All you need to do is to photograph something or someone extraordinary, a place or event that was a real-eye-opener, or an experience that was simply mind-blowing. Write a caption for it and upload it using this form (do note that you need to limit the file size to 2mb).

The photos will then be showcased in the gallery and you could then garner your friends and family members to vote for your entry. I’ve browsed through some of the entries and these are some of my favorites XD

Well without further ado, here are the respective winners for all the different prizes

- Monster Hunter Tissue Case [Answer: 34 hours 38 minutes] – Winner: shinkawa

- Monster Hunter Earphones Winners: otaqueen, nendoxnerd, nintendokid

- Robot Damashii 00 QAN[T] Winner: ShouTakuya

- Nendoroid Haruhi Suzumiya Disappearance Ver. [Answer: Red GF1 ($600)] Winner: mizuhochan

- 1/7 Saber Triumphant Excalibur PVC Winner: Aldridge

- Monster Hunter Goodie Pack Winners: AstrayP03, Demi, yasuragi, Asa, Rem

The winners would need to contact me via email alafista[at]gmail[dot]com with your nickname, real name, address and contact information. I will try my best to send out the gifts next weeks.

Interested folks can upload one of their best creative photos of figma and Nendoroid figures to their contest website before 13 Jan 2011. 200 finalist will be selected and then voting will commence from 21 Jan till 30 Jan 2011. The winners will be announced during Wonder Hobby 13 Post-Event Talk Show, which will be streamed LIVE on NicoDouga.

Do remember that you can only use figma/Nendoroid/scaled figures from GSC and MaxFactory. Keep your file size to 3mb and each person is only allow 1 submission. Of course, do remember that it should be your own work and not plagiarised from somewhere else.

I think I shall participate this time round, so its time to start putting on my thinking cap to think of an interesting scene.

The Fairy Tail anime series was actually adapted from the same-titled shounen manga series by Hiro Mashima. It is set in a magical world and whereby magic users (wizards) are group under different guilds to perform dangerous jobs. Of course, one of the top wizard guilds that everyone wants to join would be “Fairy Tail”, where it members are awesome wizards with great personalities just like any popular shounen series out there.

My Thoughts about the First Episode

Let me start off by saying, if you have a cute talking cat companion that flies in the show, that is already sufficient reason to watch the series.

I really enjoyed the happy-go-lucky nature of the show’s main male protagonist Natsu (a fire using wizard know as Salamander) and his cat companion Happy. You know that these kinds of folks are just magnets for trouble and will be able to shine as saviors at the end of the day. The first episode also introduces Lucy, the main female protagonist.  Even though she appears to be weak and needs to be rescued by Natsu from an evil band of wizard, she can really hold her own battles in subsequent stories.

Since it is a shounen series, you wouldn’t expect much for the artwork quality, but you can be sure that the action is fast and tight. I think one of the highlights would the first battle against Bora of Prominence where Natsu showcases his fire-eating skills. The special effects that appears when Natsu cast his dragon fire spells are quite cool.

The anime series is a close adaption of the manga series, so do expect to see more heart-pumping action as the story develops in subsequent episodes and more characters appear in this massive mystical world of magic.

As promised in my earlier post, Animax-Asia has prepared 10 sets of lovely Fairy Tail premiums to reward those who had caught the show. Each set of Fairy Tail premium is worth approximately USD$30 each, and includes a chain tag, a folder, a jigsaw key chain, a normal key chain and a stick poster.

All you have to do is to answer this simple question:

Question: In the first episode, Lucy Heartfilia wanted to buy the Doggy White gate key in a magic store. How much did it cost?

1. 20,000 jewels
2. 1,000 jewels
3. 10,000 jewels

Do take note that this contest is open to Singaporean residents only. Readers can submit their answer to contests@animax-asia.com along with the following particulars:

In conjunction with the premiere of Fairy Tail (フェアリーテイル), Animax-Asia will be giving away 10 sets of Fairy Tail premiums to my readers. All you need to do is to watch the show, keep track of the storyline and then answer a simple question that I will be posting on my blog.

I will be posting the contest question on this blog on Saturday, 2 Oct 2010 at 12pm noon. The first 10 readers with correct answer to the quiz will win this awesome set of Fairy Tail premium worth approximately USD$30 each. It includes a chain tag, a folder, a jigsaw key chain, a normal key chain and a stick poster.

(P.S. This giveaway contest is only open to those residing in Singapore.)

For folks who are not familiar with the anime series, here’s the synopsis of the first episode:

Fairy Tail
Premieres Thursday, 30th September 2010
Every Monday to Friday at 9.30pm
On ANIMAX (StarHub TV ch 532)

Set in a fantasy world where magic is the way of life, Lucy had always wanted to join the famous Fairy Tail mage guild and travelled to the kingdom of Fiore in that hope. Along the way, she crosses paths with Natsu and his talking-and-flying cat Happy who are seeking a dragon.

Abducted by someone posing as ‘Salamander’ from the Fairy Tail guild, Lucy is then rescued by Natsu who reveals that he is in fact the real ‘Salamander’ with dragon slaying abilities. Offering her membership into the Fairy Tail guild, Natsu, Happy and Lucy then join female warrior Erza Scarlet, and ice mage Gray Fullbuster as a team to embark of various missions for the Fairy Tail guild.

Fairy Tail is co-produced by top anime studios A-1 Pictures (Kuroshitsuji, Valkyria Chronicles) and Satelight (Macross Frontier, Hellsing OVA). Fairy Tail features top voice actresses Aya Hirano (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Death Note) and Rie Kugimiya (Shakugan no Shana, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood) as the voices of lead characters Lucy and Happy respectively.

An action video game for the Sony PlayStation Portable titled ‘Fairy Tail: Portable Guild’ was unveiled at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show and in development by Konami for release in 2010. A fighting game for the Nintendo DS, entitled ‘Fairy Tail Gekito Mado Shikkesen’ is also slated for release this year.

And here’s the first opening theme of Fairy Tail (フェアリーテイル) – Snow Fairy.

I think the $500 cash prize is really enticing and can almost buy you a new dollfie. In addition, you are able to exercise your imagination to design any type of mascot character because there is no limitation to it being a humanoid, animal or even a plant XD

The contest details are as follows, and I wish one of you lucky readers will be able to win the contest ^^

We are celebrating our 1st year anniversary and we would like to take this opportunity to look for our mascot(s) of Otacute. One entry will be selected as a Premium winner and utilized as Otacute mascot(s). This Premium winner will be awarded $500 Cash. We also have other prizes for a Gold Winner, a Silver winner and a Bronze winner.

General Rules
Characters may be human, animal, plant, robot, elf, dwarf, divinity or other, but must abide by the contest rules of Otacute. Submissions may not contain any nudity, sexually explicit material or other obscenities, and must be original. Only original and unpublished submissions will be considered, and any fan art or other copyrighted images or characters will not be accepted. Otacute reserves the right to reject, remove and/or disqualify entries at its discretion.

Eligibility
Must have an account with Otacute.com and one entry per participant (If you do not have an account with Otacute, you can create it for free). We accept submissions only through registered E-mail addresses with Otacute.com

Deadline
Submission ends 23:59 pm, September 30, 2010. Japan Standard Time

Entry guidelines
Each entry must contain 1 main portrait and 1 to 4 sub portraits. If one’s entry is nominated by Otacute, it will be uploaded on Otacute blog for further selection. The main portrait will be used as a cover of his/her submission. The sub portrait(s) can form any kind of styles as long as they are following the contest rules of Otacute. Copyright of nominated submissions temporarily belongs to Otacute during the contest.
Please note that one applicant may submit only his/her original work specifically made for this Otacute contest.
To submit your work, please attach it to your registered e-mail with a name of mascot(s), its theme and your nickname, and send it to [character_contest@otacute.com]
Image format: jpg
Resolution / Size: 2MB or less (each images)
Dimension: 1024 x 768 pixels (Main Portrait), 800 x 800 pixels (Sub Portrait)

Prizes
Premium Winner: $500 Cash via PayPal & its entry will be used as Otacute Mascot(s)
Gold Winner: $100 Shopping Credits of Otacute
Silver Winner: $50 Shopping Credits of Otacute
Bronze Winner: $30 Shopping Credits of Otacute

The contest rules of Otacute
By submitting to this character contest, applicants have acknowledged that they have read and will abide by the contest rules of Otacute.com. In particular, applicants warrant and represent that their work does not infringe or violate any third party rights nor contain nudity or other inappropriate material, and that by submitting, they have granted Otacute the right to utilize the entry of the premium winner for promotional, marketing or any other activity that involve the direct sale of the artwork. Otacute reserves the right to maintain copyright of nominated and selected submissions as long as Otacute intend to hold it, however, copyright of submitted entry shall remain property of participants. Copyright of nominated submissions will be returned to participants once Otacute announces the winners. Acknowledgement and return of the submitted entry is at the sole discretion of Otacute.

My favorite shot has gotta be this shot above by hiziri-san titled “Summer has arrived! 夏がキタ!”

All you need to do is to head over to the official website for the photo contest and then cast your votes for your top five most favorite photos. Voting has already started and will end on 21 Jul 2010 (23.59).

Image Source: slash5150′s SmugMug via Kotaku

Folks who have difficulties uploading their entries onto figure.fm can now send in their entires directly to the cosplay producer of AFA09, Songwen. His email is songwen@sozo.sg and he can also be contacted via phone [+65 6338 1982].

Songwen also wants me to remind the cosplay enthusiasts that selected finalists from outside Singapore will have their flight and accommodation covered by the AFA Cosplay Committee.  And the most important thing is:

The Top prize will be a pair of tickets to Japan, Tokyo !

For more information on the contest, do check out the official website.

The cosplay competition is another joint collaboration with Dannychoo, and interested contestants would have to submit photos of themselves via figure.fm. Online registration will close on 8th October 2009 at 12pm Japan Time.

The top cosplay team from each participating South East Asian country will be sponsored by AFA09 to fly to Singapore to compete in the Regional Cosplay Championship during the two-day anime festival where they will perform and be judged by a panel of distinguished guests from Japan including internationally renowned cosplayer Kaname☆.

Of course, I wouldn’t be participating in the event because I would be busy going around shooting lovely photos of them. I do hope to see more and better quality cosplay this year.

In the meantime, here’s a absoultely stunning photo of Chamaro-san [ちゃまろさん] cosplaying as Mari Illustrious Makinami from Evanglion 2.0 movie. Ever since I shared with you folks of her Haruhi Cosplay, I’ve been keeping track of her cosplay and she is just amazingly kawaii.