Prologue
There is a first for everything, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve covered events and written about them for university assignments and also for the publications I handled at my former workplace, but this is the first time I am doing it as a blogger, and for this blog as well.
Before I bore you, the reader, with my rambling nature (Warning: long post ahead!), here’s the link to my Facebook photo album which contains the photos I took during the event over the recent weekend, minus some stuff that will be exclusive only to this blog’s coverage of Anime Festival Asia 2014.
Setting the scene
Anyway, first things first. For the uninitiated, Anime Festival Asia (AFA) refers to a series of anime conventions and peripheral events that are held in Southeast Asia, with the core event taking place in Singapore, where it all began. Since 2008, AFA has been held annually in November/December at the Suntec City Convention Centre, moving out once in 2012 to Singapore Expo due to renovation works at Suntec. The core convention in Singapore can be considered to be the biggest anime and Japanese pop culture event in the calendar of us anime/manga enthusiasts and Japan aficionados.
From its inception, AFA has been organised by Singapore-based entertainment and event company SOZO, together with concert organiser Zepp Entertainment, and Dentsu Group, a Japanese advertising and PR agency that offers services across a wide variety of portfolios around the world.
I have been an anime fan (and as a result, I read less manga) for roughly two-thirds of my life. It is a natural progression for me to want to “get more into it” with cosplay, attending cons such as this, and so on. For those who know me, I went down quite the different route of tactical simulation/reenactment – need a better term for this – in the end. But it was through this and my interactions with my new-found buddies that I finally came to be aware of events such as AFA, Cosfest, STGCC that the fandom attends every year, much like how religious devotees make pilgrimages to holy sites whenever they can.
However, since I left the army, I’ve had less time to follow as many series as I used to before, that being taken up by other pursuits and commitments. This was already starting to happen when I attended my first AFA in 2010. To a certain extent, I was also getting lazier. My 2011 album and the sad lack of photos can attest to this somewhat. Maybe it’s because I am actually not fazed by the exhibition – I am not one of those who will queue up hours before the official opening, rushing in when the doors swing outwards, grabbing merchandise this way and that. I prefer to saunter in, look at cool things, stroll around a bit at my own pace… you get the idea.
AFA14… is it any different?
It was with this relaxed attitude that I faced this year’s edition of AFA. I should go and take a look, right? Since I missed it for two years while I was in Australia (and opted out of a anime con there because the ticket was too pricey T_T). But I wasn’t going to rush, anyway. There were two ticketing options: For $13, you will get access to the main exhibition areas, which is about 80% of the floor space. Top up an extra $10, and you will be able to enter the “Stage” area, which, I believe was a section reserved for performances and activities related to Japanese video-sharing website Niconico (formerly known as Nico Nico Douga).
I decided to go for the latter optio
n, buying the ticket for Sunday (the final day) because I didn’t want to go all three days and blow all my money on this (Yes, money is a central theme in this entry :P). When I bought my tickets last Friday the girl at the counter gave me this neon-pink wristband (see picture; left) and warned me not to lose it, and that it would not be removable once locked.
Sunday came and off I went! I waltzed in to Convention Hall 401 – 405 at around 3pm, and quickly made two rounds, looking at the merchandise. and exhibits on display. Among other things, there were official artbooks, doujin, paraphernalia like badges/magnets etc., toys, figurines, T-shirts and swords. Yes, everybody loves a (wooden) katana or two. No more merchants selling metal blades, like the one guy in 2010 who was later hauled away by the cops, I heard. I didn’t find anything special that I really wanted or needed, so I snapped pictures and moved on.
There were some pretty interesting exhibits though! A huge motherload of Gundam figurines in a variety of colours, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the venerable military science-fiction/space opera/real robot anime franchise, Gundam.
There was also an Oculus Rift demonstrator, which was used at the Sword Art Online (SAO) booth. Oculus Rift, in technical jargon, is a 
“virtual-reality head-mounted display”. In simpler terms, it allows one to experience a different world through the glasses you wear. Apps and games have been developed which enable you to manipulate the virtual environment as seen through the glasses, and it is widely seen as the next step in creating an even more immersive gaming experience, among others. Sadly though, at the SAO booth it was little more than a glorified pair of 3D glasses, that let you see in 3D a battle scene from the game Sword Art Online, which is what the anime of the same name revolves around.
Apart from that, pretty standard convention fare I guess. Console games, card games and other promotions rounded up the booths that offered stuff to look at. Oh, and there were mini photoshoot studios with certain landscapes/scenes set up inside them for cosplayers or guests to have a cute shot or two. The Moe Moe Kyun and Atelier Royale maid and butler cafes were conspicuously absent though – just when I had gathered enough courage to queue up for one and blow my hard-earned money on it.
On to cosplayers. I’ve noticed a fair bit of youngsters; boys and girls younger than me, stalking the grounds and getting photos taken and such. I feel old… but that’s besides the point. I think most of them were out on Level 3 basking in the limelight, what with the legions of pro and amateur photographers queuing up to take shots of the better-dressed ones. From my travels across Facebook and Instagram, it seems like every cosplayer had fun, which is what matters. 🙂
As with other cons/events, many characters were from series I didn’t know, but I did find several from the American animated series RWBY, as well some really good ones from the second season of SAO! Especially this trio of Vietnamese cosplayers, whom I tracked halfway across Level 3 before successfully taking a shot of two of them. 🙂
As for mini-events, well, I can’t say my opinion is completely objective, nor complete here since I did miss quite a fair bit of stuff in the day, coming just in time only to catch a couple of performances from people I didn’t recognise, the Manga Battle thing, and watching people queue up for autographs. The gruff event security crew (they’re just doing their jobs, I guess…) hustled us along to make way for Matsuoka Yoshitsugu when he arrived, which was pretty sad. Mr Matsuoka is the voice actor for Kirigaya Kazuto/Kirito, the lead character of SAO. Maybe I should have joined the queue?
Didn’t really stick around for anything. It was a case of “document it, and move on”.
Exhibition thoughts
All up, the exhibition ran rather smoothly I suppose. I didn’t see hiccups, the crowd wasn’t too bad, traffic flow went generally okay, and the various booth staff (heaps of kids earning pocket money for the school holidays xD) were all quite courteous. As a guest, I didn’t have any problems or feel it a particularly annoying experience to walk through the grounds.
While some exhibitions did catch my interest, the rest of it was by far pretty run-of-the-mill in my opinion. This, I acknowledge, is tempered by my preconceived apathy for most of what was happening on the ground, my ignorance perhaps in following some of the newer cultural trends (I have never been an early adopter) and the actual time I spent at the exhibition area itself (Remember, I came at 3pm, while the mini-events had started unfolding at around 10.30am). Maybe I was also influenced by the fact that I went alone, and didn’t have anyone to share in this here burning passion that we all have.
On a side note, I did spot a couple of parents who were trying hard to rein in their children, but were pretty much led from booth to booth by them instead. xD
In retrospect, perhaps I should not have topped up the $10 for Stage access since I rarely ventured into the stage area. There didn’t seem to be strict access control restrictions once you were inside too, but this is an unqualified observation on my part. It has come to my attention that I missed the stage area entirely (Hall 406). I need to be more prudent next time…
Thus, in between acknowledging my perception bias and giving credit where it is due, I would rate my re-immersion into the whole AFA experience a 6.5 out of 10 points.
In the next part, I shall review the concert proper. Stay tuned for that! 🙂
Codex : Omnibus 