Thursday, September 1, 2016

AsiaPOP Comicon Manila 2016: Cosplay Time!


AsiaPOP Comicon, or APCC, returned in Manila last August 26 – 28. It was a three-day event that geeks attended and celebrated. It was held at SMX Convention Center at SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City.

Geeks and cosplayers filled the venue to visit booths, try activities, participate in competitions, buy merchandise, and to meet and greet famous artists and celebrities. International celebrities were there including Nicholas Hoult (Beast/Hank McCoy from X-Men films), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven from Stranger Things), Claire Holt (Rebekah from The Vampire Diaries), Joe Dempsie (Gendry from Game of Thrones), and Hiroshi Kitadani (singer of the opening theme song of One Piece, We Are!).



This year, I made sure that I would be attending the event again, and since I already have a comicon experience, I didn’t look like a newbie who just walks around not sure of what to do or where to go inside the venue. And for an additional bonus, I also decided to cosplay this year. This was my first time to do some cosplaying, by the way.


I wasn’t able to attend the first day, but I made sure to attend the other two days of APCC.

On my first day at APCC, August 27, Saturday, with Suicide Squad just recently been released on cinemas and its hype is still pretty strong, I decided to do a gender-bend Harley Quinn cosplay, and named it “Harry Quinn” (Tss! Lame!). Harley is my favorite part of that film, and I mean Margot Robbie was just super hot in that movie. She kept the movie alive with her craziness, annoying humor, and of course her body. I asked my girlfriend to do her magic for my make-up and the result was just awesome. I’m trying to make this a “budget meal” costume so I improvised on what I’ll wear. I wore a baseball tees that resembled Harley’s Suicide Squad shirt, a pair of denim shorts, a blue NY baseball cap, red and white Stance socks, and Nike KD 7 USA. I also brought some props, bubblegum and my steel baseball bat, which I wasn’t sure that if I’ll be able to bring inside the venue.

As "Harry" Quinn (Harley Quinn)

I was with my friends during the event. We went around the place looking at artworks, toy figures, booths and activities. We took pictures with some other cosplayers and we also did some photoshoots of our own. Myrtle Sarrosa was also there on her own booth, so we fell in line to have a picture with her. She was cosplaying as Charizard, and it’s really amazing to meet another famous cosplayer. And I finally experienced getting my picture taken by strangers because of my costume. I really love flaunting my Harley Quinn costume walking around the venue with my bat on my shoulder. It’s a great APCC day.


With Myrtle the Charizard

For the second day, I decided to go to APCC as Finn the Human from Adventure Time. Finn is one of my favorite characters and his voice actore, Jeremy Shada, was one of the reasons I went to last year’s APCC. I bought the Finn hat years ago at Comic Alley; I have a plain blue Bench shirt, a black leather Converse, and a plain white pair of socks which I rolled to match Finn’s style. My girlfriend gave me a Finn sword and bag as Christmas gifts, and I also borrowed a pair of shorts from her that resembles Finn’s. I wanted to do this cosplay for a very long time now and this year I finally have its complete set of costume.

As Finn the Human

On the event, I received a lot of requests to have a picture with them because of my Finn cosplay, it surprised me because I had more requests as Finn than as Harley Quinn, which I expected to be the other way around. I enjoyed that experience. It made me feel like a celebrity. Before this, I never really knew how fun it was to cosplay.


We also watched an amazing Star Wars play and Philippine Wrestling Revolution (PWR) wrestlers battling it out to win the championship title. We visited and participated in booth activities such as Magic: The Gathering card game and played some PS4 games.




It was just unfortunately that I didn’t get a chance to meet and have a photo with any international celebrity or even with Alodia, but maybe next year. Still I enjoyed every minute of the event, especially now that I had experienced being a cosplayer. Can’t wait for the next year’s AsiaPOP Comicon.


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Photo Credit to Josh Paraiso

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