If you were busy waiting for the apocalypse that never happened and missed our guest announcement yesterday, it’s ok, we forgive you. Just to remind you though, this year we have 4 special guests in attendance! Excel Saga director and charismatic afro-man Shinichi ‘Nabeshin’ Watanabe, Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged creator Littlekuriboh, and, courtesy of Eminence, composers Hiroki Kikuta and Kenji Ito.

Continuing the last few days of excitement, it’s time for some competition announcements! If you like art, BJD’s or AMV’s, you better get your creative thinking caps on.

• The Themed Art Competition returns, which pits your creative wit against your combination of two or more of our themes: At World’s End, Propaganda, and Flowers.
• And what better way to celebrate Eminence’s Memories of Fantasia concert than with a musically themed competition? Mascot Music Madness challenges you to put a musical spin on our very own mascots, Skadi and Cyrus.
• Our BJD competitions return with new and old faces. The Photography competition is back with an escape theme, while those of you joining us at SMASH! with your dolls can take part in the Lucky Draw and Best Dressed events. With an all-encompassing seaside theme there’s plenty of fun ways to dress up for the occasion!
• The AMV competition is also up and accepting entries, now with a handy online form to make your life even easier.
• And not to forget our previous announcement, the Bandai Model Kit World Cup is on and accepting entries!  With prizes including a trip to Hong Kong, you’d be crazy not to try your hand at the fun hobby of model-making.

And that’s this week’s wrap-up from SMASH! HQ. If we’ve tickled your fancy at all, remember you can grab your convention and concert tickets in one spot at tickets.smash.org.au

Here at SMASH!, we’ve all been eagerly waiting for the time to spill the beans on two more of our special guests – this time from the anime & fan culture variety. So we are proud to announce that in addition to the distinguished guests we revealed last night, we will also be bringing in Shinichi ‘Nabeshin’ Watanabe and LittleKuriboh!

A talented anime director and voice actor, fans recognise Watanabe for his typically eccentric style of anime (as well as his mad ‘fro). Most widely known for Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemy, his crazy characters and settings have risen to international recognition. His character Nabeshin even goes as far as to appear in other anime series. This is a one-time chance to meet the man behind the madness

Skyrocketing to Internet fame and becoming a YouTube sensation with Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series, which became arguably just as entertaining as the original series, we have LittleKuriboh. Yep, he’s the talent who created, directed, edited and did the voice acting in the entirety of the parody series. He is also widely known as a leading voice actor in TeamFourStar’s Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Above all, he’s a pretty darned funny guy IRL. And we all love funny people.

In addition to this awesome guest news, we’d just like to mention that we’re sticking up our posters around town today. If you see some of our volunteer crew hard at work putting them up, be sure to say hi! Here’s the preview for the poster, except if you see it in your local area it’ll have the shiny, all-revealed guest list on it.

Having teamed up with Eminence this year, you might be wondering what else they could bring to us in addition to their awesome concert. The answer? Two very special guests who’ll bring back fond memories of your childhood, that’s what.

SMASH! is very happy to announce that we’ll all be graced with the presence of world-renowned videogame composers Kenji Ito and Hiroki Kikuta!

You might remember Kenji Ito’s melodies when you first started playing games such as Final Fantasy Gaiden, Romancing Saga and Chocobo Racing. Ito, who currently works as a freelance composer, still teams up with Square Enix and Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu to add to his arsenal of great gaming titles.

Like Ito, Hiroki Kikuta is also famous for his major contribution to many well-known games such as Secrets of Mana, Soukaigi and Seiken Densetsu 3. Working with Square Enix, he is now an internationally-recognised and professional writer, game developer and game music composer.

Ito and Kikuta will be in attendance at both the convention and the Eminence concert, so don’t miss out! Also coming with them is a new vocal talent, Mari Yoshida, an up-and-coming artist who will be making her debut performance at the Eminence concert and will have a special contribution to the Last Goodbye project.

We’ll be announcing more special guests in the late morning tomorrow so keep your eyes peeled – don’t change the channel! And if you haven’t already, you can grab your SMASH! and Eminence concert tickets in one handy spot.

As we’re all well aware by now, taking place after SMASH! will be an unmissable performance by the world-renowned orchestra Eminence. Specialising in music from various games, animation and movies, the orchestra has plenty on which to pride themselves, taking a unique spin on classical music arrangement & performance. And the wait for Australian fans has come to an end!

For this concert, the orchestra will fly in several of their finest musicians to form a unique ensemble which will be performing pieces from various titles of both Square Enix and Studio Ghibli, fans of which definitely shouldn’t miss out. But wait … THERE’S MORE.

Introducing Last Goodbye, Eminence’s newest project, which will be having its debut in the very same concert! This project incorporates a new short animated feature, fully backed by Eminence’s live instrumental soundtrack and special vocals. The touching story and musical score has been especially animated, composed and arranged to be viewed and enjoyed for the very first time at the concert, and covers the themes of youth, relationships, and of moving on (you can think of it like an amazing AMV to an even more amazing live orchestra!).

To see special preview shots of the animation from Last Goodbye, head over to our Flickr or our FB album. And if you haven’t already, check out the list of Eminence’s finest works, their Greatest Hits so far, that we gathered up recently for your listening enjoyment

It gets even better … in a few days we’re going to dish out even more awesome news related to special guests for the concert. Keep staying tuned!

As always, you can buy your tickets to SMASH! and Memories of Fantasia in advance at one handy location: http://tickets.smash.org.au

We’re sure that most of you don’t need a reminder of how awesome Eminence is – after all, they’re most well-known for contributing their talents to a variety of popular anime, videogame & film titles we love… we’re pretty lucky to have them showing off their renowned musical skills in a special concert with us! But regardless, as a tribute to them as our special guests, we’d like to showcase some of their finest works for all of you to see so you have even more of a reason to attend the awesome concert.

• From Diablo 3, in which the Eminence orchestra played the entire atmospheric soundtrack to the game: http://bit.ly/k7J1Mf
• From Valkyria Chronicles, in which Eminence also handled all orchestral parts: http://bit.ly/j4iFaP
• The original soundtrack for The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya which, again, owes all its orchestral parts to Eminence: http://bit.ly/io3eN8
• From Ace Combat Joint Assault, which is directed by Eminence’s own founder and violinist Hiroaki Yura, and the music of which is composed by the famously A-list and award-winning composer Inon Zur: http://bit.ly/cXxBy3
• And Eminence’s latest-released game, El Shaddai, which boasts Eminence’s choir as the provider of all the beautiful vocal parts and, once again, Yura’s unchallenged work in lyrics and solo violin: http://bit.ly/dbZSEv

Within the next few days we’ll be dishing out even more of Eminence’s Greatest Hits for you to marvel at, and if you keep up with us, we might just have some exciting news about them to slip in somewhere. Stay tuned!

Do you have a passion for anime and manga? Have you acquired ridiculous amounts of merchandise and the refined taste that goes with it? Can you spot a bootleg 100 yards away? (If not, 10cm or less is acceptable) THEN SMASH! WANTS YOU!

You will be the line of quality and justice that ensures that SMASH! stays a quality household name. You will also be the friendly individual that ensures customers leave with a smile. And you’ll be the one to make sure that we don’t get any figurine/plushie/poster that will break or looks funny when it’s double-checked at home!

We need Bootleg Inspectors with eyes for one or more of these areas:

• Manga
• DVDS
• Posters
• Figurines
• Plushies
• Cosplay Costumes
• General Merchandise (eg. keychains, masks and hats)

(And of course, it all must be done in the nicest way possible. Being a Bootleg Inspector means handling situations in a respectable and dignified manner while making sure that only official merchandise is sold on the day).

Duties include:

• Inspecting Vendor/Artist/Clubs’ products for bootlegs
• Communicating with the Exhibitors Director and Exhibitors Coordinator
• Communication between Vendors/Artists/Clubs and SMASH! Departments for all SMASH!-related matters
• Collaborating and meeting with other volunteers
• Assisting in the creation of/creating documents which will be used by SMASH!

In order to apply please step this way and send over your resume as well as a short description about your related experience. Please also detail the process you would go through in order to identify a bootleg and different telltale signs. Previous experience in Events is welcome but not necessary.

Looking forward to your applications!

Fanfic Competition Now Open

Think you’ve got awesome creative writing skills? Well, SMASH! is running its 4th annual fanfiction competition for those interested in writing their favourite characters in weird and wonderful situations.

Entries will be judged by a panel of reputable fanfiction authors, chosen for their skills and knowledge of a broad range of fandoms. To be in on the action, all you have to do is select one of the prompt categories to use as broadly as you like and let it inspire your fanfic in any anime, manga or game fandom you enjoy!

The sky’s the limit for what you choose to write (any scene, any pairing), but all fanfics must be rated G or PG. The word length of fics is recommended to be between 1000 to 5000 words.

Unfortunately prizes will only be awarded to entrants from Australia or New Zealand, but others are most welcome to enter and receive feedback from our awesome judges.

Full details can be found here. The deadline is Midnight, June 5th 2011 so brandish those pens and get your brain juices flowing – encourage your friends to enter too!

Looking forward to reading your works!

It’s the one day of the year where we can wallow in the gloriousness that is free comics (and stockpile some goodies in the inevitable sales).

Celebrate your FCBD in style

Our friends at Books Kinokuniya have cooked up a treat with a zine fair featuring some pretty awesome artists, including Nicola Scott (Birds of Prey), Billy Tan (Uncanny X-Men), Madeleine Rosca (Hollow Fields), Queenie Chan (The Dreaming) and many many more.

On top of that they are also holding a Cosplay Competition with $100 vouchers to be won for best dressed in a variety of categories, including Best Lolita and Best Undead.

Check out their Facebook Page for more information. SMASH! will also have a stall there with some prints and copies of the Generation anthology, so drop by and say hi!

Also getting in to the spirit of things are Kings Comics who are having a 20% off sale, so the city is definitely the place to be this Free Comic Book Day!

Don’t Forget

Tickets are on sale now for SMASH! and the after-event Eminence concert! Eminence will be performing a few exclusive pieces for what is sure to be an amazing concert called Memories of Fantasia. Tickets are limited so buy now to ensure you don’t miss out!

Tickets can be purchased at http://tickets.smash.org.au/.