On the weekend of July 16th, Anime Trending attended SMASH!, an annual convention held in Sydney, Australia. This marked the return of the popular anime convention since the start of the pandemic. With such a long awaited come back, there was a lot to look forward to.
The event hosted many guests, including hololive’s Hakos Baelz and alum Tsukumo Sana, composer Kevin Penkin, cosplayers Hikarin and Yosuke Sora, and Trash Taste’s The Anime Man, CDawgVA, Gigguk, alongside Sydsnap.
The halls of the ICC Syndey were crowded by cosplayers. With Spy X Family’s Yor Forger dominating the floor, there was also an equal share of hololive and Nijisanji VTubers, Genshin Impact characters, and various members of Naruto’s Akatsuki on display. There were even a few transformed Denji from Chainsaw Man roaming the convention center.
The itasha display was eyecatching, with cars decorated after Violet Evergarden, Princes Connect! Re:Dive and Konosuba’s Megumin among others!
The doodling art competition was also quite striking. With an entire wall full of anime sketches and even a few prizes on the line, the art competition proved to be a fun place to check back in throughout the day.
SMASH! also hosted a screening for Fruits Basket -prelude-, which was the only time the film was viewable in cinemas in Sydney. As the name suggests, the film is a canon prequel to the original series.
Fans of hololive even planted a large cardboard cut out of Tsukumo Sana publicly in the surrounding area of Darling Harbor.
The artist alley hosted artists from all corners of the earth. There was more variety than ever, featuring fanart and merchandise of anime, videogames, and both independent and corporate VTubers.
