It’s been almost three months since we announced that Shin-ichiro Miki, the voice of Lockon Stratos (Mobile Suit Gundam 00), and Roy Mustang (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood) and many others, would be coming to SMASH! in 2012! But he’s not the only one coming to SMASH! In fact, we have two more international guests making their appearance this year!

We have the great honour to welcome back Yūko Miyamura to SMASH! Miyamura is best known for voicing Asuka Langley Soryu in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, but she has also voiced Aisha Clanclan in Outlaw Star, Casca in Berserk and Alyssa Searrs in My-Hime. There will also be a voice acting workshop featuring Miyamura, where you can learn voice acting techniques live and in real time! More details for the workshop will follow in the coming days.

SMASH! will also have the privilege of having Sakura Tange this year! Sakura Tange is most well-known voicing Sakura Kinomoto, in the anime series Cardcaptor Sakura. She has also voiced Risa Harada in D.N.Angel, Kozue Izumi in Infinite Ryvius, Kasumi in the game series Dead or Alive, among many others. She also devotes her beautiful voice to music, and has released many singles and albums under various artist names such as Little Seraph, Angelic, ANGEL, and SAKURA.

We at SMASH! are very excited about our guests, and we hope that you are as well! Please continue to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as we give you the latest news on SMASH! for this year!

Happy Towel Day! May 25 of every year it’s the day when fans celebrate and honour the late Douglas Adams and his science-fiction comedy series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by carrying a towel with them.

To commemorate this day, our friends at Kinokuniya will be having a 20% off sale for anyone who carries their towel with them at the store. So get dressed (a bathrobe will do), grab your towel and head out!

Here at SMASH! we’ve been working hard to make 2012 bigger and better than ever. With only two months to go, we thought we would give you some highlights of the amazing competitions and events we have planned for you this year.

If you’re interested in participating in competitions and winning prizes, we have plenty! If you like watching and making AMVs, you should give our AMV Competition a go. Or perhaps you prefer Gunpla? In that case participate in the Gunpla Builders World Cup to win a trip to Japan! If you’re a fanfiction writer, check our Fanfiction Competition, as we are now accepting entries. And cosplayers, better start sewing for our Cosplay Competition!

For you artists out there, interested in doing some art feauturing our mascots, Cyrus and Skadi? Then you might like to participate in our Themed Art Competition and deviantArt Competition. Also, our Doodle Competition will be back this year! To participate just come to the art room on the day for a chance to win awesome prizes.

As you all know, the amazing Shin-ichiro Miki will be at SMASH! in 2012. Miki is a talented voice actor who has lent his voice to many popular anime series, such as Pokémon, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Initial D. But he won’t be our only guest, no! We will announcing our next guest really soon, so keep an eye out!

Buy your tickets now! And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and to subscribe to our newsletter, as we will be announcing more competitions and events in the coming weeks. We hope to see you in two months!

Once a year, on the first Saturday in May, comic book shops all over the world give comic books away absolutely free. And now that day has come!

FCBD in Sydney

Every year our good friends at Books Kinokuniya have something special prepared for FCBD, and this year is no exception. Billy Tan (X-Men), Queenie Chan (Odd Thomas), Madeleine Rosca (Hollow Fields) and many more awesome artists will be making an appearance in the Artists’ Alley!

There will also be a Cosplay Competition with the fabulous prize of $100 vouchers to be won by the best costume in a range of categories, including Best Lolita and Best Undead. For more information, visit their Facebook page.

And don’t forget that King’s Comics will also be celebrating FCBD by having a 20% sale off for most of their items!

Want to use that creative juice to draw but you’re not quite sure how? Do you perhaps need some inspiration and motivation to get you going? Look no further!

We are happy to reveal our aptly named Themed Art competition, “SMASH! Mascot Battle Mode!” Help arm Cyrus and Skadi in any imaginative way possible! Or perhaps shows us how you believe they’ll fight? Find out more here!

And don’t forget we also have our deviantArt competition, which invites artists from all around the world to draw our mascots in a crossover mashup! You can read more about it here.

If you got any questions, please email our Art Events Coordinator, who will attempt to answer them as soon as possible.

Update: Artist Circle applications are now open!

Hey everyone!

We are ecstatic to announce that the Artists’ Circle applications for SMASH! 2012 will open soon! Applications for tables will go online on Friday, April 13 (spooky, we know). Keep in mind that tables were filled up within two weeks of application going live last year. We have done our best add extra tables, but as demand is always high, please make sure to apply quickly.

Tables come in both full and half tables, however full tables will only be given to two or more artists (we’re making a list and checking it twice), so please keep that in mind when making your application!

We are also excited to announce that vendor applications are now open! If you want to sell licensed or original merchandise or raise awareness for your new business or event, then SMASH! vendor hall is where you want to be at!

Keep up to date with the latest Vendor & Artist Circle news by subscribing to our newsletter. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and to like us on Facebook!

SMASH! is back!

With new content, new guests and the greatest venue in Sydney, we’re ready to bring you another fun-filled year! We aim to make each year better than the last and 2012 is no exception! In case you’ve missed it SMASH! will be on again at its new (and long-term) home at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre on July 14th.

We’ve always made it a priority to bring you excited content including fantastic intenational guest stars – and this year is no different. We are very proud to welcome our first confirmed guest this year: Shin-ichiro Miki (三木 眞一郎 Miki Shin’ichirō). Miki is a legendary Japanese voice actor (known as ‘seiyū’) and has lent his voice talents to many popular anime series including Pokémon, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Initial D. We’ll also be announcing further exciting guests as SMASH! draws ever closer.

Stay tuned with us as we announce the new guests, new events and new competitions over the coming months – all of which will add up to make 2012 the best SMASH! yet! So what are you waiting for, get your tickets now!

We have a new design for the website. We hope you like it (we think it’s pretty spiffy but then we would think that, wouldn’t we?). Oh, and don’t forget to come back this afternoon for another announcement!

Missed seeing Arrietty at the Japanese Film festival? Don’t fret! The latest Studio Ghibli film (based on the classic children’s novel The Borrowers) is being released at cinemas nationwide on January 12.

To celebrate we have some double-pass and DVD packs to give away, courtesy of our friends at Madman. To win, mail in to wincoolthings@smash.org.au before December 25 and tell us what your favourite Ghibli film is and why.

(Winners will be notified by January 2.)

We’re really happy to announce the winners of the SMASH! 2011 Fanfiction Competition!

All together there were 3 awards, a winner for category 1 (responding to the prompt ‘Disaster’) and category 2 (responding to the prompt ‘”There are no happy endings because nothing ever ends.”‘) as well as a judge’s choice.

Congratulations to:

• Succulent Mushroom (Category 1);
• Loki-chan (Category 2); and
• Razer Athane (Judge’s Choice).

You can read more about the competition and see all the entries in our post at Dreamwidth.

Congratulations again to our winners and thank you to everyone that entered!