AnimExplosion is also meant to showcase the Filipino talents
who are the true hands behind the scenes of many
of the world’s most popular western and eastern animated presentations.

HOME

• What is AnimeXplosion?
 
 

WHAT IS ANIMEXPLOSION 2000?

 AnimExplosion is the Philippines’ first-ever official fan convention.
 

Modeled after such popular fan-cons as Japan’s annual Japan Fantasy Convention (JaFCon) or Italy’s Lucca Comics Anteprima, AnimExplosion is geared towards establishing lasting cultural contact between the Philippines and Japan in a most unconventional manner:  the interaction between manga and anime artists and their adoring Philippine audience.
 
 

WHY ONLY NOW?!?
 
 

Anime has long been a very popular subgenre of Philippine pop culture since the late 1960s and the whole of the 1970s when Filipino audiences were first exposed to the charms of Japanese animation by way of such classics as Speed Racer, Gigantor, Astroboy, and a number of others.  The fanbase began to gain sway during the giant robot era of the 1970s when fans of Voltes V and Mazinger Z actually went into the production of fanzines, translated comic books, and model kits.  Despite having been outlawed during the Marcos regime, many examples of fan merchandise from this era have survived even to this day.
 
 

Though the 1980s were characterized by a somewhat lukewarm response to Studio Nue’s Macross, the mass market interest in Japanese pop culture (referred to as J-pop, a term that encompasses everything from pulp fiction to pop music and animation) was revived by both the vernacular dubbing of anime for Philippine television and the development of an online fanbase on the InterNet in the mid-1990s.
 
 

With that said, putting up a fan convention at this point in time proves timely as we can finally give Filipino anime fans what they have craved for a very long time:  the chance to finally meet and thank the creators of their favorite shows and comics and to finally be able to understand and appreciate the process that goes behind the creation of each comic anthology, television series, and animated film.
 
 

OH, SO IT’S A FAN THING.  GUESS THERE’S NOT MUCH FOR THE PROFESSIONALS TO SEE AND DO, HUH?
 
 

On the contrary, AnimExplosion is also meant to showcase the Filipino talents who are the true hands behind the scenes of many of the world’s most popular western and eastern animated presentations.
 
 

The three-day exhibition held concurrently with a number of convention activities will give the member studios of the Animation Council of the Philippines (ACPI) ample space and time to be able to strut their stuff and to give the animation-viewing public a chance to see what really goes on behind the creation and development of both western and eastern animation projects.  At the same time, some studios and institutions will also offer mini-workshops or lectures on alternative methods of animation (namely the different areas of stop-motion animation) or the basics of drawing for animation.
 
 

These professional exhibits and lecture-workshops will serve as the precursor for another ACPI event:  the Asia Pacific Professional Summit for Animation slated for April 2001.