The final day of PMX arrived with a very tired attendee population due to the late night shenanigans that often happen at PMX. The last day was much quieter with less running around and much less blasting music. However, there was still plenty to do for the intrepid anime convention attendee.

Martial Arts Tournament Filipino Martial Arts and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
This year brought back the martial arts tournament with two different competitions going on at the same time. The room was filled with fans, curious parties, and those looking from some classic human combat entertainment. Everything was very well organized as this event has been going on for years. It was also really crowded this year and possibly more than in previous years. Perhaps this was due to two competitions going on or perhaps this event has gained much more popularity over the years. The fights were exciting to watch and it was a nice change of pace from the usual events that happen at an anime convention.

Iron Cosplay
Starting with a small pile of junk, three teams of cosplayers had to build a cosplay in a very limited amount of time. This year the teams were working with lost of cardboard and duct tape. It was nice to see the teams helping each other by sharing from their junk piles or by giving some of their own cosplay accessories to other teams. The host had various types of montage-style music in the background many of which were from the Rocky movies. When time was up all the contestants went up to show off their costumes. The winner chosen was the team that made a Bender from Futurama cosplay. However, all three teams won prizes for competing and the other two projects, Cardboard Gundam and Hatsune Miku were both really good as well. It was a fun competition and it made for an exciting morning.

Dealer Hall
The dealer hall was located on the first floor and featured a mix of booths. While there may not have been that much in the toy/figure department there were plenty of fashion, plushie, and cosplay accessory booths. It was nice to see some manga and DVDs on sale as well, but the hall was small this year so there wasn’t a large selection. There were some deals to be had, but none of the team members came home with any merchandise from the hall.

Artist Market
One thing that did stand out was the Artist Market due to the classy name that sets this artist alley apart from others. There were plenty of booths this year featuring all manner of goods. There were plenty of things available at the market from Lolita things, to posters, to custom badges, and more could be found. There was plenty to choose from making this one of the best small con artist alleys we have seen this year.

How to Produce Japanese hardcore music
There were some panels that stepped away from the norm and took a risk with the subject matter. One of the least expected panels to be held at an anime con was “How to produce Japanese hardcore music”. This panel was a how to on using synth software on a computer to make all the effects and mixes that are common in Japanese dance music. If you are interested in doing some DJ work or developing your own mixes of popular songs this was a great panel to check out.

Sports in Anime and Manga
The team from Bizarro World of Sports (Jared, Miguel, and Stan) came together for their first attempt at a panel about anime sports. While, there was not much of an audience the three guys had fun talking about different anime and manga series in the sports genre. In addition, the guys also gave live sports updates on the day’s football games. Everyone had fun and it was great learning about different sports titles from old school fun like Ashita no Joe to newer titles like Kuroko no Basket. After this run the team has decided to bring it out at more conventions.

History of Lupin III
One of Scarlet Rhapsody’s most popular panels, History of Lupin III, made a return at PMX. This time, we did not have the computer available, but Jared marched on with an all verbal presentation of his panel. He discussed the early arrival of Lupin in the US and moved on to some of the exciting new release news. This was followed by a Q&A session that ran with some great questions from the audience. Despite the late time of this panel on Sunday there was still a great audience, showing that even now Lupin is still one of the most beloved anime series of all time.

After hitting various panels and finishing our shopping the team went to the Dante Bosco press conference in order to close out the day. The full press conference and the junket style one-on-one questions can be found in the interview section of this report.

Pictures are copyright by Scarlet Rhapsody . If I took your picture, feel free to use it on your site or cosplay gallery. While you're here, do sign the guestbook. This site was brought to you by the font Varsity . Many thanks to Dream Host, Adobe Bridge, MS Photodraw, Picasa, and Dreamweaver for making this site design possible.