Alright grab a chair cause this is gonna be a long post. I just came back from anime festival asia today and am as tired as fuck, so im gonna mosey on and do something lazy.
This is my 1st year at the AFA, and boy, it is amazing. Didnt noe that singapore would have soooooooo many anime fans! The place was like, mother farking packed!!! We were pratcially like canned sardines. Without further ado, here it is, my day at the AFA 2010. ( All pictures were shot on scene in real life, though my camera skills may not be too good so bear with the pictures).
Okay so I promised to meet my friend at the convention center, where this was supposed to be held. The thing was at 10am, yet my friend told me to meet him at 8am. I thought he was retarded, to go there 2 hours earlier. Anyway I woke up late and took a cab there as I didnt want to keep him waiting, when i reached the place and looked around for my friend, I saw tons of people cosplaying as hatsune miku and some other vocaloids. Only 1 word, awesome.
Anyway I saw my friend and we went to buy some tickets, but, to my dismay.....the place was packed. The queue was tremendous! Due to some blogger issues I couldnt upload a vidoe I took featuring me walking from the beggining of the queue to the end, its frigging amazing! Added all together and when placed in a straight line, its easily longer than a chinese mystical dragon. And the stupid thing is, we were 2 hours early! These guys must have came here at like 6am or something.
So we queued and we queued while I played my PSP to pass time. Unfortunately I 4get to charge the damn thing before leaving and it flattened out after 10 minutes or so. Bummer. So at 9.30 am( thats 1 and a half hours of queueing), we were at the ticket counter. WOOOO. I bought some tickets for myself and for some of my other friends and brother, which were supposed to meet me later. While queuing we saw plenty of cosplayers! Some were awesome some were not, anyway that got me pumped! Without further ado we went inside.
So here we are! Straight up in the convention centre, at 9.40 am( I think they opened like 30 minutes earlier). The placed was fking crowded I could hardly move. When inside, i turned my head right, and there it was, the 1st thing I saw. The hatsune miku project diva arcade machine!!
OMG. I immediately snapped a pic, there it is, right in action. The graphics were awesome, but too bad, the queue for the game was equally horrendous to the queue outside, so I had to pass. Some other time maybe.
Cosplayers and otakus ahoy! The placed was filled with anime goodness, ranging from horny pillow casings to figurines. Some of the figurines are amazing, they are pretty damn tempting, its too bad majority of them cost over 50 bucks. I was stupid enough to bring only 50 bucks and I had no choice but to pass. I will bring more money next year for sure! Those black rock shooter figurines will be mine.
On a side note it seems the 2 most popular anime in singapore currently are black rock shooter and angel beats, and maybe some of K-on. Black rock shooter is EVERYWHERE. They have figurines displayed around like jewelry, they have posters, files, EVERYTHING. Angel beats was also pretty much in demand, with posters and posters and more posters. Same with K-on, but it seems to be slightly losing out to be angel beats. Them otakus are CRAZY, I think they spent over hundreds at the AFA today, carrying tons of bags with tons of goodies....damn I was pretty jealous.
AFA also had a column for artwork to be displayed. Some of these were amazing, I snapped a few quick shots of the best 2.
This is kinda blur, but well its was crowded and I coudlnt stay in 1 place for too long.
After we were out of the stage area we went back to the main attractions. There was a karaoke area where poeple would siing their favourite japanese songs, but it was too fking crowded to even snap a picture of anything. Then there was this. It was a car with a gundam do-over job. It was cool, but there was one with anime babes on it. That one I coudlnt get a shot of unfortunately, due to space constraint issues.
See how outragously packed it is???!?!! Otakus from all around, both male and female, were spread across the hundreds ( maybe close to a thousand) of seats. There even people standing and sitting on the floors due to the lack of seats. My god I have never seen so many people for an anime event. After some wait we got to see Jam project and ichirou mizuki on stage. The crowd went wild for jam project, people were shouting, screaming and raising thier hands like a bunch of rebels. And though ichirou mizuki was an old 50+ year old fella whom I tot wud have sucked, when he went on stage the crowd simply exploded. Altough he was 50, on stage he seemed like 20! He was bursting with energy, his voice simply echoed through the whole stage area! That was simply terrific, though they didnt sing any songs, since the anisong concert is on later in the day. * Quietly runs off to get some jam project and ichirou mizuki songs*
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Lastly, as the final "big" event of the day. We stayed at the stage area after the intro of the 2 artists. We actually just wanted to slack off in our seats, but minutes later, we were prepared for another shock. On stage then was kana hanazawa! Ok I thought the crowd reactions for jam project and ichirou mizuki were crazy, when kana hanazawa came on stage, the whole stage area crowd literally STOOD UP. Yeap, no1 was sitting on thier comfy chairs anymore. Everyone was standing to grab a look at the seiyuu that just arrived on stage. The whole damn thing was pretty hectic, and when she was doing LIVE lines on stage people totally hushed to hear her lines. Amazing! Finally when she was signing pieces of art for fans people were ESTATIC for them, they were literally SCREAMING.
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Theres really nothing much else to say, so heres some cosplay pics before I close off.
2 princesscy looking ladies from and unknown anime/game.
The varia in action!
Possibly one of the best fellas in the area. Sepiroth is the shit, that wing looks pretty damn real up close.
Probably 2 of the hottest cosplayers. They were followed EVERYWHERE, throughout the WHOLE DAY. Seriously they are pretty damn hot up close.
Taokaka! Kinda blur since I was kinda rushing against the crowd.
Kamen rider! They are pretty rare in the field this was the only pair around. And if you ask me they arent half bad.
Storm trooper from star wars and yumi from black rock shooter. This is mostly for yumi, shes a pretty good cosplayer, loving that scythe.
Lelouch and some random.......person. Mostly for lelouch.
5 girls prancing around, 4 of them surrounding one squatting on the floor looking cute. Not a bad group, they were like doing a mini skit lol.
Persona 4!!!! Nothing much to say here exepct greatness. Yosuke in my opinion is better than the MC cosplayer.
Kinda blur but the girl in the blue kimono is pretty hot. The other one isnt half bad too.
Oh fck yeah the bleach team. Looking pretty awesome. I would say halibel is the best looking among the bunch but shes currently being blocked by gin.
Heres a picture of it, kinda blur but it should be easy to see that its just a crazy girl trying to rip something up. Its really a work of art, its hanging up in my room now. Unfortunely I wont be going for the AFA's 2nd day due to homework -.-. So this is goodbye for now. I WILL BE BACK NEXT YEAR, WITH A CAMERA AND MORE MONEY.
