Yesterday’s Ozine Fest was a little disappointing but it was still fun. Ali arrived at Megamall around 9:10 a.m. I got there about 20 minutes later. The place was already packed with people anticipating the event. There were cosplayers, manga fanatics, every otaku that you can think of and then there’s us. I think we can be classified as anime appreciators, not so much of a fanatic because there are a lot of other things about anime that we don’t know about. We like anime because we love the art. And sometimes the storyline is quite good too.

Around 9:40, the mall is still closed. We went to a nearby fast food restaurant to eat breakfast. We hurriedly eat our meals so that at 10 a.m. when the entrance to the mall opens, we’ll run. Why are we such in a hurry? Well, freebies and anime loot bags await the early birds. Not sure how many are at stake but we’re willing to take our chances.

The main entrance were already blocked by a lot of people. Impatient people. We decided to stay at the restaurant since they have a door connecting to the mall and we thought we had a better chance of getting in early because we don’t have to hustle our way in with the impatient kids. Then we had a view of kids already running inside the mall. The entrance from the restaurant was opened maybe a couple of minutes after the main entrance. Bummer. As we make way for the escalator, excited kids are pushing each other around, looking for quicker ways to get to the Megatrade Hall first. It was at the top floor, when we got there the line was already like more than 100 meters long. Another bummer. When we finally got inside, there are no more freebies. No more loot bags. Darn.

But we we’re still excited because there are a lot of fun things to do inside. There are booths giving away free snacks, there’s another giving vitamins, and there’s also a booth giving free rpg CDs. You can buy a lot of things too, like DVDs, posters, stickers, game cards, button pins, a lot of other anime stuff and of course there are toys! I love the toys, they’re really nice to collect. (Can’t wait for the toycon in June. I’ll also give you updates about it from time to time. ) There are also game booths where you can try out the latest rpgs and stuff. Then there’s a couple of booths where participants can be pitted against each other like sumos or warriors with big cotton swabs poking their opponents until they fell from the raised wooden platform. (I’m really not sure what these games are called but you’ll see them when I’m finished posting the pictures we took. *lol*) There’s also a place for card players and board games.

Prizes were also being given away but too bad we didn’t get any. A Nintendo Wii was at stake. Not sure if our ticket number was called since we went outside to have lunch with my parents but I don’t think we won. Still it was a fun experience. We took a lot of photos (pardon us for some blurry ones, though), we listened to bands playing anime themes, we watched cosplayers with their fab costumes, we bought a few DVDs, we scored some free posters and CDs. We’re definitely going to attend next year’s Ozine Fest. I just hope they’ll have a bigger place next year since there were thousands of attendees and the place could really get cramped. Ali told me I should have joined the cosplay competition. Well, maybe next year. *lol*

Check out my Flickr Ozine Fest ‘07 album.

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