The Highs and Lows of SOY’B

This is a brief ‘report’ of SOY from the POV of a booth owner. To me, there are some high points at SOY, plenty in fact, and an unfortunately low point.

Our simple backdrop. It gets emptier as everyone wants Azusa. Where is the Ritsu love?

SOY’B came and gone in a single day. It was a very enjoyable event even though I could not catch the actions within the LTs. I heard it was good. So good that the artists who are supposed to man the booth keep disappearing into the LTs. *grumble grumble grumble* I had fun selling our products and talking to those who bothered to talk to us. It is especially nice to meet our supporters and those who had bought our stuffs before. I like feedback and those that we got, we will work on it!

There were literally some high and low points at the SOY venue. Image from The Banzai Effect

HIGHlights:

Togu the Tofu

Incredibly cute mascot. Bravo to branding! I really like how the handout for SOY’B was designed. The last SOY I went to was the very first one and the shift from photocopied handout to a professionally designed and printed handout was an attestation to how much progress SOY had made since they first started 2 years ago. I am going to keep that cute tofu in a nice file and ‘preserve/ferment’ it. Hope to see Togu Tofu again next year!

Image of Togu Tofu handout and pass from Zotaku. My pass says “Exhibitor”

Cosplayers

While I did not see much of the cosplay action going on outside or in the LTs, I did see quite a number of cosplayers walking around. And quite a number of them are very good. I personally had a fondness for GAR and quirky cosplays. Thus that ninja guy from Blazblue was personally one of my favorite cosplayer of the event. Another cosplayer I really like is Mr. Colonel Sanders. Bonus points for him when he bought #CDS0015a Touhou Festival of Friends from us. If only I got his photo with his endorsement… If Mr. Sanders is reading this, please send me your endorsement in photo!

No photos… for now.

NUS Anime

Badges and greeting cards from NUS Anime. Image from The Banzai Effect

It is nice to see my club progress upwards in terms of products. The Umineko badges were really well done and despite not knowing who those characters are, I couldn’t help but snap the entire set up. It has particular significant for me since it involves the combined effort of most of the club artists (and some guest art from Haimerejzero) and it represents what the club can pull off if they put their interest into it. So bravo to the new committee of NUS CAS!

However I swear, despite how much the club president can argue with me that it is Kaworu on Shinji’s shoulder on that card, that still looks like Rei to me. Kaworu’s hair don’t go down (or whatever that term is) like that! But Rei’s does! Either ways, I’m quite ‘meh’ over the choice of pairing. Mycstea can say all he wants but Asuka is better. (Not stopping me from getting the card though. Will be useful in days to come.)

If anyone of you readers feel a sudden urge for these stuffs, I’m sure the club will have more stocks ready for sale.

LOW

Plagiarism.

One art booth in particular caught my attention for the wrong reasons. The issue? Those K-on bookmarks you see from the image below. Seems familiar? Then take a look at the images you have from your K-on OP or ED CDs. These images used for the bookmarks are almost exactly the same.

Pictures of the offending K-on bookmarks (those on the right for those who don’t know). Taken from Random Randomness of Everything Random.

Now, U-Pan-Don (as RRER identified for us), this is plagiarism and piracy. It also speaks of laziness and lack of effort. It is one thing to sell bad art. At the very least, I give you effort points and give you my full encouragement. It is another thing to sell art that belongs to others (and without acknowledgment too!).  This is an absolute sign of disrespect to the original artists of those official artworks. And for that, I had none for you either.

Frankly, I’m surprised any one bought it from you. To any potential buyers, save your money. You can just take those images from your usual sources and print it yourself.