Anime Festival Asia 2009 Day 1

I just got home from the first day of Anime Festival Asia 2009 and here are the photos I’ve taken. First things first, this year’s event has been way more commercialized than the last with booths selling stuff everywhere and tons and tons more people. Cosplayers were also larger in number and dispersed randomly making it hard to take photos when you’re trying to do it among the crowds and the SLR-equipped folks. Nonetheless there are 132 images in the link below, so enjoy and please forgive me for some of the sloppy hit-and-run shots. As with my previous event coverage, click on the images for larger-resolution versions.

What I really hate about WordPress is how you have to manually insert every single photograph into an entry despite having bulk upload capability. I’m glad I churned out a little piece of code in MATLAB to help me automate this during the time it took to upload the photos muahahaha one thing from school that’s useful.

So besides the heavy commercialization and crazy crowds, I also forgot about Danny Choo’s appearance on stage. I did catch the last few minutes of his talk though. After that I was camping out at the concert venue with some of my party members to leech some music but got chased out by the organisers in the afternoon. So being dissatisfied that I forked out SGD$20 for a pretty unsatisfying day I roamed around to see if I could at least buy something from the event.

I hate to say it but you really get to see a lot of stereotyped otakus around – the kind that put people off or even in rare cases disgust them. Of course, it’s not as extreme as the OMG HUNCHED FAT SLR-EQUIPPED SCARY LOOKING FAT DUDE PHOTOSHOPPED WITH SPECIAL FORCES picture but it’s getting there. You also realise that because of the otaku lifestyle, some of these otaku have developed many interesting social behaviour patterns, one of my favourite being decreased social inhibition. I’m not saying it’s bad to be forthcoming in a largely reserved, inconsiderate and apathetic society that most Singaporeans belong to, but if a stereotypical-looking otaku went up to a complete stranger and his/her party and joined their conversation in such a “forthcoming” way, the stranger would be creeped out. No wonder otakus get such a bad name.

Later in the evening there was a line for the public audience to view the concert but it grew so long so my party gave up and had dinner instead.

I’m going to AFA! :D

Screw the exams, I’m going to AFA!

Gundam Fiesta 2009

This event is currently held in Singapore from 2 – 14 September. I thought I would be missing out on it since school took up all my free time. Today I had a pretty useless make-up lecture in the afternoon and decided to just go take a peek there when it ended. I didn’t expect to get anything since I’m now a student and not paying taxes to the government, and most of the event-limited stuff would probably be sold out long ago.

Indeed, I left without buying anything. Tons of people were snapping up the limited edition kits and the MG Sinanju. I wish I had some dough.

Warning: very long article – 166 photos ahead! Click on them for larger-sized ones! You know you want to once you go all the way down the article

Anime Festival Asia 2008

I was lucky to go for this event for a short while with a few friends and I snapped a few miserable-looking photos. Nonetheless I’ll still post them up here. You can see them posing with the cosplayers and stuff. By the way, I left the place with a 1/100 00 Gundam GET!!

edit: Re-uploaded the pictures to include captions and stuff. Am currently being annoyed by WordPress appending 1’s and 2’s to my pictures.

Awesome guy in a light-up Exia costume being mobbed by tons of photographers outside the entrance.

This statue greeted visitors near the entrance.

Takashimaya opened a booth near the entrance and they were making big bucks out of all the merchandise on sale which although were labelled “Offer” but were far from it. Here’s a shot of the SIC Limited Edition Den-O Rod and Ax Form going for $80 SGD. If I started on this, I will lose even more dough.

Then, 00 Gundam get! Couldn’t resist its light-up GN Drives. There is also another surprise about it that was just unearthed by some Japanese modellers. Very very exciting!

People were scrambling to snap pictures of the SD Exia at the Rapid Culture booth I couldn’t get a decent one.

Domo-kun at the Odex booth.

Kotobukiya’s 1/144 Daizengar at the Toy ‘N Toys booth.

Kotobukiya’s non scale Daizengar and Aussenseiter.

The awesome RAH Masked Riders. From left, Super-1, newly-released ZX and Black, Skyrider and Stronger.

On to the large Bandai booth.

Bandai’s GFF Metal Composite Gundam Ver.Ka and G Fighter.

Casval’s Custom Gundam.

Tamashii Spec Eva 00.

Tamashii Spec Eva 01.

Tamashii Spec Eva 03.

Tamashii Spec Eva 04.

Tamashii Spec Evas 01, 00 and 02.

SIC Masked Rider Black, Black RX and Shadow Moon.

SIC Masked Rider Kuuga and Blade (Jack Form). Once again nothing new.

The prototype model for SIC Masked Rider Zeronos and Deneb Imagin.

The current Den-O SIC lineup.

SIC Masked Rider Chalice and Joker. Notice the error on the info card.

SIC Masked Rider Faiz and Wolf Orphenoch.

Kabuto movie SHF figures, soon to be released.

More Kabuto Riders drool.

The rest of the current SHF lineup. They forgot about Kick and Punch Hoppers. Someday I’ll lay my hands on Rider 2.

Robot Spirits lineup.

Next up are the entries for the Singapore BAKUC gunpla competition.

Now on to the gunpla at the Bandai booth.

Painted MG Sinanju Ver.Ka.

1/100 O Riser/Raiser/Raizer, 00 Gundam and Action Base 1 Celestial Being Ver. They will come in a set in December. The O Riser/whatever spelling will also go on sale separately at 1260 yen. Thank goodness.

MG Gundam Ver.2.0.

The exclusive gunpla on sale. The 1/60 Gundam Exia Trans-Am Mode Clear Ver. was completely snapped up. The MG G-3 Gundam was also popular.

This is the winner of last year’s BAKUC competition rushing a PG Strike Gundam in 2 days.

Now on to the cosplay. There were several cosplayers scattered throughout the area. There may be more on Sunday as the cosplay competition is held.

Wasn’t on time to get a good shot of the cute Vocaloid Kagamine Rin posing with a little girl.

Well done CC and Lelouch cosplay. One day I should haul my lazy ass and start watching Code Geass.

Kakashi from Naruto. Never watched it, never will.

Awesome Sol Badguy cosplay. Reminds me of the days when we played Guilty Gear in school.

Managed to snap a picture of the man in the Exia suit on my way out. Look at his light-up GN Drive!

Len and Rin! Well done.

This mysterious cosplayer pays homage to the early days of Ranka Lee’s singing career. But why the covered face?!

Even younger kids are getting on the action. I think the girl on the left actually had red contact lenses, unless it was the red-eye effect.

My friend and his sister couldn’t resist not taking a picture with these two girls.

A failed attempt at strafing the humongous crowd waiting to get their tickets and go in. I think it was around 3pm that time.

One last picture of more cute cosplaying.