AsiaPOP Comicon Manila 2016 Highlights

The AsiaPOP Comicon Manila (APCC) is the Philippines’ version of San Diego Comic-Con. Although it’s obviously nowhere near as prestigious as SDCC and most major geek cons, it’s still an awesome scene and features some of the world’s best collectibles and celebrities. The second APCC was held last August 26 to 28. I attended its last day as part of my job at New Era Cap Philippines, which had a store at the convention.

The main attractions of this year’s APCC were Marvel’s Doctor Strange closed door presentation, as well as actors Millie Bobby Brown – who played Eleven in Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things – and Nicholas Hoult, who of course plays Beast in the X-Men movies. I caught glimpses of both actors, but these videos by YouTuber JRhyan appear to show most of their respective interviews at the convention.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend Marvel’s Doctor Strange presentation, but Morning News USA says the 1,000 people who were lucky enough to get in were shown a 7-minute clip and a new trailer for the movie. Twitter user duskybatfishgirl echoes my envy and hype:

TFW you see all the ecstatic #DoctorStrange tweets from #asiapopcomicon and it's beautiful… pic.twitter.com/9zWMbrWLBb

— duskybatfishgirl (@duskybatfishgrl) August 28, 2016

Moving on, these recaps by YouTubers Spidermags and PacoMNL share most of what was on the show floors.

Finally, below are some of the pictures I took at the convention. In terms of action figures and collectibles, Funko’s POP! had the most exposure, and they didn’t even have a booth. It’s just that most of the stores at the convention had dozens of POP!s for sale or on display. But big hitters like Hot Toys, XM, Prime 1 and Sideshow Collectibles were represented by stores too. Gundam, Nendoroid, Revoltech, Jada Toys, Marvel and DC merchandise were also at the convention.

The highlights of this year’s APCC for me are Philippine Wrestling Revolution’s pro wrestling fights, Marvel’s 1/12 scale model of the Captain America bronze statue, XM Studio’s 1/4 scale Daredevil statue, Sideshow Collectibles’ life-size Thing bust, the Nendoroid Saitama that I bought, and last but not least, Image co-founder Whilce Portacio, who was kind enough to sign my cap and take a picture with me. Hopefully I’ll be at next year’s APCC as well and have a more comprehensive recap for you guys.