Singapore will once again host the Anime Festival Asia 2010!
Returning to the Suntec Convention Center in November will be Danny Choo, Maid Cafes, Kaname, Regional Cosplay Championship, and I Love Anisong and more anime experience zones. They’ve also added the premiere of Gundam 00 and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. There are new zones to explore with the Atelier Royale Butler Cafe and all new acts for I Love Anisong.
May’n and Ichirou Mizuki returns to I Love Anisong for the two days of the festival including JAM Project, Angela, and Scandal!
Sadly this year I will not be able to attend due to previous commitments. But I will return next year! I will just have to scour the web and twitter for updates on the festival.
Anime Festival Asia will be held November 13-14 at the Suntec Convention Center in Singapore. Entrance tickets will be sold at the gate. Concert tickets will be sold through Sistic. Just hope that there aren’t other events in Suntec. It gets really crowded. I advise those who are going to come really early and buy your tickets in advance. The lines are really really long just for that.
It’s the closest thing we could get to an international festival and it was satisfying. Even before the doors opened, anime fans from all over Singapore descended on the Suntec Convention Center for Anime Festival 09. While I still had to pick up my tickets from Sistic, there were lots of cosplayers spilling out of the MRT and to the festival. Upon reaching the convention center it was really crowded. One it was a Saturday but then there were also events taking place adding to the crowd.
One thing I realized is that I would have to get used to lining up over the weekend. And I do mean lines.
This is just the line to buy tickets
It would take almost half an hour to buy the day tickets but the entrance itself was just a breeze. You just had to make sure that this wasn’t the line to the Singtel event.
Inside, the Bandai booth will greet you along with the Takashimaya booth as well as a line of various gashapons.
Gundam standing guard
Hello Kitty Gashapons
There was of course, Danny Choo’s booth as well as the Tokyo Figure Show courtesy of the Good Smile Company. Thank you for bringing it to Singapore!
Tokyo Figure Show in Japan
There was of course the Eneloop Dog from Sanyo who is major sponsor of the festival.
Eneloop Dog
Cosplayers and their friends!
Register your cosplay character and get in for free!
Look at all those cosplayers on this side!
Don’t forget the other side
Lots of Domo kun!
And the line really starts here
But the main event was of course the Regional Cosplay Championships where countries from all over South East Asia competed to be the Grand Champion. I was of course rooting for Witchblade. But still, congratulations to everyone and to the winner!
Witchblade on stage
Witchblade with Kaname
Everyone on stage
I’ll bring a longer lens and a tripod next time.
Finalists on stage with Shoko Nakagawa and Ichirou Mizuki
Cosplay make-up session
I sat through the cosplay make-up session to get a good seat for…
Danny Choo, the Tokyo Dance Trooper… in SINGAPORE!!! (Part 1)
Danny Choo, the Tokyo Dance Trooper… in SINGAPORE! (Part 2)
Thank you klik.tv for the great videos you produced.
Here Danny Choo talked about his site and his passion and it’s simple beginnings to now one of the most influential blogs on Japanese culture in English.
Danny Choo @ AFA 09
Rather serious look from Danny Choo
Then I had to get souvenirs of course!
Schwag
Too bad I missed out on the signing of the Otacool book ; ; but I’ll try next time.
As night came upon Singapore, the stage was set for the “I Love Anisong” concert!
AFA 09 Stage
AFA 09 Balloons
I didn’t watch the first night which featured Shoko Nakagawa, Ichirou Mizuki and the virtual idol, Hatsune Miku. I instead went to the Yoshiki Fukuyama and May’n concert which was the following night.
It’s forbidden to take pictures but Danny Choo can and has a complete coverage here.
It was really fun and exciting. Especially when they got to the end where May’n and Yoshiki Fukuyama had a duet of Diamond Crevasse from Macross Frontier (Sugoi!) and Dynamite Explosion from Macross 7.
After two hours, the concert ended and along with it the end of AFA 09. A lot of lessons learned and also a lot of memories to bring home. But it was well worth it.
Tired AFA staff
Yoshiki Fukuyama signing autographs
There was a raffle to determine who will be able to get an autograph with the performers but sadly I didn’t win the one for May’n. I was however able to take photos of Yoshiki Fukuyama signing stuff and posing for pictures.
But now enough of AFA 09. We all have AFA 10 to look forward to and hopefully everyone from this year will return, get a bigger venue (please please! the other event is just crowding the AFA too much ;)) And maybe Alodia and Ashley will return next year and finally win the championship.
Aftermath of AFA 09
I need to rest my tired legs. As for the video, I’m uploading them to youtube as we speak and will be writing another post about it.
As 2009 comes to a close, the Distant Worlds concert tour of Arnie Roth and Nobuo Uematsu will end the year in Chicago. They will include new music into the mix particularly the theme of the upcoming MMORPG, FFXIV.
I had the pleasure of attending the Singapore concert in the middle of this year which was amazing and I’m glad that they’ve brought the concert series outside of Japan and the United States into other countries as well.
Uematsu will be there and will be seated with the audience. Just like in Singapore! The concert will be on December 12.
Here’s hoping they come back to South East Asia next year!
Anime fans in Asia will descend on Singapore in November for this year’s Anime Festival Asia 2009. I haven’t been to an anime event in a long time let alone outside the country but I thought this was the perfect chance. I did have a few conditions before I finally decided to go and the hotel was last on my list.
1. I must have tickets to the “I Love Anisong” concert. Particularly for the May’n concert since I’m a huge Macross fan. 2. Danny Choo is showing up so that’s a plus. 3. My lovely travel agent could get me a great package for the airfare and hotels.
Thank goodness all three have come true! I don’t work in the anime industry so I won’t be at the Anime Asia Conference (who knows? maybe next year). But I’ll try to live blog the events that I can attend. I’m particularly looking forward to the K-ON experience and the Regional Cosplay championships. Good luck to all the finalists!
The sequel to the popular anime movie of 2004 is about to be released in Japan this fall.
Masamune Shirow’s post-apocalyptic future (apart from Ghost in the Shell and Dominion Tank Police) will once again be in full 3D animation and all the main characters will be back.
I was pretty satisfied with the first movie which is a mix of the first and second book of the manga. The story kept moving forward.
They’re keeping the same director from the first movie to do this new version and visually it looks stunning.
If the story follows the manga, it should tackle the growing difference of bioroids as well as Olympus’ global presence. I just hope they make it a little more funnier. Just like in the manga. Ghost in the Shell is already too serious, we need something to make us laugh.
One of my favorite anime is coming back to the small screen with a new season.
According to the Anime News Network, a new season of “You’re Under Arrest” is in the works since 2001 for the animated series and 2002 for the live action version.
For those of you who don’t know, the series is about two Tokyo female traffic cops and their department. It’s filed with car chases and motocycle chases and an engaging storyline that could have only been possible on television.
It’s no Ghost in Shell (actually IMHO, Ghost in the Shell is an entirely different genre, totally nothing that deep).
There is great character development and plotline. There’s romance, drama, comedy and all sorts of situations that these traffic cops get into. It’s more of a comedy than your usual cop drama. I’m going to look forward to this next chapter in this engaging series.
New Ghost in the Shell movie to be released in November in Japan. Other regions to follow. Not considered a direct sequel to the 1995 hit movie.
Just by glancing over the storyline of this new movie, it seems to be a continuation from the first movie or second movie both of which were directed by Mamoru Oshii. This movie will initally be available to Japanese fans as a pay per view exclusive with the DVD release to follow shortly after.
The movie is produced by the same team that brought to us the TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex assures us that this will be some ride.
At least the story attempts to focus on someone else other than Motoko as Section 9 is now led by Togusa.
Tachikomas have not yet been announced to appear in the movie as of this posting.
Procrastinating in the Heat 