Animagic 1999! Where do I even start.
The very first Animagic was held from 6th till the 8th of August 1999 in the Rhein-Mosel-Halle in Koblenz and according to the article in the magazine Animania, which organized the convention there were over 4.000 visitors.
It was the first big Anime and Manga convention in Germany and is still held yearly over 20 years later. It showed that there were enough Manga/Anime fans in Germany for conventions to become a thing. Many other conventions followed its footsteps.
The event was advertised in the one and only Anime and Manga magazine of that time we had in Germany starting from issue 3/99 (May/June). An Early bird ticket for all three days and a T-Shirt was 69 DM (that's deutsche Mark, the currency before we got the Euro). The price after June 1rst was 99 DM, that would be 82€ today aftter inflation.
In the next issue 4/99 they published the prices for each single day. For some reason Karaoke got canceled but now the Animagic even got a homepage.
I started reading the AnimaniA in sommer of 1997 (so two years prior) and devoured every new issue and every snippet of Manga and Anime I could find. As you can imagine a whole three day event devoted to my new favourite hobby sounded like heaven. I was hyped! I wanted to go so bad! I was also underage...but Animania even thought of that. The Sailor Moon hype was real and with it came many younger Anime fans, so there was a cheaper ticket options for parents.
So, the reason I was able to visit my first convention was thanks to my parents. They booked a hotel in Koblenz and while they did some sight-seeing for most of the time I got to enjoy being thrown into a whole new world.
So, how was the first ever Animagic? Here are some pages from the full color convention guide.
The editorial is written in the typical casual style Animania readers were familiar with.
The guests of honor were legendary director Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop came out a year prior in Japan) and Takehiko Matsumoto whose Manga drawing course was being published in the Animania magazine at that time.
In 1999 VHS was the medium to watch movies. VHS were expensive and Anime VHS even more so. You also had to drive to bigger cities to find stores that sold them or order them via mail order. So it's no wonder Anime screenings were much more popular than they are today.
Not only were there many videorooms that showed many Anime at Animagic but there were also screenings at a nearby cinema. That was when I watched princess Mononoke first the first time and on a big screen. I was really blown away! It was an experience I still vividly remember today.
Tabletop games were always something I wanted to try out, but was hard to get into as a complete noob.
The main events were shown at the "Festsaal" at a big stage. And the crowd was wild and cheering like crazy. There was the Sailor Moon musical by the showgroup Tsuki no Senshi that is still doing performances in 2025! They started the showact trend with different groups forming in the following years. Even I got caught up with one.
So what are showgroups in the context of the Anime scene? Well, a group of amateur fans that get together to write, choreograph and perform stageplay and/or dances to different Anime including making all the costumes. Some focused more on dancing, some more on acting to varying degrees of quality.
Another big thing that started here was the costume contest. Acording to the issue 5/99 of the Animania magazine there were 73 participants with Sailor Moon clearly dominating. The winners were a trio of Final Fantasy VII Cosplayers (Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie) with an impressive Buster sword. That was all before wigs became a thing and noone had even heard of EVA foam and there were zero tutorials. The term cosplay wasn't yet etablished in germany, hence it was called "costume contest". Those 'costumes' and the contest became even bigger the next fear years and was one of the main attractions at Animagic. The competition got stronger and stronger and the costumes better and better. It always was an amazing atmosphere with the whole crowd cheering like crazy when a cosplayer of a popular character or an especially impressive costume entered the stage. But more on later entries.
Lastly there was the auction! It was a big success with Wedding Peach cans going for 50 DM with a starting bid of 50 Pf (25cents), an Animagic T-Shirt with autographs of the guests going fo 70DM and a red Animagic Crew shirt signed by all the helpers going for 200 DM (acording to issue 6/99 of Animania). The auction was held the following years, too and was always a super fun event and good way to spend your last bit of money.
Here is the layout of the convention center. Actually quite big for a first first time convention.
The back of the convention guide showing the way to the convention center and the cinema.
To be honest, I don't quite remember what I watched and didn't watch at Animagic 1999, beside watching Princess Monoke. I hope it will come back to me or that I find a few photos to help my memory.
What I do remember is the the dealersroom you can see in the photos of the article in Animania 6/99 and those doors at the top photo. Having so much merch in one room was mind blowing for me.
I also still have the stuff my dad bought at a table! The latest issue of the FUNime the fanclub A.N.T. (Anime no tomodachi) released including a CD rom! Very nice!
