I have to admit, I rocked up to my first ever Brisbane Supanova thinking it’d be somehow a little bit less than the Sydney version I went to last year. Not so. Definitely not so. And I’m not about to say anything that possibly everybody but me already knew – Brisbane Supanova is huge, and these days I think you’d be hard pressed to find the sci-fi and Western comics in amongst the anime and manga fans without deliberately hanging out on that ‘side’. Of course, there’s a fair bit of crossover, but possibly I’ve never seen two seemingly disparate groups intermingle so happily and easily. I guess they don’t subtitle Supanova the pop culture expo for nothing.
Of course, for most intents and purposes, this is an outsider’s report. I mean, I’ve been watching and reviewing anime since, well, we could say last century and actually not be lying, but the closest I ever came to an anime fan culture was screenings by the local anime society and actual Japanese high school girls screaming ‘kyaaaaa’ in my ear one time. The increased accessibility and indeed acceptability of Japanese cultural product these days (as in the last 5-10 years) has had this monumental impact not on consumerism – because believe me if it wasn’t manga and DVDs and phone hangers and PVC models, this demographic would have found other things to spend their money on – but on social culture. You can see it in the faces and outfits of the mass of fandom you’re thrust into upon arrival at a Supanova convention; these people are not just happy, they’re ecstatic to have somewhere to belong and someone that understands them.
Personally, I’ve almost never felt less at home. Fandom is a culture – where culture is defined in the academic sense as ‘a way of life’, and on some level, this was an entirely foreign experience for me. I can shop with the best of them for instance, but the crammed, seething crowds in the marketplace and the 5-deep lines the entire length of the Madman stall were a little overwhelming, rather than exciting.
Just one of the aisles in the market on Saturday morning…
I did something of a circuit (mostly because I couldn’t get out of the stream) and then promptly escaped to the closest seminar, which actually just happened to be Supanova regular Vic Mignogna, anime voice actor extraordinaire.
Fan fave Vic Mignogna
Well loved for his extensive industry work (on Fullmetal Alchemist, for one) and for being a bit of a crowd pleaser, it was great to see him get down and friendly with the fans, and great to see everyone so obviously enjoying it. Fielding questions with charm, wit and a lot of heart, Mignogna gave outsiders a little bit of an insider’s look at the work and thoughts of an ADR star, and even let a few entertaining secrets slip – like how the entire Funimation staff back home were ‘flipping jealous’ of Brisbane fans and Madman’s spectacular scoop: the premiere of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, simultaneously broadcast to Brisbane Supanova as it aired in Japan.
During Vic, I bumped into a couple of people I actually knew! Okay, so they were my brother’s sci-fi fan friends. But they go to Supanova every year, so I decided they qualified and picked their brains for some seasoned convention goer tips. I can’t disclose everything they told me, but I did find out that if I wanted to be anywhere near the cosplay competition, I had better go camp out, like, several hours early because apparently last year, they turned up about 10 minutes before it started and couldn’t even get in the door.
Sure. Right, I thought, but I went anyway, because I wasn’t up to fighting the crowds just to spend money, and the competition was being held in the anime theatre anyway, where they just happened to be playing one of my guilty pleasures, Ouran Host Club. So, hey, no hardship slouching around in the theatre watching anime until the cosplayers converged.
Although, actually most of them were already there. On screen, the first and then the second episode of Ouran got quite a few laughs, but it seemed like more of a chance for a breather and some socialising for most people in the room. I wasn’t surprised. If there’s one thing starkly obvious about fandom, even from the outside, it’s that they know before you do. Doesn’t matter what. It’s an online culture, but for the pockets of clubs and events like this, and word travels fast enough to rewrite the laws of physics. The week something’s out in Japan, someone’s subbing it in the States, fiction is springing up, fan art, RPGs, cosplay photos, online communities, and the bigger it is, the faster it spreads. By the time the distributors and publishers are on to it and their deals are signed, the majority of the avant garde fandom are turning towards the next new shiny thing.
Which makes it a strange dichotomy, because despite that, they jump at the chance of an event like Supanova, at dressing up, at getting up there, at being creative and showing the world. They might be on the cutting edge of consumerism, but they’re deeply loyal to their loves, and it was like one great big costume party in the anime theatre, only no-one came dressed as Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley. No, they came dressed as Chi and Vash the Stampede and Urahara and even a Hollow. They bounced around like heroines from Revolutionary Girl Utena and Blood the Last Vampire (the series, thanks). They fluffed Sakura Wars skirts and straightened Akatsuki capes and tightened State Alchemist gloves and tried not to clock anyone in the head with their five foot Gunblades.
The cosplay competition audience (or as much of them as I could fit in one shot)
And that wasn’t even the end of it – actually it was just the beginning, because then the competition started, kicking off with the finalists of the Madman National Cosplay Competition (Australia’s first ever national cosplay competition!) from the other states and boy was it obvious why they were in the running.
National entrants so far, from (left to right) Chrono Crusade, Oh My Goddess, Card Captor Sakura and Valkyrie
But Brisbane had over 100 entrants over the two days of the convention, and they sang and they danced and they joked and they acted and they mock battled their hearts out, and it was all incredibly brave and just a little astonishing and the crowd was amazingly supportive – even if they did want to play Kill the Host (kudos to John Robertson for being such a good sport and dying in such an entertaining and repeated manner. Hope he had an ice pack for all the bruises he must have collected). I sat there with my mouth hanging open and my camera almost forgotten, near dazzled by what the fans put into their costumes and performances, and for once, being the outsider was possibly the coolest part, because it was like Australian Idol auditions for anime and game fans (even some Western comics fans) and it was the most spectacular and entertaining thing I have possibly ever seen.
The costumes are the least of it – there’s posing, acting, fighting, singing and deaths a-plenty. Characters hail from (left to right, top to bottom) Mario Bros., Silent Hill, Gintama, Gundam00 (when is that coming out huuuuh??), Digital Devil Saga, Dynasty Warriors, Sweeny Todd (there’s poor John getting a close shave again), Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ikki Tousen (I think!) and that was just the second day!
After that, no seriously, after that the idea of a live-cast premiere of the new remake series of Fullmetal Alchemist was almost not appealing. In fact, I was so exhausted after spending three hours in a room full of people who seemed to have turned the volume up and the power regulation down that I did in fact bail on this exciting television viewing moment, and I don’t even regret it. After all, as the anime and manga fandom knows, anime I can see anytime but being out there in the thick of it, with the fans dressed to thrill and kill and out in force? That only happens once a year.