Eriol’s AFA09 Day 1 Experience

Just to keep it short and sweet.

AFA09 the long await event of the year had just finished it first day of exhibition.

It’s 3am right now, 7 hours to the next opening of Anime Festival Asia 09.

I reached the event venue at around 8.30am, and was surprisingly shocked at the amount of people standing, seating randomly without order. When clarified with my friends which are in it, they simply replied that there are no official queue for going into the event and the others are just there to buy the entrance tickets. I think this would be improved on.

There were two queues concert pass holder queue and the normal ticket queue. By 9.50am alot of people were already present at the concert holder queue.  I was quite please to see that the management reverse the situation from a no order queue to 2 queue systems.

The concert pass entrance opened first for us to enter! And look who I found?!

Danny Choo in his suit!

The people who had the privilege of coming into the convention hall earlier main raiding targets are the KKNM, COSPA and CDS. Lucky for them, they are the first few who are able to get the limited edition exclusives that each shop had installed for them ^^. For me, a poor guy, i took a walk around the event hall an found that the space of the place is reduced due to the I LOVE ANISONG stage, but thankfully, there are still changing area for the cosplayers. The only problem is for them to move around inside and there are not really a place allotted for them to take photos.

As a result, a wall of cosplayers and photographers gathered outside the hall and increased the difficulty of the human traffic from my observation. Just alot of cosplayers are not ready yet,  I continued to take some photos of figmas and the mechas that will on display.

The next moment, I knew, I as at the stage area waiting for the Regional Cosplay Competition to start and met up with oOgA. With the agents all around the hall how can we not get scoops for you otakus and readers out there?!

The cosplay competition will be on another post that oOgA is currently writing ^^ Other the the reowned Japanese cosplayer KANAME san which presented the certificate of participation to the teams, Shokotan and Ichirou san also made a special appearence for the prize presentation to the special award and the grand prize winners.

The next happening totally off-tracked me to the extent that I would use the sentence: ” I have been sent to heaven”

Shokotan autograph session was announce after the prize presentation, and Eriol, the super hardcore fan of course will go to meet his idol! The AFA shop was suddenly packed with people queuing to buy her goods which includes the SINGLE : KOKORO NO ATENNA and her debut album “BIG BANG”. Majority of the people bought “BIG BANG” as it includes the popular anime opening song “SORAIRO DAYS” from TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGUNN!

I was the 21st person in the queue of the 100 limit. I met some new and interesting friends from different background, a graduate from media arts degree which came as a translation for a media respresentatives and a otaku from Malaysia! Apparently they will linked up at some anime forums and came to this event together. ^^

The queue started moving around 3.50pm when Shokotan appears to start the autograph session, and was interviewed and she spoke a little of Cantonese.

IF I said Friday was the luckiest day of my life, I will say AFA day 1, 21 NOV is my happiest.

As it came to my turn, Shokotan recognizes me from the airport, and my GIZAMIMI PICHU plushie I brought to the event to cheer her on at the I LOVE ANISONG concert. Her manager recognises me too as I was at the airport, and brought out Shokotan’s Pokewalker, and Shokotan did a infra-red communicate with mine to get items.

IT WAS A DREAM COME THROUGH. When communicating, she saw my GIZAMIMI PICHU’s name was GIZA SHOKO and was very delighted and commented “KAWAII NEE!”. I got a TM29 – Psychic, and she got a Thunderstone.  Here the diary of my Pokewalker after I transfer my Pichu back to the Pokemon Heart Gold game. YAY! her Pokemon was coincidentally a PIKACHU!

After that the autograph session ended ard 4.40pm. And I went to a fastfood to have some drink and restore the HP for the night of I LOVE ANISONG. By the time I came back it was already 5.30pm. 30minutes before the “doors opens for the concert pass holders”. Which didn’t happened till much later.

The first performance is by SHOKOTAN, she sang 残酷な天使のテーゼ and Sorairo Days and Kokoro no Atenna and many more sangs from GURREN LAGUNN and other songs. Her voice and presence are truly amazing! We will really fortunately to have her perform in Singapore! Those who will there! You knew what I am talking about, its nothing compared to the CDs you got from the stores or net. ITS ALIVE! She ended the performance with ロマンティックあげるよ from Dragonball!

Took a chance to rest my hands, and put my lightsticks and the Pichu plushie aside, yes, if you saw a big guy waving like mad with a Pichu plushie, that will be yours truly.

The next performance was by the virtual idol Hatsune Miku starts and many Vocaloids fans cheered and followed the rhythm and wave their lightsticks and screams of joy are heard from all sides! The graphics aren’t really great, will not comment much about it, those who were there will know what I meant. It can be improved!

Of course the day wouldn’t end without having our King of Anisongs who sang more the 1200 songs in his 40 year singing career! He sang songs after songs till I had lost count, and often crack some jokes for us! It was truly magnificient to have the legend back in Singapore again!

The encore portion was really nice with Shokotan and his idol ANIKI on the same stage singing songs 進めゴレンジャー, クロスファイト, マジンガーＺ! duet!!

So the day had ended wonderfully the happiest man on earth. I hope this will continue!

Hope to see you at AFA 09 later! shrugs its 4.14am.. i need some rest now. Will get to sleep after listening finish May’n's What about my star?!

Are you ready for DAY 2 ? more exclusive will be release later! and Macross Frontier [MAY'N] meets Macross 7 [Yoshiki]!??