I attended the Anime Festival Asia 2013 last weekend. And for the first time in a long while, I was able to reach the event by 1:30pm.
Unlike Saturday, I didn't have any special agenda and thus could roam as I wanted. Sunday saw a lot more familiar cosplayers than Saturday and I had a wonderful time catching up with my friends.
However the crowd was relentless, specially on Saturday! Level 3 of Suntec was so jammed i almost felt suffocated. I've also been bumped into more times than I can remember.
Oh well, its a nostalgic sight I guess but let's move on to the exhibition hall itself.
Valrave~
I found the event hall a lot more enjoyable than previous years. Partly because it is bigger but more because of the activities happening all around. I actually purchased the stage+hall pass and entered the stage only for the AFARCC -_-; next year I need to enter the stage area earlier so I can watch some screenings and get my money's worth!
Anyway I digressed!
There were many off stage activities happening and everywhere i walked i felt like there was something for me to do. Let me recount a few of my experiences.
Horipro mini stage. When I was there, May'n came and did signings. Sorry no photographs of her and the signings because I couldn't get a shot.
The Hello Japan Booth. They were actively giving out goodie bags and while it only contained publicity collaterals, at least the bag was cute and useful.
They also had a song and dance performance by their very own mascot. The fanboys evidently had a lot of fun while we had fun watching them watch the mascot idol dancing xD
The Animax booth. They had a photo studio for friends and families to take professional photos together. They also gave out a Space Danny paper bag. The queue was too much for me so I didn't get the bag nor photo. But from the queue it seemed like people really liked it.
They also invited veteran seiyuus to promote Space Danny, an upcoming anime. The invited Seiyuus were Junichi Suwabe and Yurin from Japan and sooooo many of my friends were fangirling over them (Suwabe especially xD). 20 lucky fans were able to take a photo with them and obtain their autograph. And I know of a friend who did everything she could to be among the 20 xD
The Canon booth. The Canon booth have become a highlight of Afa with their lovely photo studio and A4 print out every year. This year, they had 3 full screens/studios of different back drop and by the sheer scale of matters, I think they have outdone themselves this year. If I came as a family, having such professionally printed photo and frame would make such a precious souvenir. Something worth keeping and reminiscing for a long time. I wasn't cosplaying and I was alone so I was too shy to join :(
I didn’t inspect this wall that day but it seemed to be a collage of the printouts from the photographs taken at the studios in the event. Such a small marketing move! And I apologise for all my sucky event photographs =( It’s really difficult to shoot with Prosumer camera in a low light environment and I felt so pissed off with my Canon G12 on numerous accounts. Ironic for me to be complaining about my Canon camera in the midst of talking about the Canon booth I know zzz
The canon mini stage itself was packed with activities. The Sunday afternoon I was there, I saw Reika on stage for a photo-moment and I saw Viv (?) performing live to a bunch of very enthusiastic fans.
The entire event was very star studded with autograph sessions or photo-opp happening every other moment xD
AOP having an autograph session for fans who purchased their cds.
There were also numerous fan-greet or photo session with the the guest Cosplayers. I managed to only caught Kaname who was at the Star Child booth.
The Shingeki no Kyojin experience zone!!!
Riding on the popularity of SNK, the event organizers had a corner just for fans to take photographs with the colossal Titan head. The colossal Titan head is made to scale and definitely attracted a lot of attention.
Viospace even cosplayed as Hanji to take this shot xD
Here are some size comparison photographs to show you how big it actually is!
The Titan sculpture is made of air and sustained through electricity. At one point something went wrong and the entire Titan started to lose gas
The SAO and School Idol project wall papers. The prints and colours and everything were so nice ! Having anime print outs at Events is nothing new but the scale and quality of it makes a difference. This wallpaper allows for many photo opportunities and fun.
As an SAO fan I was also squealing inside to see a cardboard standee of Asuna and Kirito xD
The Kitkat and Nescafé booth. Nescafé has been a long time beverage sponsors at local events and they are a welcomed refreshment. I wasn't able to get a cup this time as the queue was way too long.
But I did managed to take a photo with the Kitkat girls and also got myself 2 kit kats ! I love freebies >3!
Unlike previous years, Afa this year also had a food corner. Japanese snacks and beverages such as Takoyaki, Taiyaki and green tea were sold. The food were way too expensive for me ($7 takoyaki :(!? ) so I only bought a bottle of green tea. It was an authentic Japanese green tea that I saw everywhere in Japan, in every vending machines and it brings back so much nostalgia to see it in Singapore !
There was also a Japanese drum arcade machine for the event attendees to play for free. As you can tell from the queue, people liked it despite the long waiting time. Maybe next year they should bring more machines in
Danny Choo’s Culture Japan booth!
The event hall turned out bigger than I expected and I regret not dedicating more time to it. I just wanted to be a casual event attendee that day so I leisurely strolled out. Henceforth I missed out a lot of stuffs and won’t be commenting on some of the photos I took.
This booth seemed to be promoting some sort of app that allows you to customise your smatphone into a PMMM theme.
Anime wallpapers!
There was also a booth to promote 3D printer and personalised figurine sculpting services !!! Felt so amazed *_*
However the biggest highlight(for me!) was some of the things churned out by the fans.
Shinji went around camwhoring with people and instead of setting it to photo mode, dude went to set it to video mode. Looking at more than 10minutes of innocent victims with their mouth frozen in assorted poses was one of the funniest thing I have ever seen. Shinji’s epic troll expression was the icing on the cake 8D
Read and see more photos here : LINK!
I also went to bed with Tachibana Makoto and it was freeeeeeeeee LOLLL. Nerin , Choberibad and Onimusha set up this little booth on level 3 and continuously pimped their product to every random victim passerby xD I'm not a BL fan but it was still hilarious. To see all the photos of Makoto's one night day stand candidates go check out the Facebook group xD
Overall , this was my best AFA experience by far and I look forward to more next year. Cosplay photographs to come next!
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