Anime Festival Asia - AFA 2012 (Part 2)

(cont'd from PART 1)

From as early as 7am, visitors to Anime Festival Asia (AFA) started queuing up to purchase tickets to enter the event grounds. By 9am, there was a HUGE crowd gathering outside the door waiting to get into the event grounds to purchase the limited edition merchandise they have on sale.

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

*CHIONG AHHHHHHH* 

Utter pandemonium occurred once the doors opened to the public. 

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

The 7500 square metre festival grounds with over 100 exhibitors showcased the widest ever range of exclusive merchandise available in Singapore for the first time. This includes Pokemon's first appearance in AFA12, with exclusive items from its Pokemon Centres, games, and regular photo sessions with a Pikachu character.

Image Credits: Project Harata 

Over 100 dolfies from all over the world was showcased in the festival. The festival als saw a gathering of the biggest licence holders in the region and a Japan entertainment zone featuring top Japanese artiste management companies and record labels.

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

The Sword Art Online booth, which sold out it's merchandise within the first day of AFA

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Danny Choo's Mirai booth

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

Image Credits:Shazzsteel

The maids and butler cafes featured a multi-national cast of maids and butlers taking on a new school inspired theme.

Image Credits: AFA Official Website

The Project Harata team checked out the cafe (we were the first in line!) on Saturday, and was slightly disappointed to note that they were only serving dessert. We were planning to have our breakfast there T.T

Nevertheless, the cakes were delicious and our serving maid, Chizu, was really cute! She did powerups with us, and even drew pictures on our plates with a selection of strawberry and chocolate sauce and mousse. Love the taste of the mousse, it was fluffy and sweet!

Image Credits: AFA Official Website

Who are your favourite girls ? 

My personal favs are Chizu, Mio, Ringo and Kiyo! 

Image Credits: AFA Official Website

Image Credits:Jimmy Cometa

Didn't check out the butler cafe cause we didn't really want to spend $40 on just desserts and coffee. And my favourite butlers were gone! T.T The boys of this year are still cute though!

Image Credits: AFA Official Website

Image Credits: AFA Official Website

The event also hosted a large crowd of Cosplayers showcasing their costumes on the event grounds. Check out the pictures Shazzsteel caught of the cosplayers roaming the event!

Thats all for AFA 2012! Thank you so much for the chance to write about AFA for all of you guys and hope that you have enjoyed our posts about AFA! 

Anime Festival Asia - AFA 2012 (Part 1)

Held on the 9th, 10th and 11th of November, the fifth edition of Anime Festival Asia (AFA) ended with a bang, with close to 85,000 visitors visiting the event grounds. The largest showcase of Japanese pop culture in Singapore ran from Friday to Sunday, and featured concerts, exclusive anime merchandise, a maid & butler cafe as well as cosplayers.

AFA 2012: RCC Champion Team SG (Interview)

PICTURE CREDITS: JIMMY COMETA

Section 8

https://www.facebook.com/WcsTeamSingapore2012

https://www.facebook.com/Section8Singapore

Raistlin

http://raistlin03.deviantart.com/

Shinji

http://worldcosplay.net/member/3516/

Cure No. 189408

Representing Singapore at the RCC held at AFA this year, Raistlin and Shinji competed against 4 other champions from regional countries Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines in an exciting finals and emerged as champions of RCC! 

We were lucky to score an interview with the champions with their hectic schedule, so read on !

~Emi

AFA 2012: Hiko & Mikot (Interview)

Credits: Golgolak's Den

Hiko's FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/HIKOCOSPLAY

Hiko's Blog: http://album.blog.yam.com/datowan

Mikot's FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/tokimikot

Mikot's World Cosplay account: http://worldcosplay.net/member/Mikot/

Meeting these 2 Taiwanese cosplayers were a real delight! Mikot looked really different up close and personal (as opposed to his pictures since he looks so different every single image) while Hiko was a ball of positive energy! 

The first time that i'm conducting an interview in Chinese (seeing as Seren does most of the Japanese interviews), and I was pretty nervous about it! Stumbled over my questions a couple of time simply cause I was too nervous....Guess it's time for more practice! 

Without further ado, Hiko and Mikot's interview!

~Emi

AFA 2012: T.M.R (Interview)

IMAGE SOURCE: LAST.FM

Official FB Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/tmrevolutionofficial

To tell the truth, neither Emi nor I was very psyched up about this interview – it was the morning and we’d both slept late and neither of us knew much about T.M.R – though I WAS extremely familiar with the songs he’d done for Gundam SEED and Destiny and did love them. Still didn’t know much about T.M.R himself.

Anyway, we entered the hotel waiting area armed with questions and trying to gear up for the interview, before we were informed that due to time constraints, each media rep would only be allowed one question.

And that T.M.R’s team would have to scan our questions for propriety.

And that THEY would be the ones choosing which question we would ask out of the list we’d submitted.

And that they just had to pick the most redundant question out of all the ones we had – the one about food. Singapore’s food, specifically, which kind of sort of I suppose is relevant, considering the fact that this was his first time in Singapore, but when everyone else is asking deep, meaningful questions about his career and whatnot, WE had to be stuck with the stupid, banal-

Guh.

So, I felt like an idiot asking it, but there you go.

~Seren

AFA 2012: Team Shikon (Interview)

Yukari's Cure: http://en.curecos.com/profile/?ch=113662

Kaito's Cure: http://en.curecos.com/profile/?ch=35172

Yukari & Kaito are Japanese drama actors, and are well known for being the Champion of WCS 2012. 

AFA 2012: Kaname☆ (Interview)

Official Webpage: http://www.cosp.jp/prof.aspx?id=8491

Official Twitter: http://twitter.com/knm0q0

So, Emi didn’t really want to interview Kaname. Because she’d already met him so many times. BUT I HADN’T.

Hence, although he is a very prominent figure in the event cosplay scene and he’s done a billion interviews - we bring this interview to you.

~Seren

AFA 2012: Reika (Interview)

PICTURE CREDITS: GOLGOLAK'S DEN

Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Reika/315573555144954

Worldcosplay: http://worldcosplay.net/member/87/

Just for a bit, please allow a moment of fangirling.

…KYAH.

Oh, bishiebishie girls…

I suppose since this was my second time meeting an amazing crossplayer (first being Touya <3), my reaction to her was quite subdued. Though, I warmed up to her considerably when she said that she was a fashion designer, a profession I had seriously considered in the past (and have now dropped, but still). I was very amazed when she said that all her costumes were 100% hand-made – most other cosplayers I’ve encountered have said that they do a little of both.

~Seren

Event Updates: AFA'12 - Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Exclusive Puella Magi Madoka Magica content and merchandise at Anime Festival Asia

Event Updates: AFA - The Marble Collection

The Marble Collection – fashion story to unfold in Singapore for the first time

Event Update: AFA 2012

Anime Festival Asia is back this year, bigger and better! Here's some updates regarding AFA ~ 

Event: Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2012

Organised By: Sozo, Dentsu

Date: 9th - 11th Nov 2012

Location: Singapore Expo Hall 7 and 8

Link: http://www.animefestival.asia/

Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention 2012

It's been a week since STGCC ended! Missed it terribly, especially the guests (TOUYA, KOUSAKA AND JACKY T.T COME BACK PLEASE!), and even Kiyoko too! (if you don't know, she's the translator for Touya and Kousaka)

Thankfully, we (Emi and Seren) were able to join the event as media representatives this year! It was a really fun experience and we thank STGCC and Reed Exhibitions for giving us this chance to cover the event! Even though it meant less sleep (For Seren at least, since she had to wake up super early to prepare gifts for some of the guests), arriving at the venue at 9am, sneaking into the 3rd floor washroom to use the awesome makeup counter that they have in there, sneaking back out to get to the first floor etc, it was really really awesome!

Invinc the Cynic: TGX 2012

The Organizers of The Game Xpo (TGX) no longer cares or understand the spirit of Video Gaming.

This is the common consensus among every fellow gamer I know who dropped by at the event at Singapore EXPO this weekend. (8/9/12 - 9/9/12). The event is a horrible flop and as a gamer, I feel INSULTED that they dared to call this a Video Game Convention. This “Game Con” was SO BAD I have to divide this critique into THREE SECTIONS!!!

STGCC 2012: Piko (Interview)

Having first started sharing his voice to the world via song covers on Nico Nico Douga in 2007, he has since progressed immensely and become a professional singer. He is known for having an extremely large vocal range, spanning that of both genders, and also for his distinctly androgynous styling.

His videos online have received more than 25 000 000 (that’s million) views, and he holds the record as the individual who took the shortest time to stage his first live performance at Shibuya AX from the time of the debut of his first CD. His major single debut was made in 2010 with the song “Story”, and his third single, “Sakurane”, became an instant hit and was used as the ending song of the anime Yorinuki Gintama-san. Soon after, he released his first album, 1PIKO, attaining 7^th place on the Oricon charts.

When he walked into the interview room, he distinctly had the air of a celebrity - someone who was impeccably styled, with an entourage following behind. When he opened his mouth, this impression was enhanced by his friendly, yet slightly subdued tone. I (Seren) found myself getting nervous over my Japanese – with this person, it probably has to be perfect. When I actually started asking the questions, though, the nervousness subsided, and in place of it was the odd feeling of, “Oh, okay, he’s human too.”

Human with a better voice than most, it turns out. His short stage performance afterwards drew screams from the crowd, and he even came out again for an encore performance because the fans just wouldn’t stop yelling “Encore!” (In Japanese too, might I add – “Anko-ru!”) He has mentioned that he would be happy to do a full-scale concert in Singapore if he had the opportunity. Perhaps we will be able to see him here again sometime soon…

Check out the interview below~

STGCC 2012: Touya Hibiki & Kousaka Yun (Interview)

Two well-known female cosplayers from Japan, Touya Hibiki and Kousaka Yun, graced our shores last weekend as guests of STGCC. With cosplaying styles on opposite ends of the spectrum, Touya specialises in cosplaying (crossplaying) as male, typically “bishounen” characters while Yun makes full use of her delicate features and petite frame to cosplay cute, young girls.

We were very privileged to be able to have interviewed them during the STGCC Media Preview, a day before the actual convention. Touya and Yun were cosplaying as Kaito and Miku respectively from the “Senbonzakura” video, and I (Seren) swear my heart stopped for a second when we coincidentally passed them by at the escalators on the way to breakfast.