Anime Festival Asia 2009 Press Conference

Sep

2009

Anime Festival Asia 2009 Press Conference – Being There

Posted under: AFA, Baka Life, Events

Before I start the post, I must warn you that all of the images in this post (save for 2) are of bad quality. Not for the squeamish.

The reason for this is that I (in my moment of fail) didn’t bring Fariz’s Mikunator, opting instead to bring along his cameraphone. Long story short, a little after the press conference started, I managed to kill his phone and resorted to using my own.

Yeah, I know. Sorry. >.<

Anyway, I’d like to thank Ci (Xephyre) for letting me tag along for the press conference. It’s not anything prestigious, but hey, not everyone gets to attend. ^.^

I got introduced to ~~the office loli~~ Ume of Bonkurasu and met the likes of bj0rn, sentinel011 and Xak. I linked all their posts and blogs so you can have a look too.

Azu-nyan was the MC for the day. Looks like even the AFA staff loved K-ON!. *wink*

Basically we just sat there as they revealed one thing after another. I had already known that Danny Choo would be making an appearance at the festival, but I didn’t expect him to bring his Mirai franchise along.

Not that I’d be buying the figma though, no offense. Gotta save up for other stuff. Also, they actually aired one of his Dance Trooper videos; the “Don’t Say Lazy” one to be exact. Video below:

When they were talking about celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Gundam, I was expecting them to air the Gundam Perfect Mission PV below. Though that wasn’t the case, they did announce the Gundam Time Tunnel, so there’s still stuff to see. =D

I was half-expecting something related to VOCALOID or the recently announced Black Rock Shooter anime, but sadly, nothing.

They trademarked the famous catchphrase and turned it into a maid cafe. The girls were cute, and coincidentally one of them was called “Yui”. Then again, when the MC’s Azu-nyan, I wasn’t that surprised anymore. Also, they promised that the maids would “soothe your soul”. LOL

And as soon as she said “Ok, time to pose!”, the camera whoring began. I left the photo blurry, so you can get a feel of how hard it was to get a shot in.

When the Q&A session started, there was a hilarious question from one woman from ~~Today (if I remember correctly)~~ MyPaper. She asked ~~one person from the panel (who was it again?)~~ Shawn Chin. the Festival Director, about how exactly the maids will “soothe her soul”. His answer?

“Why don’t I give you a personal demonstration?”

The entire room roared with laughter.

After the conference ended, we were invited to look at the mini-booths they set up in the room, and have some refreshments. Ci had no problem tormenting me with images of food. Damn you. ( ﾟДﾟ)

There was also word that there’s a blogger’s conference coming up, but no solid details as of yet, though.

If you want clearer images, you can head on over to the official images page, or one of the blogs I mentioned at the top. Also, try to spot me in the photo above. =D

Overall though, the press conference went well. When they announced Shoko Nakagawa (and not Nagakawa as the provided media sheet spelt it) with the line “Do you want to pierce the heavens with your drill?”, I lol’ed, but at the same time I was pretty excited. The 2 performances last year were already good enough, and now we’re getting twice the amount this year. Can’t wait.

Looks like AFA will be even more fun this year, so see you there!

EDIT: Thanks for the additional info, Xak! Also, forgot to mention I met lacrymosa too.

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