I forgot to mention in the last post about the madman panel - which kicked ass. And we got to find out about new dvd releases, watch trailers and overall hear from the distributors themselves about the industry and all. It was mostly about madman itself and what new anime they were thinking of releasing.

OKAY. so THE WEEKEND pt 2 (please read pt 1 if u haven't done so already)

Sunday morning - I arrived at 9am to melb uni to be shuffled into the alternate theatre with the other early attendies to watch Azumanga - a cute anime about girls at school - very cute and funny! During that Street decided to turn up (although he was alot earlier than the day b4) and after that we went round to all the traders, they had mostly the same stuff still. So we headed to the madman room b4 it got really busy and i picked up a copy of Perfect Blue and Castle of Cagliostro - i couldn't help myself..hehe. I stocked up on Pocky and a can of that fermented soft drink. We eventually went to the Main Theatre to watch Naruto - battle at the hidden falls, I am the Hero episode. after that we sat through King of Bandit Jing Ova which was crazy and cool...and i fell asleep during it. BUt it was really good, what I did see of it. After that we took some time out for lunch and went to KFC. and for those of you who have probably already read Street's blog and the small mention of the 6 chickens to a bucket of KFC - it was around this time the conversation occured. Mark did say there were 12 chickens in each bucket- which i figured impossible - then he estimated 6. Anyway, moving along.

After picking up more packets of Pocky (they finally got some more chocolate ones in) and buying myself a coke for mental stimulation - and to keep me awake- we sat down in the Main theatre again to watch Chrno Crusade - which is set in teh 1920s and is full of demons and cool sacred bullets and stuff for killing them with. Then Full Metal Alchemist - which was very very cool, about two brothers who are looking for a way to restore their missing bodies/body parts. Then the fun part of the afternoon arrived! Keroro Gunsou - the cutest and funniest anime about a group of alien frogs who try to invade the earth, but with little success. hehe the end credits were hilarious, frogs with afros hehe. Then Boboboubo Boubobo - which was about this group of evil guys who are stealing everyone's hair - and one crazy man with a yellow afro takes them on and defeats them with his extremely long(and gross) nose hair. It was totally crazy and I loved it. After that, Full Metal Panic Fumoffu - which was also very amusing and full of guns and crazy stuff also. The Tenchi Muyou OVA series was great! I had been wanting to see some of that series for awhile, so to finally watch it was great. And Lastly, Jubei-chan II which was about a young girl who discovers with the help of a lovely eye patch she can become a ninja. Also very amusing and the animation was crazy and different. Alot more experimental than the previous animes, and it played with different styles and almost each character was drawn and animated differently. So thats another series im looking forward to watching more of.

So basically that was Sunday. Too many hours of anime and sitting in the same seat. My ass was so sore by the end of that day. And I had eaten so much pocky - i think now I'm addicted to it.

So overall it was a great weekend. Im glad its over because my eyes kinda went funny from reading so many subtitles - but it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it all over again next year. But for now, Sayonara!!!

I have so much to write here today. So much has happened and is about to happen that I fear I won't be able to write everything down here now. But lets start things off and I title this piece - THE WEEKEND pt1.

First off, Saturday morning. I woke up super early at 6am that morning. I awoke when I heard the familar barking of my dog outside and the sounds of the front door opening. My mum had just returned home from her two week holiday in the UK. So I rushed her at the door before she could even put down her bags and waited for the presents to come. It turns out my mum collects alot of crap when she travels, such as travel brochures and things from all the places she went to. Im so jealous, she went to Bath and hung out in London. But she bought back a few cds, my sister's long awaited live-maroon 5 cd. She also got me a few cute tops for summer. It just makes me long for summer even more now, cos im sick of this wet weather.

So finally after all the catching up I remembered that I had a bus to catch at 8am. So i got ready,

walked to the bus stop in the rain and made my way to the city then to Melbourne uni.

I arrived at the manifest venue at 9am. To my shock and horror there were heaps of people there and i quickly made friends with a guy in the line who came up from Torquay to be there for the weekend. I was supposed to meet Mark street there, but turns out he slept in and at 9am when i was at manifest - he was still in bed. So I waited in line and finally got inside at around ten and I found my way into one of the theatres and watched an episode of Gungrave - which made no sense to me because i missed the start of it. But finally Mark decided to turn up, and while he was waiting in line to get in (it pays to be early) I got a look at the first traders room's that were open. So after fighting my way inside and finding nothing except over priced Final Fantasy Trading arts stuff - i left that place empty handed and went to the madman room - and collection of dvds was GREAT. and a few of the guys selling were hotties. I quickly bought myself a dvd of Utena and got the hell outta there. I walked around some more, then finally mark got inside and we hung out perusing the theatres, waited to get downstairs to the main theatre and traders - and it was GREAT. Heaps of cute lil naruto key rings and different artworks, zines, figurines, toys - trading arts stuff - models - manga, EVERYTHING was there. I was going ga-ga over the Rikku FFX statute and over the Yuna FFX-2 statue. So finally we decided after shopping round to see some anime.

We found the alternate wood theatre - watched an episode of Gokusen (which was very amusing) and then sat through Gunslinger Girl - which was good, alittle sad. But it was a nice thoughful anime and alittle disturbing watching 12 year olds go beserk with machine guns and sniper rifles. Eventually we made our way to the cosplay, which was interesting. There were some great moments and costumes. The worst moment was the girl who couldn't sing in tune at all - and forced the audience to sit through a whole yu-gi-oh song. That was painful to sit through.

SO after all that - and more shopping around the traders and buying yummy pocky and japanese drinks - we sat down and watched Read or Die, PlanetES, Yuugo the Negotiator, and we were supposed to watch Ragnarok - but they fucked up and so we all watched DragonHalf which was crazy and very very funny.

So that was DAY ONE of Manifest.

check back later for Pt 2.