By Shadia Yassine
UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH— Campus visitor Gereil Lois Maniaol, dressed as the character Noint from Arifureta, was awarded a Nintendo Switch Lite for winning first place at the American University of Sharjah’s second Mini Con event Tuesday evening.
The event had hundreds of attendees including non-AUS students, with the cosplay contest having a total of nine participants, five of which performed their own unique dance.
Maniaol said that she has been a cosplayer for nine years, and added, “The experience of winning in an actual competition gave me the push to do better again in my future cosplays.”
Runners-up]s included a non-AUS student who came as Batman and AUS sophomore engineer student Maahi Saiyed as Korra.
The Comic-Con inspired event was initiated by the Mass Communication Club President Melika Mallahi, who also began the first Mini-Con in spring of last year.
Mallahi said the convention was a way to bring students of similar interests together and encourage them to participate in activities in a friendly environment.
She added that Mini-con’s success motivated them to go bigger and to collaborate with more university clubs to enhance the experience.
The event was a collaboration with seven clubs: the Japanese Club, the Korean Club, the Mass Communication Club, the Modern Visual Arts Club, the Astronomy Club, the Games Development Club, and the Tabletop Games Club.
These clubs also reached out to several sponsors, like Uprizing, who provided the arcade consoles, item machines, and even hosted giveaways. Aura Art Events, another sponsor, was responsible for the many decorations at the event, while Kimchi & More collaborated with the Korean Club to provide the food vendors, all of which would help flourish the event.
“Although this event has started as something small that I wanted to give to a niche community in AUS,” Mallahi added, “I hope that one day it will be a gateway to conventions in universities, with AUS hopefully being the first one to hold it before others follow along.”
