Anime Festival Asia 2009

AFA09

I just woke up with a throbbing headache. I feel like I’ve spent the past two days walking. Of course, this comes nowhere close to the time when I queued overnight in the winter rain for Comiket 73 and fell asleep on Big Sight’s ice-cold wet concrete floor. That was just crazy.

AFA 09 has finally come and gone. I went for both days of the event and managed to get a decent feel of the whole thing, though I did end up spending most of that time chatting with people and taking pictures of cosplayers outside the event hall. I also managed to catch the concert by May’n and Yoshiki Fukuyama, a pretty worthy climax for my AFA experience.

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On the whole, I think AFA 09 improved from last year. The use of space in the event hall was much better and the level of industry participation was also noticeably higher.

Unlike last year, there weren’t any odd empty spaces in the booth layouts this time, partly because the stage area was expanded and isolated from the rest of the event hall. This made the concerts more professional and authentic, but on the flip side made the whole event seem less lively. On-stage events in the afternoon, such as the regional cosplay competition and the live-dubbing session by the K-On! cast (most of it anyway), drew considerable crowds away from the main event hall.

Ideally the huge black curtain separating the stage area from the rest of the event should only be there for the evening concerts, but I guess that’s logistically infeasible.

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Bandai had a pretty prominent exhibition area celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gundam. There were some event-exclusive and early-release Gunpla models too. I spent 15 minutes watching a video on the construction of the 1:1 Gundam that was recently assembled in Odaiba. It’s pretty amazing to watch these engineers and technicians put something like that together from scratch. Watching them fine-tune the speed of the Gundam’s head rotation and adjust the positions of the jet exhausts makes me feel kind of funny inside. I think the next closest thing I can think of is watching Disney Imagineers at work.

You know, the feeling that after these people have grown up, gone through college and become professional engineers in various fields, they can take the serious stuff they have learnt and use it to create something born from childhood wonder. It’s magical.

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Danny Choo had a booth collaboration with Good Smile Company where all the usual (figurine) suspects could be found. He was also helping to promote Otacool, a book published by Kotobukiya that compiles photos of “otaku rooms” from all over the world. It’s like a printed copy of the internet! I think it’s about time someone did something like this for epic 4chan posts that are of historical significance to serve as primary sources for future O-level source-based questions. (“What is Anonymous and what do they not do?”)

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I have this one. Yay!

Interestingly, COSPA has decided to set up a South-East Asian branch, COSPA SEA. Damn it man. It’s already hard enough as it is to wear a COSPA shirt to a local event without bumping into someone else wearing the exact same shirt. Back in the old days we had to physically fly to Japan to get our COSPA shirts and they were like rare Epic loot. Young anime fans these days have it too good. *Swings walking cane around wildly*

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I hereby proclaim Shirt.Woot the next indie mass-market apparel trend for geeks. Considering they still do not ship to Singapore and will unlikely do so in the near future, our bought sense of individuality should be safe for some time.

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Tatsunoko Production

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Local comic Freedom Formula — soon to be a major Hollywood production

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Hottarake no Shima — Production I.G.’s new family-friendly box office release

During Production I.G.‘s presentation on Friday, the speaker mentioned that the studio was founded by people who, having seen how girls are drawn to men who do sports, poetry, etc., decided that they want to make anime that can help them score with chicks. (I imagine telling a girl that you were responsible for a scene in Kill Bill can be quite a turn on.)

And having successfully achieved their primary goal, many of them are now happily married and starting families. Hottarake no Shima (Oblivion Island) is the result of that transformation. Heh.

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Summer Wars — coming to a Cathay cinema soon

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Storm Lion booth babes

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Animax Asia live broadcasting

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Doujin merchandises

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Doujin posters

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Moe Moe Kyun maid cafe

Danny drew quite a crowd when he went into the maid cafe in his Storm Trooper armour. All the maids were fighting to serve him. ;)

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Reine Hibiki (illustrator for Marimite light novels) autograph session

And finally, the cosplay photos. I know I say this after every cosplay event, but AFA 09 has finally made me decide to buy an external flash for my Canon 400D. Eventually. Yeah.

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A familiar face

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GO GO POWER RANGERS

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Hetalia will be the cause of WWIII

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She’s Japanese

That reminds me. Speaking of K-On!, there was a live on-stage dubbing demonstration by the seiyuu cast on Sunday. Four of the girls were present. Guess who was missing? It was Yoko Hikasa, the voice of Mio. The audience was noticeably shocked and confused when this was finally revealed.

The session still went great and watching the voice actresses do their job was pretty interesting. The fans, once they got over the initial shell shock, responded quite positively. As a bonus, I found it amusing to observe the reactions that took place immediately following the unexpected revelation. In fact, I was kind of waiting for it to happen. I am a bad person. :(

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Okay, so we all know that I’m probably never going to buy an external flash and when the next cosplay event comes around, I’ll be back here posting under-exposed and out-of-focus photos again. Damn my lack of willpower.

I missed the concert on Saturday but managed to catch the one on Sunday. Although better than last year, the acoustics still left much to be desired this time. Most of the vocals were hard to make out over the loud synthesized pop tracks and the booming bass speakers that were pointed right at me.

May’n performed a few of her latest non-anime songs before ending off with Northern Cross, Lion and Iteza Gogo Kuji Don’t be late. The crowd, being who we are, reacted much more favourably to her Macross F songs. Yoshiki Fukuyama’s performance was more audible, partly because he has a louder voice and partly because he played his own chords on a guitar.

The best part of the concert was of course the two duets May’n and Fukuyama performed for the encore. Fukuyama did an impressive rendition of Diamond Crevasse on his guitar and sang along with May’n during the chorus, and May’n did a surprisingly good job with Dynamite Explosion from Macross Dynamite 7. Personally, I was looking forward to a Totsugeki Love Heart duet, but I guess I shouldn’t be greedy. Music — the one good thing about Macross 7.

That about concludes my AFA 09 coverage. Now I shall pray to the great Cherokee gods for Maaya Sakamoto to come to AFA 10.

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21 Responses to Anime Festival Asia 2009

  1. Pingback: BlogLinkJapan » Anime Festival Asia 2009

  2. padpod says:

    Sucks that I didn’t make it, but heard it was awesome.

    Looks like the cosplay standard has been improving. Is it cuz there have been so many events in Singapore for their practice? Lol.

    Hope that AFA10 will invite Ishikawa Chiaki. :D

    Since you missed the first concert, which was most probably Miku, guess you didn’t see it but I heard that Miku LAGGED. Lol, imho it’s on par with that BSOD at the Beijing Olympics. Somebody’s laptop needs a ram upgrade.

  3. Riddos says:

    nice pics, i was there too. walking around for 2 days is really back-breaking – for someone who did not exercise for couple of years.

    Cosplays are decent this year, omg misa is cute. Saturday was flooded with Miku cosplay, like everywhere you turn there is one. I was quite surprised when there were 2 Black Rock Shooter cosplays, even though the anime is not even aired. well, she looks like miku, therefore instant fame.

    all in all, it was a great experience, definitely looking forward to AFA10. aya hirano prz.

  4. Senkai says:

    lol the sat concert pales in comparison to the sunday one. Miku only performed 3 songs and overall the the atmosphere on sunday was much better, perhaps due to the songs ;)

  5. AK says:

    “As a bonus, I found it amusing to observe the reactions that took place immediately following the unexpected revelation. In fact, I was kind of waiting for it to happen.”

    You were not alone. Crowd behaviour, especially Singaporean otaku crowd behaviour, is predictable much.

  6. omo says:

    The lack of coverage of the K-ON seiyuu is kind of interesting. maybe i’m stalking the wrong blogs.

    By the way I also went “!!!!!” when I found out Hikasa wasn’t there.

  7. Rakugakid says:

    Sigh, couldn’t go this year because of A levels but probably going next year. Thanks for your post anyway =) Much more informative than what they covered on channel 8

  8. Kay says:

    I went, but only on Sat. Took a bunch of photos but mostly of the…figures inside. I took a video as well but meh, it’s just random clips. I’ve only put up 10 minutes of it though. I didn’t particularly find much good cosplays inside, but it looks like most of them were mingling outside >..>. I was a little disappointed though…there wasn’t any goodie bag T_T.

  9. Fate says:

    If Maaya Sakamoto does come, i wonder how much will the ticket price be up.

  10. Tsubaki says:

    I cringe at the photos. You have been sloppy with your skills my young padawan!

  11. Ryan K says:

    the concert was even better from B12. and getting the autograph. hehehhe.

  12. SheerBoredom says:

    I want the Saber model. XD

    That Soi-Fon cosplay is awesome.

  13. Ubiquitial says:

    the lighting in the photos aren’t that great, I must admit. But otherwise, nice post.

  14. Hirobot says:

    AFA09 was totally awesome! I can’t believe it’s over! I’m looking forward to next years event!

  15. xArrion says:

    AFA 09 was great , only bad side of it were the queues, you had to queue for practically everything.Seems like my first otaku event has given me the knowledge of lining up and the goodies you get from it.Any one saw Danny Choo at the cafe?

  16. Rein says:

    Why didn’t you cover the cosplay competition and kaname?! D= *fangirl desires not satisfied* lol

  17. Pingback: Anime Festival Asia 2009: Summarized in Ten Photos | Armchair Otaku

  18. Steve says:

    Haha!! I see Franky of One Piece there.. Nice custome and pose =D

  19. looks pretty awesome. I went to my first anime convention this year (not as amazing as AFA) but it was pretty awesome, i think i’ll try and attend more! lelouch-kun!

  20. Pingback: The Eternally Scarlet Moon » AFA09: Getting Better

  21. Pingback: Placeholder for AFA09 « Art in Movement

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