Anime Festival Asia '09 in Singapore! November 21-22!

In case you missed the news yesterday, Magnetic Rose is the official Philippine blog affiliate of the Anime Festival Asia ’09 in Singapore! Featuring uber-cosplayers KANAME and SHOKOTAN, the King of Anisong ICHIROU MIZUKI, Galaxy Fairy MAY’N, and Japanese pop culture authority Danny Choo, AFA ’09 once against proves its status as South East Asia’s biggest convention!

AFA ’09 will also be host to the Regional Cosplay Championships, with Kaname as one of the judges! From the website:

Cosplay this year will have a bigger stage where AFA09 will host the first ever Regional Cosplay Championship in Asia. The top cosplay team from each South East Asian country will be sponsored by AFA09 to compete in the Regional Cosplay Championship during the two-day anime festival where they will perform and be judged by a panel of distinguished guests from Japan including internationally renowned cosplayer Kaname.

Magnetic Rose has certainly been on a hot streak lately, and she’s proved her point so far with actions instead of words, a point that Project Otaking has wholeheartedly agreed with this entire time: Instead of quarreling over who gets the largest slice of the tiny Philippine otaku scene, or developing a ‘unique and independent culture’ (which so far appears to be code for isolationism) maybe we should instead be focusing on our place in the international scene. Maybe instead of playing our little feudal games on our little island, with our intrigues and backstabbing, we should be showing the world just how awesome we can be.

But that isn’t going to happen, is it? Instead we’re going to have our little factions try to maneuver to be the ‘Exclusive Philippine Representatives’ to the Regional Cosplay Championships. We’re going to slander, lie, and cheat our way into the top spot, and then scoff at all our perceived lessers, once we prove that we’re ‘Important People’, or at least more important than our rivals. That’s how our politicians do it. That’s what our community heads do, whether it’s a church community or school council or office Christmas party comittee. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to tar and feather anyone who gets in our way, and the winners are going to go to Singapore, bloody and soaked in mud.

Proudly Pinoy.

Meanwhile, people like Magnetic Rose continue to work behind the scenes, doing their best to keep their heads above all the strife. Let’s try something different. Instead of factional warfare, instead of sniping from the shadows, instead of holding our own selfish agendas above the good of the community as a whole… Let’s make this count. Let’s show them what we can do.

What do you say?

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