FanFes Online is on it’s second year when Cosplay.PH announced the event at the beginning of May of this year. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country, this became the primary event for Cosplay.PH in place of Cosplay Mania which usually took place at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City. Is it as fun as it was the first time? Let’s find out.
I slept through the Freedom Hall so we are not covering that but we are joining in on the main event. We have the usual contests like Shadow Play and some new items like Cosplay Remote Runaway and we only have not one but two virtual YouTubers as guests and no, they’re not from Hololive or Nijisanji.
It’s Lyrics and Orange, and if you don’t know who that is, try lurking on some meme groups in Facebook.
They also have a new website for the main stage and the Discord chat is now a pop-up window on the lower-right side of the website window. This is a welcome change for as this consumes less resources if you have a computer as slow as mine.
Day 1
Kenkoy and Fatima are here as usual and let’s give a welcome back to Naru, who last time dropped a bombshell that she had COVID. Good thing she recovered.
Shadow Play 2.0
As I’ve expected, the rules for Shadow Play are the same as last time, there’s a silhouette, they get to either answer the question or use the options provided to them just like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Of course the elimination round wherein they are asked to answer a question and whoever answers the question closest to the correct answer gets to play.
The fun is usually contained on the Discord chat by giving BS answers to the contestants, something that really makes things challenging to the people who are actually playing the game.
The Futekiya folks are back…
..and this time, Emma is basically behind a green screen and basing on what I think is just a video presentation. For those of you who don’t know, Futekiya is an online service wherein you can read yaoi manga for 350 PHP/month for unlimited access. Think of it as Manga Plus from Shueisha but with boys love manga.
Spoiler alert: The folks behind Futekiya are also behind Manga Plane but that’s for Day 2 but if you want to learn more about them, read here.
Tsukino Aoi
We have a guest for JAM and her name is Tsukino Aoi, if you haven’t noticed the name of this segment.
She is debuting her JAM cover on the show but as usual, questions will be asked and just like everybody else, Tsukino started with singing anime OPs and EDs just like any weeblet who doesn’t skip the intros and the ending songs.
I’ll say it here, I’m more of a 1980s J-pop guy so I don’t find any appreciation to modern J-pop but objectively, the song she covered is a headbanger and it’s something you can enjoy on cosplay conventions.
Is it just me though, or is my equipment that busted because I can hear the bass being boosted that hard that I can hear the BOOM. Song title’s Mune no Kodou by the way. Here’s her YouTube page if you want to learn more about her.
Kosupureii Remotto Ranaweii Zenpen
Here are the rules, participants can send a video of them, in their cosplay gear, while walking on an improvised runaway and with that, there’s criteria for judging of course.
The audience can vote on the Mentimeter poll on the main stage website.
There are six contestants and ¾ of those people cosplayed from critically acclaimed video games such as Final Fantasy and the only one who cosplayed an anime character cosplayed Mr. Dies in Part 6 Kujo of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
With a cosplay competition, we also get cosplay judges of course and with that, we get questions. Initially, I thought that there will be no video montage but I was surprised that they did.
Bea wins the speech of the night because that speech about cosplay being an outlet for your COVID-19 restrictions sounded like something Kenta Kobashi or Mitsuharu Misawa would say at the end of a grueling match but Ricki wins the cosplay of the night for the audience because JoJo.
Lyrics and Orange Part 1
It’s time for the main event, Vtubers Lyrica and Kaheru. This is a welcoming change because they invited VTubers that most people know about.
Outside the holo/2434 bubble, this is probably the time I’ve laughed at a Vtuber for her content. She has that high energy that Pekora has and also has that “I am a seiso idol” delusion that most hololive peeps do not named Tokino Sora.
We will meet her back tomorrow probably together with Kaheru this time or I don’t know.
Kosupureii Remotto Ranaweii Kouhen
Time for the awarding the contest winners for Kosupureii Remotto Ranaweii. The audience got what they want because Ricki the Jotaro guy won first place.
If you think about it, he really did his best to be Jotaro and that sweet editing, it really hit the spot of every JoJo fan on the chat and it also helps that Kurenai Yurugi and her brother were big fans of JoJo so that won their hearts.
Day 2
Since I didn’t get any sleep, I get to be into this day’s Freedom Hall. As the name suggests, it’s everything goes as far as a live broadcast is concerned. Well, there’s a topic on this one and it has something to do with the past, the present and the future. No, there’s no time travel involved.
They are also giving tickets for those who don’t have one by bringing items that Fatima requests them to “bring” onto the “hall” if you will. Unfortunately, someone botched the internet connection because for some reason, the live feed on Facebook got interrupted. There are a lot of technical difficulties on this one, folks.
After some deals with logging in, we’re finally set for day 2. Good thing I’m not late… yet.
Our hosts for today are Fatima from last night and Envy, that cosplayer MC that everyone likes.
Anime Mob Rule
This is a new game concocted by the geniuses at Cosplay.PH, Anime Mob Mentality. The host will ask a trivia question and the first to answer gets to choose a category with a blank table with top eight items from said category, the person would then name all items in the span of 20 seconds. It’s like Family Feud but with a 20-second time limit.
I didn’t expect this but since the mob has control of what’s on the polls, they get to pick the number one pick on the polls..and they picked Robert E.O. Speedwagon as the best waifu. Let me direct you to that Internet Historian video.
Dai-1 ji Kosupureii Kara-OK feat. Kanari Nari
Our boy Envy has a new co-host for this evening, and her name’s Kanari Nari, a vtuber who has control over thunder and lightning and this is for the annual karaoke contest.
Funny about the criteria for judging because there’s an Easter theme to this, at the end of May.
For some reason, this cuts to…
MangaPlanet Returns
As I’ve mentioned on Day One, Manga Planet is the SFW sister of the BL manga service Futekiya. Aside from the safe for work selection from old Shonen Jump titles not named Dragon Ball to some josei manga, they have super light novels.
Unlike Futekiya though, they have these subscription plans like Php. 240 for six months, probably because BL manga costs less than old Jump titles.
Knight Shifters
We got Riah from the cover group Night Shifters, one of the famous cover artists from their JAM Cover Song contest. Aside from the usual “how are you during COVID?” questions, she was influenced into making music in 2016 as part of a LoveLive! cover group named Dream Catchers and then they split to form an edgy group named Night Shifters.
She then brought a funny story about how they came up with the name and it’s because all members are working on the graveyard shift, just like yours truly. She also gave a history of how they did the newest music video, including the gallons of sweat they’ve poured out due to lack of exercise.
I really should stop maxing out the volume on my speakers because I know it’s not the fault of whoever made the music video but the bass is just boosted to the max. Again. The music video is your typical high quality K-pop dance cover and hey, it’s buttery smooth in terms of framerate that is. If you want to know more about them, follow them on either the Nightshifters Facebook page or the main unit’s page Dream Catchers.
Dai-2 ji Kosupureii Kara-OK feat. Kanari Nari
We are back and they introduced the judges for this contest and T. Aoi from Day One and Riah from a few minutes ago are one of them. The performances were great sans for some audio issues and, I still don’t know if it’s on my end, but one performance got cut short.
Responses from the judges’ questions range from “this song helped me with my depression” to “it’s a JoJo reference” are quite a bit interesting because everyone has a story with their favorite song choices.
Yes, I laughed at the JoJo reference bit because damn, if that’s not the most based answer, I don’t know what is.
Lyrics and Orange Part 2: Orange Crush
It’s time for the main event, it’s the innovator of Orange Crush, Kenta Koba.. I mean Kaheru the VTuber. She really plays the dumpster diving Vtuber by heart and it might not look like it, she does multiple voices and she did this Korone gimmick wherein she did an endurance stream for a whopping 16 hours.
I don’t know if I don’t get her appeal but she comes across as plain compared to other VTubers I’ve seen over the past two years. Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking her down but it might be something her fans know that I don’t.
Well, after watching two clips, I can now see what is Kaheru’s appeal to the people watching her.
It seems that she has this image that she’s a plain jane VTuber but when confronted with stupid and insane situations, she turns into this typical Filipino who swears a lot and talks like she grew up in the bad parts of Tondo, Manila and that gives us the laughs.
Just like a Jim Cornette podcast, you don’t watch the whole episode, you only need to watch the clips and you’re OK with it.
Dai-3 ji Kosupureii Kara-OK feat. Kanari Nari
Time to announce the winners of Kosupureii Kara-OK. Charity won the contest and I hand it to her because not only that everything is great from the song itself to the clarity of the diction but also that violin intro did wonders to her performance. Seriously, it’s a game changer in terms of karaoke contests like these.
In The End…
FanFes 2021 Online is a giant improvement from last year’s event. I liked Anime Mob Mentality the best because it’s unique even to cosplay convention standards and I hope if the world gets better, we get a live version of said event.
Technical difficulties are still there but there seems to be less of those now except for Freedom Hall but it’s not Cosplay.PH’s fault but with the internet providers. They really delivered with their special guests knowing that VTubers are becoming a thing especially during this period of lockdowns.
Looks like this is going to be the norm until everyone gets vaccinated and the government would loosen the restrictions on travel and going outside. Stay safe and see you again in FanFes Online 2022.
Rayas-WEB 
One thought on “Maysquerade – A Two-Part FanFes 2021 Online Recap”