Singapore Toy, Games and Comic Con 2009 (or, HECK YES!)

I was there last year at STGCC, but last year it was known as STCC (Singapore Toy & Comic Con). It was a bit of a nightmare and I thought this year was going to be the same thing, but the organisers learnt their lesson!

This year they doubled the space, with wider aisles and better positioning of high-traffic areas so that the snaking queues wouldn’t jam up the whole hall.

It was special for me too, because I cosplayed for the first time!

I arrived early because I thought it was going to be crazy crowded, but it wasn’t! The crowd at 9.35am was positively microscopic compared to last year’s, where it stretched across two floors.

Of course, this was probably because the doors opened at 11am – it was only about an hour before that, that the place really started to fill up.

Entry was free, so there were two lines: one for buying the event guide, and one for entry. The first 100 people to buy the event guide for SGD 4 got some freebies, which is always nice. There wasn’t any pre-registration, which was the main cause of last year’s issues.

I was in the first 15 people or so, but I was kinda peeved that people were buying five (!) guides at a time to get the freebies. Hello, people! What about the poor schlubs waiting at the back?

Anyway. I got my guide (I only bought one, so don’t yell at me!) just before 11am, so I headed to the back of the second queue. My semi-famous friend Seriously Sarah had just arrived, so I joined her in line. Then the doors opened, and hello gorgeous!

Nintendo retain their prime spot at the very front of the hall, so the first thing we saw was Wii demos! They hadn’t really started yet though, but that was fine.

Sarah and I went about; she’d been there the day before so she was a lot more familiar with the place than I was. Neither of us had suited up yet, being supahsikrit and all, and we managed to get some freebies (:

We got to see the 501st Legion opening up the day on stage!

There was the Imperial March as they did a short loop of the hall, and then they had a short talk about what the 501st Legion does and why you should join Lord Vader and the dark side the Legion. They’re basically a community service organisation with a heavy Star Wars theme, and some of the awesomest cosplayers I’ve ever seen.

And then I met my friend Hafiz, who popped by for a bit before an event of his own, and then we made the poor boy wait while we suited up XD

The result:

That was awesome fun. That’s a 1-Up mushroom I’m carrying, btw – it gives Mario an extra life in the games.

Quick mushroom primer!

Red (Super Mario) – makes little Mario grow into big Mario aka Super Mario!

Green (1-Up) – gives you an extra life!

Yellow (Mega Mushroom) – makes Mario into a giant Mega Mario who can crush everything – blocks, pipes, enemies, platforms, anything – for a limited time. Only in New Super Mario Bros, I think.

/quick mushroom primer

And we walked around a bit before splitting up – Sarah to join the folks at Movie Mania, and me with Hafiz to try out the Wiis! He didn’t really get the hang of it, but that’s normal for when you first try the Wii.

I got to try archery Wii Sports Resort, and I must say that MotionPlus is pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing more games that make use of MotionPlus.

And then we camwhored a bit, because it was too fun not to.

And then the real Mario & Luigi mascots showed up! That was pretty awesome – whenever they came out, everybody wanted to take photos of them.

They were demoing Guitar Hero on stage, so that was pretty cool to watch – especially since one of them was a classmate.

We went to the stage to watch the noon-time show put on by the folks of Movie Mania – Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow from GI Joe! But we did get some pictures of the Movie Mania folks, whose costumes always amaze.

And, perhaps my favorite picture that I took:

And then we met up with Nerwen but Hafiz had to go for a talk of his own. We wandered around a bit before going to stage at 12pm to watch a little show by the MM folks.

That was pretty damn cool. It started out with Storm Shadow chasing a poor lady, and Snake Eyes coming to her rescue. After a pretty awesome stunt fight, Storm Shadow won – but the lady called in reinforcements: Chicken Little Jedi!

That was really kind of weird, and after that I couldn’t see anything because (like Mario) I was too short. I do know that Chicken Little Jedi won in the end, probably through sheer weirdness.

We went to the G&B Comics booth to get the giveaways and buy some comics, but we got split up. We eventually found each other at the queue for Brian Bolland’s autograph. We joined it quite early, but I do know it eventually stretched so far that I couldn’t see the end of it.

And because Mr Bolland is famous for illustrating the Batman classic The Killing Joke, it was only fitting that a certain someone show up in-character…

I didn’t get to see him after that, but I was told that the same cosplayer eventually changed into the version seen in The Dark Knight. (EDIT: It was a different person as The Dark Knight‘s version.) I did see a flash of purple coat and green hair though.

It was a pretty long wait, so when he came everyone was quite eager for autographs.

Poison Ivy and Harlequin walked past, so Mr Bolland took a picture of Mario, Ivy and Harlequin – that was pretty awesome, and probably one of my personal highlights of the day.

And after the signing, we were just in time to watch the Coscon on the competition! STGCC hosts the Coscon cosplay competition, so the announcer had the unenviable task of saying “Could the Coscon cosplay competition competitiors please gather” several times. Nerwen and I managed to get seats in front of the stage, so we watched the entire show.

Today’s theme was movies, which is basically all Western-based entertainment – the anime/Japanese category is tomorrow, which probably explains why it wasn’t so crowded today. The judges were Reno and another guy from Movie Mania (he had a camera), and there was a guest judge all the way from Gotham City  – Batman!

The individual contestants were quite awesome, and the group ones were quite funny. There were three groups: a Star Trek contingent of Data, Neelix and a possibly Spock (I can’t remember) attempting to fight off a Borg called Seven of Eleven. They were assimilated in the end, though; resistance is futile, after all.

Another group was the two Jedi we’d seen above, except one was Darth Mual ‘unmasked’ aka without makeup. A lot of people weren’t impressed by that, but the resulting stunt fight was what won them the competition – that was a really serious fight, with falling off the stage and all that. Seriously cool, and everyone was pretty impressed after that.

But my favorite – and, arguably, the favorite of a lot of the guys – was Harlequin and Poison Ivy, because Ivy was hot and she flirted with Batman. That was pretty funny; she sat on the table and went “So, Batman, I think we can cancel the competition, hm?” and he was like “I’m not affected by your charms!”. And then she got miffed and threw her rose at him. Harlequin had her awesome rubber chicken that was really funny whenever it squawked.

Later, when the groups came back on-stage for the final judging, Batman offered her the rose but she very deliberately snubbed him. That was hilarious.

We didn’t stay to vote for the invidividual contestants, because by then it was past 4pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet. I was starving; I’d scarfed down something at 9am, so I was pretty much running on empty.

We ended up at McDonald’s, after much delay because everyone wanted photos with me/Mario ): I’m sorry, Nerwen!

As we left the con, we saw this:

I believe the wooden sign was the ‘The End is Nigh’ one, too.

When we got back to the con, it was 5.15pm and Hafiz was back, between appointments again. We did some shopping, and then Nerwen went home while I went to meet my parents for dinner. (I ate two meals in less than an hour. Guh.)

My parents wanted to see how the con was compared to last year’s, so I brought them back. I wanted to watch the scheduled Nintendo Showcase at 8pm, so before that I wandered around a bit to do a bit of shopping.

While I was at the capsule stations, wasting money contemplating the Mario-themed ones, I was approached by my Guitar Hero-playing classmate! L asked if she could do a short video interview with me for Nintendo HQ in Japan, since I was dressed up as Mario and all. She asked me a few questions and her videographer filmed it. Mostly it was about whether I thought MotionPlus was a good addition.

Then I went back to join my parents, but it turned out that the showcase was cancelled. I was disappointed, but things happen, I guess.

When we were leaving, Mario and Luigi were outside, so I managed to grab another picture with them – that was pretty cool.

So that was it! I won’t be going for tomorrow, but do check out the STGCC at Suntec Ciy, halls 401 and 402. It’s awesome fun and there’s lots of stuff to be had!

EDIT: Now with video! This is the Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow vs Chicken Little fight at noon, courtesy of Team SEJA.