1st Pasig City Costume Play Competition 2011
Amidst the stormy weather, the City Govermnent of Pasig held the 1st Pasig City Cosplay Competition. It was held on the 24th of June, 2011 at the Tanghalang Pasigueno, behind the Pasig City Hall. This was in line with the celebration of the city’s 438th anniversary.
Because of the weather and the fact that it was solely a cosplay competition, only 40 cosplayers were able to attend the event and join the catwalk portion. The cosplayers present wore costumes that came from different anime and manga series such as Naruto, Witchblade, Trigun and D.Gray-man. There were also three armor cosplayers – one from the Gundam series, one from Mahou Sentai Magiranger (Power Rangers Mystic Force for Western audiences) and War Machine from the Iron Man movie. Game cosplayers were also present, with the likes of Traxxex and Succubus from the Warcraft series. Grand Chase, Tekken and Ragnarok Online characters were sighted too.
Registration started at four in the afternoon, and the event proper started at 5:30. Since there were only 40 cosplayers, they were divided into four groups. Each cosplayer was given three minutes to perform on stage. After everyone finished their on-stage skit, they were called again for the judges to give them one last view. Near the end, Hon. Bobby C. Eusebio, the city mayor of Pasig went on stage to give his remarks and the awards for all the winning competitors. The event ended at 7:30 in the evening.
Here are the list of winners for this event:
- 1st Place – David Delano D’Angelo
- 2nd Place – Ricardo Alcoran
- 3rd Place – Aiyip Sanchez
- Best Mecha – Christian Umali
- Best Costume – Samantha Tan De Guzman
Ruby Knight’s POV
I had to brave the 2-hour travel time from our place and the stormy weather in order to cover this event, but it was all worth it. As mentioned above, there were only 40 cosplayers who were able to make it – a far cry from the usual cons nowadays (with cosplayers numbering a hundred or above). A fellow cosplayer even told me that this event was how he visualized the cosplay community to be. As for the venue and audience, Tanghalang Pasigueno is a world-class place, complete with amenities such as dressing rooms and stockrooms for baggages. True to its word, the stage area is large enough to accommodate about twenty mecha cosplayers – as Prawnt mentioned in the pre-event briefing. It was interesting to note that majority of the signages in the venue were written in Tagalog, such as silid-imbakan (stockroom), pasukan ng mga magtatanghal (actors’ entrance) and others.
Even the restroom signages were different, with the name Paz for the female washroom and the name Igme for the male one. Security was never a problem – many officers of the Pasig City Police were there, also serving as audience members alongside Pasiguenos. They had so much photos taken with the attendees. Aside from their presence, the organizers also provided a baggage deposit room for cosplayers to put their items in.
The event flow was smooth, with stage marshalls (also Pasig policemen) guiding everyone and giving the signal to go on stage. Fellow member Shinoda hosted the event, and it helped that he was also into anime since he had familiarity with some of the characters. So far, that’s the only things I could say about the event. I’m looking forward to the Pasig city government holding events like this, and kudos to them for pulling off a successful start. Happy 438th anniversary to Pasig City and Mabuhay ang lahat ng mga Pasigueno!
Prawnt’s POV
I only heard about this event from fellow Pasiguenos who said something about a “costume play” thing on late June. I was surprised at first that the city government would actually think of holding such an event, but after hearing from the organizers themselves that aside from it being part of the 438th Pasig Day celebration, Mayor Bobby Eusebio thought of the event himself seeing that he wanted something for the youth to enjoy. Being interested in costumes himself, this is how the event came to be.
Heading over to the event itself, I was quite surprised that they had everything under control. Almost every facility a cosplayer would need would be at the Tanghalang Pasigueno itself. From a baggage room to spacious dressing rooms, the Tanghalan (As we Pasiguenos call it) was built for plays and such. I’ve never seen such happy cosplayers in all the events I’ve attended so far in spite of the stormy weather. It was as if the organizers did a lot of research on cosplayers to know who they were dealing with.
From what I’ve heard, this event was initially open only for Pasig residents. Perhaps they opened it to non-Pasiguenos once they realized how large the cosplay community network was on the internet.
Majority of the photographers present were part of Pasig’s City Hall staff. Armed with their DSLR’s, they happily took pics with the cosplayers and their wonderful costumes. Even the Pasig “Blue Boys” wanted to have photo ops, as there were many of them present at the event as marshalls.
The event went off to a fine start. There were a few technical difficulties along the way but these were handled efficiently. One cosplayer I’d like to note was that so-called “Gundam” (because of the reference pic flashed on-screen) which was actually some robotic thing that did a robot dance. The only thing missing on his costume would’ve been a trollface.jpg mask. At the end of the event, Mayor Bobby awarded the winners himself, and it seemed his own son was really happy just to meet all the cosplayers that were there.
I managed to talk with some of the organizers, and they were really thankful that people still attended the event. This being their first time to organize such an event that became successful, they congratulated themselves as well. I really hope that there would be a 2nd Pasig Cosplay Competition next year.
To my fellow Pasiguenos, a Happy 438th Pasig Day for us! It’s this coming July 2!
For pictures of the event, please visit the following link:
Tags: Anime & Manga, cosplay, Event, events, Pasig City
