S.O.Y.A Cosplay 2009 – Have You BEAN There?

By
oOgA
 – February 1, 2009Posted in: Headline, Our Reviews, SOYA 09

soya2009_coverx

S.O.Y.A 2009 @ Ngee Ann Polytechnic

S.O.Y.A.(Start Of Year Again) Cosplay convention is back again at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Taking photos for blogs or any community sites requires a media pass and luckily, we got ourselves a pass. Nonetheless, it is an awesome event with brilliant hosts and our well beloved cosplayers. With this special coverage post, it will be separated into 2 parts. The first by nutcase23 followed by oOgA – each with our own opinions and our favorite cosplayer of the event.

Note: This post is loaded with pics – a good bandwidth is recommended to view this post

p1040996

a sweet looking banner….

nutcase23′s  SOYA hunt

Eager as always, me and my pals headed down early to catch the event. We were greeted by the banner shown below…

p1040995

For those who have been to SOY 08 or followed my post back in Anime Banzai!, you would recognise this as the old SOY banner. I don’t know if this is a joke or an indication that the economic downturn affects even cosplayers (bless their costume budgets). However, the fact that this was the very first banner to greet us certainly gave us some laughs and perhaps a little foreboding. I was relieved to see the ACTUAL banner as displayed above though.

p1040999

So I went to collect our media passes. As oOgA mentioned, they decided to implement camera and media controls this time and required that all cameras be registered and all photographers taking pictures for commercial sites/blogs/etc be registered for a media pass. I know it’s just a piece of white printed paper with my name on it. It just somehow gives a feeling that we have come some distance ever since we started out you know (read: big ego boost in spite of reality ^^”). We don’t get media passes for AFA’08 or whatever though >_>”.

TAIKO Performance

I managed to catch the Taiko performance by the JTC (vid above). Not a bad performance and i certainly enjoyed it. You may want to turn up the volume as it is abit soft (it’s a compact, not a DV camcorder).

Just a heads up, you may find some of the pictures that I and oOgA post to be similiar. While we try to avoid it, I feel that different angles sometimes warrant another look at the subject. Let’s go then.

p1050017

Below we have Kyon and Tamura Hiyori from Lucky Star. She sang a great rendition of “Valentine Kiss” from Prince of Tennis for the karaoke competition. Those who have watched Lucky Star would remember it as the song sung by Tsukasa in episode 6′s ED.

p1050022
Kyon is in despair that he’s stuck with a fujoushi XDDD

p1050024

We also have some cosplayers doing a cosplay of the PS2 Haruhi and gang (I think). They put up a pretty good performance in the group cosplay category. Unfortunately, the other team’s “Micheal Gundam” proved a little too side-splitting and won the fight. oOgA will elaborate a little more on that.

p1050028
“With your powers combined, I am Captain Planet”

Cosplayers need energy and so tea parties are present too.

p1050074

Once fed they are ready for action and level E vampire killing.

p1050111

What would we do without Vocaloids?

p1050080
I wonder how long would it take for a Megurine Luka cosplayer to show up. And where’s Meiko?

We got a pretty decent crowd down there even though there was another cosplay event taking place somewhere else.

p1050081

Some Code Geass…

p1050085

And here’s one for you Cardcaptor Sakura fans.

p1050091

And a re-appearance of a familiar face sent many photographers flocking to her.

p1050101

We also had some Nabari no Ou cosplayers as well.

p1050098

p1050113

p1050185

p1050144

*YAOI ALERT*

p1050171
o_o

p1050187
O_O

To help you recover from your shock (or happiness as the case may be), here’s some shots of Shakugan no Shana cosplay.

p1050122

p1050178

And here are some more shots of various cosplayers.

p1050150
Kind of unlucky to see something like this during Chinese New Year if you ask me =P

p1050155

p1050177
AIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

p1050160
I don’t know who she is but the costume is sure as hell pretty

p1050175
She cosplayed as the usagi-mimi Haruhi down at Cosfest last year. Cute as always.

p1050182
Touhou + Trap

p1050191

And as usual, there’s always a graffiti board.

p1050118
I have no idea what is going on though.

If I were to pick a cosplayer who caught my attention the most, it would be the one who cosplayed as Yoshida Kazumi from Shakugan no Shana. I believe “moe” would be the right word to use here? ^^

p1050194
Not forgetting the awesome Shana cosplay of course

All in all a very enjoyable event. Although there were many delays and technical issues (which seemed to have carried forward from last year ^^”), the two MCs did an EXCELLENT job in keeping the crowd entertained throughout the delays and elicted many laughs from the audience.

p1050199
The 2 MCs and the (now) infamous “Micheal Gundam”

Being a non-commercial affair, SOYA (and by extension End-Of-Year) has a kind of homegrown community feel that the big flashy exhibitions do not and cannot convey. In what commercial event can you find MCs that can joke and apologise so casually through delays? (Without the audience screaming for their money back anyway). It is truly like our old blog’s motto, “For fans, by fans” and I greatly respect all the people who put in the effort to organise stuff like this.

Japanese Tsubasa Club, good job!

Btw, I wonder if anyone spotted me? Black TTGL shirt with red “Dancho” armband anyone? XDDD

p1050205
Obligatory “this picture proves I was there “pic

oOgA’s SOYA hunt

oOgA: I wasn’t able to make it in the morning (as I woke up late :P ) hence my photos were taken from the afternoon onwards. The crowds get more and more as some of the people came from other cosplay events. One of which was Cosplay Challenge.

img_1768

Touhou?

img_1770

Armed and Ready … With Cameras

img_1772

Green hair, pink hair and orange hair.. :P I loved how the girl with the pink wig smiled ^^

img_1775

Death Note. Nice braces.  ^^”

img_1776

hmm..I am not familar with the characters… Cardcaptor? LOL :X

img_1777

Well prepared.. ;)

img_1780

A very nice pose with a very nice smile.  **pic was photoshopped**

img_1781

Left 4 Dead – Bill!

oOgA: I am sure many people in this event is aware of this cosplayer who did Bill from the popular co-op shooting game – Left 4 Dead and his antics were really funny and caught the attention of the crowd. Nice rifle there. Pipebomb anyone?

img_1785

nice pose there

img_1787

hmm..who is she cosplaying ?

img_1792

i like the way she hold the sword.

img_1793

nice smile xD

img_1797

A very nice Hatsune Miku cosplayer!

img_1799

she is from rozen maiden ?

img_1800

hmm?

img_1804

nice weapon..

img_1810

Naruto?

img_18151

nice costume there

img_1817

The girl i spotted in AFA before… !!

Luckily for the cosplayers, the weather was pretty cloudy and a lil windy. It wasn’t really that hot and the sky was shrouded by the clouds in the late afternoon. I doubt anyone complained about the weather. I spotted a few familar faces again in SOYA – one of which was my “fave” cosplayer from AFA 08 (refers to the pic above)..

img_1896

dim pic..

img_1897

/o

img_1900

Yaoi alert!?

img_1903

nice !!

SPECIAL APPEARANCE!

img_1904

The Medic from Team Fortress 2

img_1905

The Medic with his melee weapon…to cut the bin into half

I spotted this guy cosplaying as a Medic from Team Fortress 2 smoking by the bin. Noticed that posture he had was “interesting” enough so I requested for a photo of him with his cigar. tsk…  Thanks for intro me the site to TF2chan, will be checking it out. Medics are my best allies in-game :D

img_1908

duet? :P

img_1914

Shakugan no SHANA team

img_1915

Lucky Star- Tsukasa and Minami with Macross Frontier- Ranka Lee

img_1920

TRAP?! TRAP!?!!?

img_1916

hmm…

img_1922

Cloud from FF7:AC. Nice costume, loved that big sword too!

img_1825

i am bad at taking indoor photos.. :P  zoomed this pic from the rear

img_1828

another shot from the rear.

Most of the late afternoon was spent in the lecture hall where there were interesting skits and performances. Those who went will find that there were quite a few impromptu and the hosts did a very good job in handling the overall show. Kudos to them!

img_1842

Birthday cake for the event organiser – Togusa (hope I get that right :P )

Luckily for this event, there was a Lost & Found corner. I found a lost Sony Ericcson walkman phone which I informed the event organiser about it. Hope it was found by the owner.

img_1862

the ub3r singer .. she sang Diamond Crevasse

img_1885

Cosplayer for FF7: AC – Reno

img_1742

Single Cosplay Comptetion

img_1752

Shana

img_1934

Haruhi team for Group Cosplay

img_1960

Gundam 00 team …guess who is the girl

img_1961

the girl who performed the Macross Frontier song.. :O

img_1966

Michael Gundam… beware..

img_1988

a mysterious spy uncloaked himself suddenly and was armed with a…video cam. (Spy from Team Fortress 2)

img_1978

FF7:AC host “Tifa” for SOYA 2009

img_1750

FF7: AC host “Aerith” for SOYA 2009

img_1778

The Cosplayer who left a deep impression…

oOgA: The 2 hosts did a really good job there running the entire show together, only complaint I have is that the place is a lil cramped but overall, it is still ok. I hope everyone enjoyed SOYA 2009 because I did. :) Unfortunately, I did not go to the Singapore Discovery Center for the Cosplay Challenge so there won’t be any coverage for that event.

Stay tuned for the upcoming post where I am gonna put the videos that I took during the event… one of which was an awesome “Left 4 Dead” sketch. Yes, you aint hearing it wrong. Zombie Miku with leeks..anyone ?

Once again, Kudos to the Japanese Tsubasa Club for bringing us such a wonderful event!

p1050157
You can just taste the irony of this picture

Tags: , , ,

About the Author

The man who started The Banzai! Effect and Anime Banzai! (discontinued), took an avid interest in blogging and also photography. Integrating his interests with the likes of Japanese pop culture, he starts out his path on the blogging world