go Liège
• Tessen demonstration –fan fighting- and painting on silk by “l’Orient en Occident”
• Viêt Võ Dao demonstration –Vietnamese martial arts-  by Vovinam
• Tea ceremony
• Bonsai  exhibition by Bonsai Club Liège
• Origami by BelOrigamo
• Calligraphy by Mrs. Manda
• Go

2 – Contemporary Japan

• an Avatar village
• Dance Dance Revolution booth
• AMVs
• anime projections
• movie projections – 20th Century Boys on Sunday
• Video Games – console, arcade, pc
• Inflatable Sumo
• various fanzines
• cosplay competition on Sunday at 14:00
• Jpop/Jrock/Visual Kei Concerts on Saturday

13:00 – Guren

14:00 – Pinky Doodle Poodle

16:00 -Bernard Minet

3 – Commercial

• 23 different vendors

Aside from this there will be Speed Painting and contests, karaoke, quizzes by Bulle Japon.

Practical Info

1 – Food & Drinks

Asianim announced it will provide reasonably price sushi. Menu should look something like this :

• Sushi €1,5
• Pack of 6 sushi – €7,5
• 2 Maki – €1,5
• Curry Rice – 4,5
• Sandwich – €3
• 0,33 soda can – €1

2 – Tickets

Pre-sale at Fnac and Slumberland:  €7/day , €12/weekend

At the entrance: €8/day, 15€/weekend

3 – Hours

From 10:00 to 18:00

All in all

So they seem to have all that I’d expect from a anime event in Belgium : cosplay, concerts, merchandise, games and touch of traditional stuff. Why tamper with a proven recipe, one might say. Other might say that we’ve seen it all before. However, I believe that, like myself, the ones attending Asianim are looking forward to learning another origami figure from the guys of BelOrigami or practicing their Shogi / Go or one of the other activities they’ve enjoyed at other events.

After FACTS,  I’m hoping to find the “manga for €1 booth”, which showed up at Animansion and Made in Asia and maybe some other reasonably  priced goodies. Assuming that the 3 years of experience will show, Asianim should be the best Belgian anime event so far.

See ya on Saturday if you’re heading there.

AciD FLavoR

I do have more than one jSongs on cds in my car and occasionally I can be caught humming “aoi aoi , sora ni tsuki no hikari wo tomosu amaku awaku omoi sonna mono ni torawarete” but I’m not by any means a groupie or connoisseur of JMusic .

If you’ve come to read this you’re most likely as described above used to, if not a fan already, of anime soundtracks. And so, I bring you Acid Flavour, J-rock band at the end of their European tour.

And all I can say is they sound good. First night I got on their myspace I got trapped there all night listening to their songs. That was over a week ago. I took some time out before I actually recommended them because I wanted to see if I’ll still remember them and if after a week I’ll still feel like listening to their music all night, all over again. Answer implicit.

You can still see them right here in Be , in then first week-end of November:

on the first at, ”De l’Aut’Côté” in Mouscron (21A rue des Brasseurs) at 8pm. Tickets :8.00 €, for an acoustic gig

and/or the second at Asianim (Pallais de Liege, Liege) , tickets 10€

Have fun and enjoy Acid Flavour!

Oh, yeah, album available for purchase from ramen-events.com.

Asianim

It seems that the first week-end of November is going to be a great day for cosplay Along side NijiKon in Bucharest , the far bigger Asianim is taking place Liége.

At it’s 3rd edition, Asianim will take place at the Palais des Congrès de Liège.

A glance on the activities section is enough to entice  any  person with a soft spot for japanese culture:

• Cosplay,
• manga drawing contest,
• DanceDance Revolution  -for your own amusement or for the amusement of others and maybe for prizes as well
• video games – to be played on: PS3, Xbox 360,  Wii and “vintage” ones Nintendo, Mega Drive, Néogéo et PC Engine
• guests (Junko Kawakami , Keiko Ichiguchi et Jean-David Morvan)
• martial arts demonstrations — with the help of: Japan Asbl, Team SK de LIEGE and La Mante Belge
• Origami, Haiku, Go, Mah-jong – brought by “Le Clan Takeda”
• Tea Ceremony, (japanese:) cuisine, languge ,caligraphy , the wearing of a Yukata – with the help of Passerelle Japon
• the art of growing a bonsai  by Bonsai Club de Liége
• role playing ( bleach, naruto and one piece mentioned)
• inflatable sumo  )
• purikura booth
• fanzines
• anime projections (titles to be announced)
• amv booth
• j-music — with support from Abunai and Higashi Music
• concerts : AciD FlavoR
• snacks and drinks (sushi/sashimi/tea…they didn’t mention anything about sake thought)
• manga on sale — by Slumberland bookstores and also “used” ones from fans

Now if all that isn’t worth a trip to Liége I don’t know what is!

Tickets are already on sale  at Slumberland bookstores across Belgium. Prices being 7€ / day, 12€/week-end. Concents are 10€ apart from entry fee.

see ya there!