It’s time for some local convention goodness.
The girl you see at the far left is at the end of the queue. It was that short.
Fariz and I arrived at the pre-registration booth at around 8 in the morning. Panther, Fei and Yukito were already there, (slightly) bored to death by the wait. The line was actually rather short, partly due to the fact that there were 2 pre-registration booths set up. Lesson learnt from STCC, I see. :3
Of course, it grew much longer later, but meh.
Makeshift speaker stand. LOL
Our little group grew a bit as other members joined us, and eventually Panther had the bright idea of using his handphone (and Gai’s portable speaker) to blast Dango Daikazoku, earning us a strange look from the security guard roaming around.
Long story short, after meeting people like Gordon and Setsuna, the team “zerg-rushed” into the hall after queuing again just outside the entrance, especially since we had been watching those with media passes roam freely inside (and buying certain merchandise in advance).
I won’t go into the nitty gritty details of our little adventure, so let’s just go on to what’s up.
And this is just ONE SHELF.
There was a gallery of figures from many figure companies by Toys & Toys, including the likes of Max Factory and Good Smile. There were also Armored Core mecha models on display, as well as a large Chun Li figure (with a limited white outfitted version going for $220).
Hey, I’ve seen these somewhere before…
There were some errors though. Some of the figures at the Max Factory section weren’t actually from MF (like the Good Smile FREEING 1/4 Ryoko Asakura) and they totally misspelled Nendoroid in the Good Smile Company section.
Totally. Misspelled. Also, one of the Nendos had apparently collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion. ^.^;
There was a large queue forming at KKnM, with quite a lot of stuff on sale, like towels and T-shirts. They also have a list of merchandise here if you want to have a look tomorrow. Neither I nor Fariz queued though; they had nothing on Miku. 
La Tendo had the SEGA UFO catcher figurines on sale, a pair going for $58. We had seen them earlier at their store in Kallang, but we thought they were selling at $58 each. Asking the staff at the AFA booth cleared this up, though, and as soon as everyone overheard the conversation, they immediately rushed for the figures. Well done Fariz, you brought La Tendo more business.
Collateral Damage Studios was there in the Artist Alley; Fei bought a Nanoha set from them, and Fariz bought some Miku goodies, including a Miku bookmark and a Miku A3-sized poster, one of the posters which were on display at the last Kaleidoscope in fact. Kudos to AlexiusSana for the great work.
Wcloudxkumo somehow got an interview by Animax, so this probably means he’s famous and therefore epic. Damn you.
Oh yes, there was some cosplay as well. Some of them weren’t that great (obese Tomoyo lol), though you gotta give ‘em credit for effort. Instead of a few thousand words profiling each of the good cosplayers, I’ll just hand you some pictures instead:
No idea who the hell Fariz shot. But still cute.
Yes, that’s the chibi Medusa on the far right.
Kagamine Rin & Len. Yay!
Gacktpoid and…I dunno actually. Any hints?
One’s a costume, the other’s a statue. No prizes for guessing.
Also, I got the opportunity to meet other bloggers, including the likes of PP and Kurogane. The entire TB ended up camping near the stage area, watching all the events occur. One of them was the Kunio Okawara appearance on-stage. There was a intepreter on-stage with him translating everything he had to say in English and communicating directly with him in Jap.
There was also some screenings of previews, including one of MS Igloo as well as The Sky Crawlers by Mamoru Oshii, director of Ghost in the Shell. Both of them were dubbed in English though, and to be frank, I think they would’ve sounded better in native Japanese.
Trailer for Sky Crawlers below (in pure Japanese):
Other than that, there wasn’t much else to see, considering the convention was geared towards the “new and clueless” rather than the experienced and “in the know”. Hence, most of the booths were simply trying to clear their stock at AFA. We camped near the stage area until 4PM, when most of us decided there was really not much point in waiting any longer. We left some of the others behind, one of them being Fei, who had wanted to stay for the 5PM Kunio Okawara autograph session.
There were other booths of interest as well, like the ODEX and the Genius Party ones to name 2 of them. We’ll cover them soon. ^.^
Day 2 will be covered by Fariz, as I won’t be able to make it early today since I have work to be done. He might also post the stuff we took that hasn’t been posted here yet, but that’s up to him to decide, no?
7 Responses to “Anime Festival Asia 2008, Day 1”
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First of all, Sky Crawlers was totally in Japanese. L2listen.
Secondly I still think that girl beside Gacktpoid is from Sengoku series but not sure, seriously. She was still one of the better cosplayers there. First cosplayer looks like she is from Rozen Maiden but you need a fan like CI to tell for sure. Also, FREEing Bunny Ryoko was under Max Factory, and Shinra was from GSC but placed under Max Factory as well, when there was a GSC section, ultra fail.
JON IS NOW EPIC FAMOUS THAT ASS
Nice coverage. Your cosplayers look good!
@Panther: There were some English lines in the preview we saw though, so I mistook it as a 100% English dub.
AND YES JON IS NOW FAMOUS.
@Mizunaga: Thanks…though according to the others their love for Tomoyo had been shattered that day. Personally I didn’t really care/mind.
LOL @ “There were other booths of interest as well, like the ODEX”
@ Panther: Yeah, there were some blunders at the Toys N Toys Figure Showcase section.. Even the “Nendroid” Katsunagi Yako was like that because the holder was placed upside down… =_=
AND JON IS ULTRA FAMOUS TOGETHER WITH MIKU!! xD
@ Mizunaga: There will be a post about the cosplayers later on.. I think I will make a separate post for the cosplayers since I do have some good pictures of them and the cosplay competition.. ^^
@ Gordon: Hmm.. There was also the BAKUGAN booth which is also “interesting”.. xD
the one besides Gacktpoid is Ryuuki from Saiunkoku Monogatari
Did you (Thefuzzy and Fariz) got an interview with Animax?? coz I dont think Wcloudxkumo is that famous… Lol!!
Too bad this kind of events dont happen in here..