Anime Festival Asia 2008

Over. Singapore’s first anime convention is. It’s been an eventful two days and I’m quite happy with the way it ended. Now we can start looking forward to next year. Also, I just woke up and my head hurts.

Pre-Event

The convention area is divided into a few zones. The white rectangle at the bottom right is where the staff and invited guests rest. You can read up on more background information about the event from my past entries.

Again, the invited guests were May’n, Yasufumi Soejima, Koji Morimoto, Kunio Okawara, Ichiro Mizuki. I uploaded a YouTube video of the Q&A session on Saturday.

Crowd

The queue got better later in the day

Graphite drawing competition organized by NUS Anime Club

The stage area was always crowded whenever there was any performance. My 17-50mm lens couldn’t get any picture of what went on. There was a cosplay competition on the second day.

It’s a sign

Ultraman vs. a furry teddy bear

Also, since I was using a DSLR with no live preview, I had to shoot blind while holding it above the crowd.

Displays

Genius Party concept art

Koji Morimoto

There’s a display for Studio 4°C’s Genius Party. Koji Morimoto was there on Saturday for an hour to sign GP merchandises.

Animax Asia showcasing LaMB, their first in-house production

Yasufumi Soejima

LaMB is Animax Asia’s first in-house production and it is being produced right here in Singapore. It’s a one-hour sci-fi anime movie with storyboard by Yasufumi Soejima, a former GONZO animator.

I want this… D:

The figurine displays drew a constant crowd. Although the whole thing was handled by a local distributor, there were Japanese representatives from Good Smile Company and others around, and apparently they were quite impressed by the turnout. Bodes well for the future. ;)

Event limited 1/60 Exia Trans-Am mode

Airbrushing demonstration

Those of you waiting for episode 8 review can make do with this

Bandai and Gundam have quite a presence at the event because Bandai recently set up an Asian branch in Singapore. No questions were asked about why there were so many Gundam 00 fans in Singapore when the show is not available here. *cough*

Imaginary Friends Studios’ display at NUS Graphite

Pepper

Pepper too

There were many pieces from Imaginary Friends Studios on display both at their own both and at the NUS Graphite booth. IFS is a Singaporean art studio with an impressive repertoire and has many major foreign clients such as Electronic Arts (e.g. Mirror’s Edge), Intel, Nokia, DC Comics and Penny Arcade.

I bought a copy of their latest release, The Pepper Project, which is a compilation of artworks featuring Pepper, the mascot character created by Artgerm aka Stanley Lau, the head of IFS. I got him to sign my copy.

Some works from Collateral Damage Studios

Yes May’n signed it

Anime showcases from everyone’s favourite company

Hehe

Seriously though, Odex did a decent job

Local distributor Chuangyi Comics

Some manga-related displays

Cosplay

I apologize for my poor photography as usual… I should really get around to getting a Speedlite. If only some kind soul would donate a 580 EX to me. My birthday is in January by the way. :D

Awesome

It’s running away

This can only mean one thing: giant cockroaches

Miku got a haircut

Concert

Ichiro Mizuki performed on Saturday night and May’n performed on Sunday night.

I didn’t attend Mizuki’s concert but I heard it was pretty awesome. I did watch him perform during rehearsal on Friday and during the cosplay competition on Sunday. (He was one of the judges.)

Waiting for May’n

I did attend May’n’s concert. It was one of the most awesome moments of the past year and a perfect end to the event. Her stage presence is truly captivating and her vocals are the real deal. I was standing right at the front and the atmosphere was just perfect. Sheryl Nome was on stage.

Unfortunately, photography was banned during her concert so I don’t have anything for you to see, especially since I was at the front where all the staff members were…

Okay just kidding. I have obtained some top secret photographs taken by other people. Many Bothan spies died to bring us these pictures. Not that you can see much in them.

The MCs

Camera LCDs

Pictures taken by LianYL of RIUVA. Please arrest him instead

May’n’s dancers, Junko and Mizuki

Picture taken by Double. Please arrest him instead

Picture taken by Windbell. Please arrest him instead

By the way, the Sheryl cosplayer (first picture in this post) was actually a Diamond VIP ticket holder who went on stage to shake hands with May’n and receive a signed board.

And yeah, I had a Diamond VIP ticket too. Also, vicious rumours of my snubbing of May’n are competely untrue. The reality is that I did shake her hands, but at that very moment Jim (extreme right), the design director for AFA08, introduced me to May’n’s manager (centre right) all of a sudden as “the guy who translated all the interview questions” and I ended up in a deer-in-the-headlight situation with me fumbling for words while attempting to bow and greet simultaneously. As any reasonably sane deer would do, I fled. orz

So yeah. I didn’t snub her. I merely ran away. >_<

People love to spell my handle as two words :(

I was asked to join Dentsu, the event organizers, for supper after the whole thing ended because I had been translating all media interview questions for the various invited guests, and the people at Dentsu wanted to thank me. May’n was there too! She signed Crazy Crazy Crazy (her debut single) for me. :D

It was worth all the time I spent on doing translations during my final year A’ Level exam period. orz

Next

What’s next? I’m sure many of us will be looking forward to the next Anime Festival Asia if it happens. Personally, I think the chances of that are quite good. From what I heard, representatives from various Japanese studios were quite impressed by AFA08, so no doubt Singapore will be receiving plenty of good publicity when they report back home.

Looking forward to next year.

P.S. Gundam 00 episode 8 post will be delayed this week due to Post Event Syndrome.