We have had the pleasure of covering the Best of Anime (BOA) 2014: Inter-school Cosplay Competition at EARIST, or Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology, in Manila last Thursday. As part of the various exciting activities that lead up to the main event of BOA 2014 this September, these cosplay competitions are held at various schools with the help of resident Japanese culture-related organizations to generate interest in anime, cosplay and the many other interesting aspects of Japanese pop culture. We are also happy to be one of the official media partners for this event.
The EARIST qualifiers was organized by the EARIST Anime Alley, a Filipino-Japanese oriented youth development organization that aims to mold and shape EARISTian students to be future leaders toward the development of the anime industry in the Philippines. Under the auspices and support of Primetrade Asia Inc., the organizer of BOA, the event was geared to feature the talents of the EARIST studentry in music, cosplay and art.
The event was supposed to be held a week ago but was cancelled due to the recent storm. This week it was supposed to be held at the school quadrangle but it rained throughout the day so they relocated to the amphitheater. The program began in earnest in the afternoon with the introduction of the organization, followed up by performances by their resident band.
The LARP, or Live Action Role-Playing group affiliated with Otaku Urule made an appearance to give a demonstration of the interesting aspects of what their group stood for and enjoyed doing.
The competition began with much anticipation from a good-sized audience who came into the venue quite curious about this unique event. On hand to judge the competition was prominent cosplayer Eiri Mina who came as Enoshima Junko of Dangan Ronpa. She is joined by Ray Kindrick Pacursa from Hero TV and is an alumnus of the school, and our good friend Gummy as enthusiast and representative of Primetrade Asia Inc.
A dozen cosplayers came to perform on stage to the delight of the audience, each cosplayer relishing and enjoying the opportunity to cosplay and perform at their very own school. All were talented and gave their best as the judges looked on with the difficult task of picking out the top 5 that will go on to perform at the main BOA event in September.
As the winners were announced, the event came to a close with a few good songs from the band, with the audience, the cosplayers, and the staff, singing along and partaking in the fun of having experienced a unique event in their school.
We commend the efforts of EARIST Anime Alley for having a successful event. They were quick to react to the many unforeseen problems the day brought and they managed to pull off an enjoyable event for everyone. It was a small event but everyone was friendly and participative and had good rapport with each other. Our commendations also to Primetrade Asia Inc. for sponsoring such events that encourage students who enjoy Japanese pop culture to work together and hold such activities at their schools.
All in all an enjoyable event. I only wished we had more time for photoshoots though, but maybe we’ll get the chance next time. Everyone was friendly and we were well tended to. Hope to have more events like this in the future.
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