Anime Festival Asia 2012

Anime Festival Asia (AFA) has been running for 5 years, and each year it just gets bigger and bigger. This year, there was the introduction of AFA Malaysia and AFA Indonesia; both were wildly successful and made me wonder if the AFA Singapore would suffer in quality due to lack of resources or time for planning. Fortunately that was not the case. They just had to make one announcement to alleviate all my doubts; Sphere. An extremely popular idol/seiyuu group with rabid fans from around the world, this was definitely AFA's biggest catch so far. And that was not all. Kishio Daisuke and Terakawa Aimi came over with Horipro and Bushiroad respectively, both of them being very respectable seiyuu and singers as well.

Anime Festival Asia (Singapore) 2012 August Press Event

(UPDATED 03/09/2012)
Anime Festival Asia 2012 in Singapore! A press event was held on 1st Aug to announce some details about the November event. This year, AFA will be held from the 9th to 11th November at Singapore Expo since Suntec Convention Centre is undergoing renovations. Read more for details! (p.s. All text in red are simply speculation on my part, just to spice things up a little)

VocaFarre!!-Act 0-

The VocaFarre!!-Act 0- event was streamed live on Nico Nico from the NicoFarre live hall in Roppongi, Tokyo this afternoon. It served as a press event to introduce some new Yamaha-created characters to the Vocaloid v3 software suite, as well as a demonstration of the already-released core Vocaloid v3 software (they did a quick demonstration of Cutie Honey's OP). Note that the most famous vocaloid v1 (Meiko, Kaito) and v2 (Miku, Rin, Len, Luka) characters were all Crypton Media's creations, not Yamaha's. While IA isn't exactly one of those new characters introduced today, I think it was the best voice pack among all the v3 voices so far.

AFA11: Cosplay

After Victor's coverage on AFAXI and damages done (My damage is $77), I present to all some of the cosplayers at this year event!

AFA11 Loot

Shouldn't have spent so much but couldn't resist the temptations...

AFA11 Videos

Here's a bunch of videos I took during AFA Day 2. Sorry about the shakiness. The image stabilizer had some problems (random jumping flicker). Need to get it fixed!

AFA11 Day 2

AFA11 Day 2 (officially called "Day 3", with Miku concert being Day 1) was pretty damn cool as well. This time round I stayed at the stage area from 9.30am till 4.30pm, never leaving my first-row-seat. Sadly, the only segment that allowed photography was the cosplay finals. Check out the photos after the jump. (Sorry for some blurry photos! Had some problems with the image stabilization and should have shot at ISO 1600 instead or 800...)

AFA11 Day 1

And that's me with Vividblaze! First things first: For those who can't make it to AFA, be sure to check out NicoVideo's Live Streaming of the various events here. In particular, check out Day 2 of the main floor area here. Many cosplayers will be interviewed on the live stream while reading all the comments the audience are posting (about 4 second lag though).

Busy charging equipment and preparing for tomorrow, so hit the jump for photos of the event. Enjoy!

Hatsune Miku Live Party @ AFA11

Arrived at 5.15pm and the redemption queue was already damn long... in the end I did not make it to the redemption counter, but was assured by Shawn Chin (Festival Director of AFA) that I would be able to do the redemption after the concert and suggested that I get in quickly. So I did. (video of the event at the end of the post)

AFA11 Guide

The wristbands are here! It's that time of the year again! The PR people organising Anime Festival Asia really know how to ramp up the excitement as they have been throwing hints since June this year, and then unveiling new information on their Facebook page almost every day for the past few weeks! I'll probably be covering AFA 11 here for the next week or so. Meanwhile, here's a quick run down of how to get the most out of your AFA experience.

Update 5/11: AKB mini-event! Canon Cosplay Stage!
Update 6/11: Floor plan! Madoka Ichiban Kuji!
Update 7/11: Vividblaze! Nitro+ Booth, AFA Exclusives, and ToyCoin update!

AFA X Day 2 Report

Day 2! No seiyuus, but this time we have lots of cosplay, including the appearance of Kaname and Aira!

AFA X Day 1 Report

How was your day? My day was awesome. It'll be remembered as the day Kana Hanazawa silenced the entire audience with her performance.

Manga & Anime! Japan @ Japan Creative Centre

Went down to Japan Creative Centre today to check out the Manga & Anime! Japan exhibition. It really gives you insight into the manga industry, it's birth, boom, and current struggles. Sounds a bit like Bakuman. right? If you've read that series, you'll understand some of the issues mangakas of today face and how the industry is quite a risky one.

Cosfest 2010 (Part 3)

To wrap things up, here are some dimmly-lit shaky cam videos from COSFEST 2010. Enjoy!

Cosfest 2010 (Part 2)

Oh no! The Akatsuki! (Naruto)

Cosfest 2010 (Part 1)

Went to my first Cosplay event last Sunday (5 July 2010). COSFEST IX, at Downtown east, is the site for the Cosplay regional finals. Winners from various South East Asian countries and Korea come down to Singapore to compete for the chance to win an all expense paid trip to Japan for the worldwide Cosplay finals. The great thing about COSFEST is that everyone there is an anime fan. No one judges you or your taste in anime. Every cosplay is a great cosplay. And everyone is just having fun posing for photos and being in-character! Photos after the jump!