Made in Asia 2021

 FINALLY!  Conventions are back, and while mouthmasks are still a thing, the pandemic is cooling down now a bit.

Which means we can get back to things we enjoy doing, and what better thing to pick up normal life more-or-less then an anime convention.

So the first one we visited in over 3 years is Made in Asia, held in the Expo in Brussels.  Running three days, we went on the sunday.  Hopping on the train in an unearthly early hour, we found ourselves at the Heizel complex, in the shadow of a misty Atomium, at 10h15.

 

My "need to get"shopping list?  Well, it contained a full TWO items:

 

1. A mystery bag of some independant artist, to make a fun unboxing post

2. The signature of Onda Naoyuki or Berserk fame, but who worked also on Zeta and ZZ Gundam 

 

So, nothing to huge, as we are going first and foremost just to have a bloody good time "geeking out"!

 

The event

 

Let's start of with some praise on how good the entrance sequence was organised.  We arrived shortly after the doors opened, and could walk in without long lines.  There was a huge gap between the first point, being the Covid check, then the ticket check and finally the entrance itself.   This seemed to prevent (at the time we arrived for sure) the creation of bottlenecks excellently, so points for the organisation. 

Of course, with the day being sold out, the masses gathered over the course of the day, and especially the trader hall would become rather busy around 13h.

 

 

 

The cosplays

 

As always, there where various levels of cosplay around, it's so great to see all the effort put in that by the community.  Unfortunatly, due to it being really busy in the trader's hall, I didn`t get round to taking to much pictures of them this convention.  But here are a few never the less. 

Baby Goku that I spotted in the crowd was just plain Over 9000!

I hope one day to take Thorin along for some father / son cosplays like these awesome Saints.

 

 

Traders

 

A good selection, though some even ran multiple stands.   Prices where all over the place though, for example we saw this Nezuko from Figuarts going as wide as between 55 to 90 euro.

 

 

I was happy to learn from a befriended trader that the new people behind the organisation are all zero tolerance about bootleg figures, and if found out had to remove the items from their stands.  But the stuff that was present was quite okay priced, with next to no difference to online sources for the most of the traders, and of course you wouldn`t have shipping fees picking up figures at a convention.

 

 

We did "scout out" some very intresting traders, mainly from France, to check out now that the whole importing stuff is such a mess though. 

Nendo Addicts also brought along our pre-ordered Naofumi, thanks for that mate!

 

 

 

Varia 

 

One of the things for me that makes Made In Asia so much fun are the various clubs and activities going on, like caligraphy workshops or drawing courses.

 

 

My "old club" was also at the event, but there where no known faces present though. 

Of course, as always I was drooling over the Gundam builds on display, they look so awesome!

Ahaaaa, at least one person in the group is a man of excellent taste, justice for Lunamaria!

There was a lovely selection of diorama's present as well.

Judging by the Chinese horoscope, with both Noshi and Thorin being Rats, I have two reserved strategist secretive seducers in the house... oh boy.

While me?  I1m just your social impulsive lunatic apparantly.  Okay, that actually sounds legit...

 

Some other activities and displays where also around, including things like a VR laser tag arena, lots of videogames, art showings, papercraft, ... a bit for everyone's taste and liking.

You could even let your inner popstar out by either doing anime karaoke or joining in K-Pop dance classes.

Food a plenty, as apart from the onsite catering, there was a lot of oriental stuff to be had as well.  We took some onigiri and daifuki, to be washed down with some pine-apple ramune.  

 

 

With a fun glass bottle...

The Loot

Roight, objectives reached!  I managed to get mr Onda's signature, and he was pretty suprised I brought an item of one of his older works to sign (Zeta Gundam).

I also got the lucky bags I wanted, though not from an independant artist as there weren`t any bags there catching my fancy.  Instead they came from larger retailers, so we'll see down the road as I do the post what is in them.

I did however from an artist get some art prints of Saint Seiya drawings he did, namely the Asgard Warriors, the "Ice saints" and Albafica of Pisces, as that is Thorin's constellation.  And some promo posters of MIA itself, and Hathaway's Flash by mr Onda.  Next weekend it'll be decorating time!

So that has been very welcome and fun day, we both needed these type of events again, even though we managed to keep our budget normal and don`t go all convention crazed shopping, how tempting it might have been none the less.

See you next time, and that won`t be taking 3 years again!