Furu Anime Panikku

It’s past mid-November, which means that it’s time for AFA again. Bah, why do I even have to say this. Most people who are reading this would have been there.

I may not be a fan of K-ON, but this Japanese Mio’s cute

I didn’t manage to attend AAC ‘09 which was held on 20th November as I had school. School sucks. It was a real pity that I missed out on it as I heard that it was a rather enriching experience. You certainly couldn’t expect less from an industry talk. You can find out more about the event from Darkmirage’s coverage.

My event posts have often been a huge messy ramble, and I don’t really like that. Hence, I shall take up a neater, categorised approach towards this AFA ‘09 post.

Booths

The booths at AFA ‘09 were pretty much similar to last years, with some additions. As usual, there are the booths selling goods that anime fans would like to get their hands on.

The official AFA shop was where the various CDs for the concert artistes were sold. Also, Danny Choo’s Otacool was sold here too. Just moments before Nakagawa Shoko’s autograph session on day 1, this place was swarmed with fans.

KKnM had a really insane queue throughout the entire event. The queue just never seems to end. At such an anime convention, most fans would probably be in the mood to spend without holding back. At the end of the day, both the booth owners and customers are happy, so everyone wins and no one is bothered about the crazy queue.

The COSPA booth seemed like they had pretty good business going on. I’m certain that it’s because of the cosplayers tending to the booth. Danny Choo’s Mirai shirts seem to have a following among the customers.

The UCC Evangelion coffee was tempting. My collection lacks the series that was on sale, but I gave up on the idea of completing my collection. Knowing how they milk the cash cow, my collection will eventually be incomplete when they release the next series.

Danny’s booth was swarmed with fanboys when he was in the area. Other than that, most people were there to snap some figurine shots.

Hosoda Mamoru had an autograph session at his booth on day 1 for the first 15 people who bought the artbook. I’m looking forward catching Summer Wars when it gets released in local cinemas.

Storm Lion’s booth companion. She was giving out free paper bags which could be spotted just about everywhere.

Bandai’s Gundam area was pretty much similar to last year’s. I’ve never been much of a Gundam fan since my preferences seem to steer towards more unique mecha designs, but as if you are a Gundam fan, you might love this area.

I freaking love Karaoke, especially when I’m in Japan hanging out with my friends. This area comprised of mass singing sessions. While I’m no decent singer, I cringed a little when I walked past a couple of times. Of course, there were a few decent or good ones at the microphone. The song library was pretty limited, but the popular anisong favourites were present to please the crowd. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard God Knows from this booth.

Stage Events

This year’s stage surpassed the stage last year. If my memory serves well, the stage was slightly bigger, and the free standing area had expanded too. Out of all the stage events, I stood in for the Regional Cosplay Championship, Danny Choo’s talk and the K-ON! seiyuu dubbing and Q&A session.

Regional Cosplay Championship

I’ve never really had a good impression of stage cosplay. The skits always came across to me as lame. However, for the first time at AGA ‘09, I’ve witnessed great cosplay on stage. The costumes and skits were on a higher plane as compared to what I’ve been seeing before. As expected of a regional level competition.

The judges were pushing most of the commenting role to Kaname, since he came all the way from Japan. I wonder if he’s a full time cosplayer/model, or if he does other jobs too.

Danny snapping a shot of the judging panel

Out of all the contestants, the Witchblade team had the most support from the crowd because majority were male. As usual, sex appeal sells, not that I’m saying that they aren’t good. They are, and so were all the other teams. However, my favourite one was the Houshin Engi team from Thailand. Their mounts were just too awesome.

Everyone gets a hug from Kaname while he gave out the certificates. Most of the female cosplayers were excited like fangirls, but I wouldn’t be surprised since he’s such an ikemen. Kaname’s hug with the Exia was amusing.

By the way, 00 Emotions won both the costume and overall prize because that mobile suit whoops ass.

Danny Choo

If you’ve attended any of Danny’s talks before, the content is pretty much the same, with some minor changes here and there, as well as newer content whenever he has something to add. Even though this isn’t my first time hearing him present, I must say that he does have a way to engage the audience real well.

K-ON! Seiyuus

No photos for this section as photography was prohibited, but some guy beside me was sneaking shots like firing a machine gun. Typical Singaporeans… Anyway, the live dubbing session was so close to the original that you would think that they were just lip syncing if not for some minor changes they made, such as mentioning Singapore. That probably speaks some volume of their skill. The Q&A session, just like any other, was probably diplomatically scripted, which took the fun out of it. Oh well.

Oh, and Mio’s seiyuu was absent.

Cosplay

As usual, the area was flooded with cosplayers and photographers. However, unlike AFA ‘08, majority of the cosplayers were not hanging out around on the same floor as the event hall. Instead, they’ve extended their territory into the a level below. This made moving around easier, and if you wanted to snap some shots, you wouldn’t need to go around searching for the cosplayers. This also meant that those who came only for the cosplay photo taking wouldn’t need to pay the entrance fee.

I’ve not been watching anime or following the scene for quite some time already. That explains the problem I have when it comes to recognising characters.

Was she ever this pale?

There were quite a few K-ON! groups lurking around

It’s been ages since I last played TF2. Anyone interested?

I like that funky looking beam gun.

I like this cosplay. His wings are wickedly badass

Ranka and Sheryl clones roam free

I have no idea who is what character in Claymore. They all look the same.

I didn’t really spot any roaming cosplayer that made me want to post multiple shots of him/her/it from various angles this time. Maybe, just maybe the Mio in the first image of this entry, but after that shot, she disappeared for good. That’s funny since I’m supposed to be dissing K-ON!.

I Love Anisong Concert

Similar to the K-ON! event, I don’t have any photos for the concert simply because I play by the rules when it comes to photography at concerts, and I’d rather enjoy the performance rather than trying to snap some pathetic shots while avoiding getting caught.

It turned out that even without buying a ticket, you could still watch the concerts from the free standing area. To get the front position in the free standing area without a concert ticket, you had to queue about 2 hours or more before the concert. I only attended May’n and Fukuyama Yoshiki’s concert held on day 2.

While the sound quality was vastly improved since last year’s concert, there is still room for improvement. I’ve heard that those at the back can only hear the music but not the singer’s voice too clearly.

Fukuyama Yoshiki sang a couple of songs along with the music, followed by playing the acoustic guitar to accompany his singing. He didn’t stay too long on stage, but I really like that he was the first artiste in the history of AFA to play an instrument during the performance. I just have a thing for musicians who perform live. I suppose the rabid fans who went wild with their yells of support for him would agree with me on this.

May’n came out next and started singing and dancing to her new non-anime related songs. It was mostly promotion for her upcoming album, and compared to last year, there was a slightly increased focus placed on the dancers. Out of the songs she sang, only 1 got me interested, which is quite a pity considering the Macross Frontier songs which she sang were pretty good Japanese Pop. She should really work with Kanno Yoko if the chance arises again. After 7 songs or so, she started singing Macross Frontier songs. That was when the crowd regained its’ vigour. Ending off with 射手座☆午後九時 Don’t be late, May’n retreated back stage.

But that was not the end. Moments later, after multiple chants of　「もう一回」, she came out together with Fukuyama Yoshiki and his guitar for their duet. The acoustic version of Diamond Crevasse was stunningly breathtaking. That song alone was justify attending the live concert. Simply amazing.

When everyone was still in the daze of the previous song, they did a Macross 7 song, Dynamite Explosion, to end off the concert as well as AFA ‘09. I’m not a fan of that song, but Diamond Crevasse was satisfied me so I have no complaints.

Final Thoughts on AFA ‘09

While it would be lying to say that I’ve not enjoyed myself at the event, there’s still something that can be improved.

In my opinion, there’s too much filler events on the stage. I’ve counted, and for about a total of 7 hours for both days, most of the stage had events that majority of the crowd wouldn’t care about, such as the prize presentation ceremonies. I was disappointed with the absence of talks/interviews such as Morimoto Kouji’s and Okawara Kunio’s. Those are the things which I really loved from AFA ‘08. I hope such stage events will be revived.

That aside, it’s great that cosplay now has a floor of its’ own, even though it may be unofficial. While something like an area with a white screen setup with studio lighting which the STGCC had would be awesome, it just wouldn’t be feasible due to space constraints.