A brief glimpse of Granado Espada at DOM1NATION

I went to the e-Games event called DOM1NATION at Le Pavillion yesterday with my friend Jonette, and we had ourselves quite a bit of fun.

Jonette's a long time friend of mine who also happens to love MMORPGs, and I must admit I've been pestering her to play Granado Espada for some time now. Naturally, neither of us could miss this event, which promised to have a bit of Granado Espada in it.

We got there just slightly before the event began, and the opening act, anime and j-rock cover band Do'Ahou, treated us to a noisy, hard-rocking, musical mishmash of theme songs from Dragon Ball, Bioman, Shaider, Doraemon, Zenki, Voltes V, and Daimos.

But since the venue was still sparsely populated at that time, she and I kind of felt odd that we were among the few who could appreciate the performance by knowing what the songs actually were.

Hosting the event were Pinoy Big Brother alumnus Rico, and a girl with a nice accent named Jocelyn [sp?].

The event space was laid out such that the major e-Games properties were arranged along three of the walls. Immediately next to the entrance was Dreamville with its henna and glitter tattoos and the MTV VJ hunt. Along the right wall were Audition, hosting a small dance stage and a Dance Dance Revolution machine; and O2 Jam, hosting another small stage and a Percussion Freaks machine. The left wall had, first, a sort of obstacle course and a large bouncy stage for jousting, for the shooting game Battle Position; then the Supreme Destiny space, with a sign-ups desk; and then Ran Online, which featured an arrow-shooting gallery.

The Audition, O2 Jam, Supreme Destiny, and Ran Online spaces all featured, in addition, about 40 PCs apiece, both for free play and for tournament play. O2 Jam was having its grand finals for the Jammin' to Jakarta event. Ran was hosting special events such as a Boss Time Attack and others. And Audition was also slated to host special performances by dancers such as the group Exodus, and the award-winning freestyle dance group Philippine All-Stars.

At some point during the morning my Granado Espada-hungry eyes caught sight of a singular apparition: among the crowd of cosplayers who were attending the day's cosplay competition appeared a familiar-looking blonde with an equally familiar-looking red dress with lace and ruffles.

Turns out this gem of a female elementalist was none other than Ann of e-Games! She and a few other people came to the event in full GE regalia: the male musketeer in his standard-issue green uniform; two versions of a female musketeer [one in a burgundy-brocade coat and one in a black outfit]; and the male wizard, who wore the reverse of the Clara mago armor as he was wearing a black top and white pants. And he even had a top hat!

[There should be a proper top hat for male wizards in Andre Janzur's shop!]

Just after Jonette and I broke for lunch, who should stop in front of us but the lady I was waiting for: sGE Community Manager Hrin!!!! She looked really good in her all-black outfit - and her boots were, as Tsubaki of Anime Desho Desho? put it, the type to kick booty with!

Jonette and I introduced ourselves to her and she was more than gracious to us - she welcomed Jonette warmly, and wound up asking me if I was planning to keep the "NineMoons" family name into POBT.

I told her that yes, I would like to keep playing as NineMoons, and would do my best to grab that name when POBT account sign-ups rolled around.

Around 2pm came the event I was waiting for: Rico and Jocelyn came up on stage to announce that Granado Espada Brand Manager [Philippines] Ivee Feria was about to make an announcement about GE! Ivee then came up on stage and introduced the game and its provenance. They showed the version 2.0 video next, and during this video the GE cosplayers came up on stage as well to perform some of Andre Janzur's patented funny poses.

[It's time to make a stand.

I mirrored the v. 2.0 video at this entry.]

Finally, CM Hrin came up on stage and said she was very happy to be coming to the Philippines, and that she was greatly looking forward to getting back into the game to meet the Filipino players in the world of Granado Espada.

After saying goodbye to Hrin and Ivee Jonette and I repaired outside, and in response to her query about history within the game I gave her the short version of GE history.

***

And tomorrow I will be interviewing CM Hrin - so please, if you've got questions to ask her, leave a comment here!