Shizen Orchestra was the first ever convention organized by TouJin, the Japanese animation organization of the Ateneo de Manila University. The event took place at the SM Mall of Asia SMX on the 25th of April 2009.

SO featured bands, a doujinshi and merchandise market, and one of the most diverse local cosplay competitions for a convention of its size. The convention also featured an events-only maid and butler cafe Doki Doki Kissaten, which had uniformed maids and male servers attending to their customers’ needs similar to the costume cafes dotting Akihabara.

I personally was impressed and delighted with the choice of venue, since the organizers decided to hold the con in the smaller Seminar Rooms instead of the overwhelmingly large Main Events Hall. Smaller did not however necessarily mean cramped, as the space was quite large compared to the Megatrade Halls in SM Megamall.

I also loved the fact that the venue was on the second floor of SMX with its own concourse area, which cut down on the number of meddling onlookers. Last but not least, I liked the fact that the building reminded me of anime conventions I attended overseas, which are on a different level altogether.

There was plenty of room to set up camp in owing to the spacious interior and the carpeted floors, however the layout of the booths was a bit haphazard and inefficient. One of the organizers later admitted that they had to switch a few things around to get the layout to work, and in the ensuing chaos not all exhibitors were notified of the changes.

While the crowd showed their appreciation for the larger space in front of the main stage, we did hear of several booth personnel complaining about the lack of coordination.

The lighting scheme was also not ironed out with the building management, which resulted in cosplayers stumbling around in the semi-dark, while photogs complained about the insufficient light. As a result, a large majority of the cosplayers stayed outside the main events hall, and hung out in the concourse area.

It’s a good thing that SMX was purpose built and did not house any retailers, otherwise the tenants would’ve complained about the build-up of cosplayers in the halls and in front of their stores.

Shizen Orchestra was also one of those cons where the cosplayers milling around being fabulous ended up better dressed than the ones that joined the competitions. A couple of meh-worthy costumes aside, I was genuinely impressed by the quality of cosplay at the con, and compared to the results of some of the competitions, I thought that many of the audience members deserved the awards more than the registered contestants.

I actively encourage this trend of quality cosplay promenading (as opposed to formalized competitions) to continue, and I sincerely hope that local cosplay matures and become more synonymous with what cosplay is like in its native Japan.

Lastly, the single most important factor in swaying my opinion from the nay to the yay with this con was the undoubtedly excellent experience I had at their maid and butler cafe. While I will be the first to admit that the prices was a tad steep (at Php 200 per head, and PhP 220 if you wanted the special table), Emile, Seika, Chubelita, Reis, and the rest of the Doki Doki staff justified this amount by showing us a great time.

The food — courtesy of Bona Cafe, was likewise excellent, although the portions were more for suited to supermodels than super robots. There was also an availability issue that arose later in the day as stocks were depleted, but that’s to be expected due to the cafe’s popularity.

I think the only nitpick I had with the entire set up was with the fact that the food was served with plastic utensils and disposable plates. It was a bit of stretch from the nearly authentic Akiba cafe ambience that Doki Doki had, and it would’ve been fixed by a quick trip to Divisoria or Baclaran for inexpensive white crockery.

For a new con run by a relatively unknown org with very few community connections — I thought the event wasn’t too bad. Sure, there were a number of things that could’ve gone a whole lot better but these were things that new organizers tended to overlook (I’m sure the folks from my generation also had that happen to us at least one point in time).

I’m personally just glad that this event didn’t turn out to be just like the one organized by that other college along Katipunan Avenue, which reeked of fail from the get-go.

The key here is perspective — organizing a con has a steep learning curve and a high attrition rate, and we should give the kids from TouJin credit for what they were able to do, as well as room to grow for whatever else they can be capable of doing.

On the other hand, if it were the same organizers committing the same mistakes time after time — despite all the reactions positive or negative from their event attendees, then people can and should be as critical as they please.