So, Yu Tong and I decided to conduct a field trip to Anime Festival Asia 2009! Okay, we intended to go there all along, but we thought we might as well call it a field trip and draft a report. It gave us an excuse to take many photos. Without further ado! Here are the pictures:



Us arriving at City Hall MRT!





Those were the photos of the entrance before the festival started proper. Yu Tong and I arrived there about 8am, with some friends, and we immediately encountered some cosplayers.

As explained earlier, cosplayers dress up as any character that takes their fancy, and these characters may even be Western in origin. A few more photos of other cosplayers are below.


This isn't a cosplayer, mind you. He is apparently an Internet celebrity known as the Tokyo Dance Trooper, and while we were expecting the appearance of Danny Choo, the appearance of the Dance Trooper was quite unexpected. These photos were taken courtesy of Danny Choo, as we did not get any opportunities to take good photos of the Tokyo Dance Trooper.



We also saw a masterful figurine of an internet sensation, Hatsune Miku, in one of her incarnations as the Black Rock Shooter. Hatsune Miku is a Vocaloid, a singing program by Yamaha, who's popularity has risen astronomically in the past three years.

To the point where people cosplay as her.



Various other merchandise was showcased, especially of the renowned series Gundam, by Bandai Entertainment. A cosplay competition was also held, where entrants whose costumes were of exceptional quality would enter and be judged, and the winners of the Grand Prize and the Special Prize would take such prizes as a trip for 2 to Japan!


Coincidentally, this magnificent Gundam cosplayer won both the Grand Prize, and the Special Prize. (The Gundam is the giant robot with the glowing green eyes)


Not so magnificent is this Gundam.

The climax of Anime Festival Asia, Day One! The first part of the I Love Anisong concert, with performances by Shoko Nakagawa, Hatsune Miku, and Ichirou Mizuki. Unfortunately, we were prohibited from taking photographs, so we had to borrow these photos from Dannychoo.com (These photos are under a Creative Commons License by the way, so it's okay). We were unable to find any photos taken of the Hatsune Miku or Ichirou Mizuki part of the concert, but I believe the above photos generally reflect how it went.




Finally, to end the day, Yu Tong and I managed to track down Kaname, a professional cosplayer who is Yu Tong's idol, and we succeeded in getting him to autograph a shirt as Yu Tong's birthday present.


As you can see, the Anime Festival Asia 2009 was a place where one could rub shoulders with celebrities, admire the workmanship of Japanese figurines, experience curious facets of Japanese culture like a maid cafe situated within the convention hall itself, and generally find out more about this aspect of Japanese pop culture.