OFF-TOPIC: 9th Barcelona Manga Con (Salón del Manga 2003)

ziritrion · Post by **ziritrion** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:25 -0700

The 9th Barcelona Manga con will take place this weekend (from Friday 24 to Sunday 26) . Like last year, the Con will take place in La Farga, a convention building in L'Hospitalet (a town next to Barcelona). However, due to last year's enormous success, this year the convention is taking the whole building, which means 8000 m² (use http://www.digitaldutch.com/unitconverter/ to convert to your units) of Japanese goodness! Two years ago there only were 4000 m² of space, and last year 5260 m², so the whole con gets bigger and bigger each time (last year there were 35000 visitors, the whole place was packed with people).

Besides manga and anime, the Con also features stands and shows about Japanese culture. This year they'll have martial arts shows (kenjutsu, iaijutsu, jittejutsu, kyujutsu, jujitsu,etc...), tea ceremony display, sumi-e, ceramics, shakuhachi concerts, etc... There also will be (of course!) a cosplay contest, a karaoke contest (last year's winners are releasing an anime album next week!), videogame tournaments, anime showings, manga libraries, manga and scale model lessons, and this year's new feature, an anime dubbing contest

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This year's guests are Yutaka Izubuchi (designer of Gundam, Macross and Patlabor mechanic models), Yuji Moriyama (Macross Plus, Records of Lodoss Wars) and some members of Studio Pierrot (Yu Yu Hakusho, Fushigi Yugi).

Most stands (publishers and shops) also have some Western comic, although they're usually reserved for the Comic Con held every year in May. As a matter of fact, I discovered Usagi Yojimbo by chance in last year's Manga Con, so this'll be the 1st Usagi Yojimbo anniversary for me

. Planeta deAgostini (the Spanish publisher of UY) releases two volumes every year, one on May (for the Comic Con) and one for October (for the Manga Con). They're releasing volume 5 (Lone Goat and Kid) this month.

Of course, if anyone in the Dojo is ever comming either to this Con or the Comic Con, please contact me!

. This is one of the most entertaining events of the year in Barcelona, and lots of people come here.

For more info, go here (in Spanish). For info in English (not much, though) and some pictures go here.

I also have to go to Angouleme's Comic Con and San Diego. Luckily, I'll be going to San Diego next year...