SMASH! News

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!

Just a short message to say thank you to everyone that attended! We’ll have a fuller post with more information soon! In the meantime, we’d love to hear your feedback. You can talk to us on Facebook, Twitter or on the forums. Til next year!

This year a lot of stuff is happening for the first time. There’s the new venue (but you knew about that), our first Japanese director (he’s pretty rad), our first guest from the UK (you might have heard of him) and we’re being followed by a concert (which is also a first for us).

But we thought that as cool as all that stuff is, it’s not answering the fundamental question convention attendees have been asking themselves for years: ‘Why can’t I have a map of the venue in my pants?’

We decided it was time you had that and so we’re proud to lift the covers on the SMASH! 2011 Mobile Guide (you need to visit that address with your phone).

The Mobile Guide is our first crack at doing a digital guidebook and we hope you like it. There’s probably some bugs here and there but we think it’s looking pretty rad. It works best on iPhone but we’ve tried to get it working as best we can on Android, too, in case that’s how you roll. (If you are on Windows Mobile 6, we are sorry. It won’t work and we are also sorry.)

If you have any feedback, we’re interested to know what you think. You can email our mobile development team at support@smash.org.au. We hope it helps you guys have a blast!

Cosplay Competition Signups Open

Calling all cosplayers – come one, come all, and register your spot in the SMASH! 2011 cosplay competition!

There are a limited number of spots available in the competition so be sure to sign up online fast to guarantee your place. Applications close July 10th, and you can read more information about the competition here.

Dust off those sewing machines, start up on those awesome costumes and get ready to strut your stuff on the big stage, as there are only a few weeks left until the convention!

Cosplay Chess

Feelingly Queenly? Maybe a Rook is more your style, or a daring Pawn ready to sacrifice itself for the greater good. Black or White, Bishop or Knight, register your interest in the forum thread today!

(Love chess but not a cosplayer? We’re also looking for two chess players to put their skills to the test and battle it out on a life-sized chess board, so do register your interest as well).

If you have yet to be introduced to the delightful fun of Cosplay Chess and have no idea what it is … tsk tsk. Step this way!

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

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.

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/.

Pre-registration of tickets for entry to the convention are now open! Be sure to buy your SMASH! day passes online – not only do you get earlier entry than if you bought your ticket at the door, but you also get to save a handy $5. Don’t forget how fast tickets sold out last year, so beat the crowd and pre-register as soon as you can!

Tickets to the Eminence concert are sold at an additional $35. As previously mentioned, the concert is expected to sell out so it’s recommended that you buy them online quickly as well.

You can buy both sets of tickets here. Go go go!