User blog:LuciaHunter/AFASG 2014

Introduction to AFASG 2014
AFASG stands for Anime Festival Asia : Singapore. AFA is the largest anime-related convention in the region that takes place across multiple regions in the country, each once a year. Started in Singapore in 2008, it grew to hold satellite events in Malaysia and Indonesia in 2012, and will also feature an event in Thailand in 2015. For those who can't make it to Japan or fear language barriers, this is the definitive anime-event to attend each year.

Love Live! School Idol Festival Stage Showcase
This year's stage showcase of Love Live! started off with a PV, which featured the development of Love Live! as a franchise over the years: from music CDs to anime to live concerts to the game Love Live! School Idol Festival. I managed to squeeze my way to the front row of the very middle, so I was impossibly close to all the action.

As for guests, we had Mimori Suzuko (the voice of Sonoda Umi, nickname Mimorin) and Tokui Sora (the voice of Yazawa Nico, nickname Soramaru). When they entered and did their introductions, Mimorin did her signature "Love Arrow, Shoot!" while Soramaru of course did "Nico-nico-nii~" with the entire audience.

The first topic was about Love Live! and how far it has come over the years. Mimorin talked about their last live in February earlier this year, which they had to practise a lot for and it was live-streamed not just to cinemas in Japan, but even to overseas (Singapore was one of them, and she asked if we all watched it, only to be answered with much yells). Soramaru commented that ever since the second season of the anime, Love Live!'s fanbase has started to become really really large. They mentioned that LLSIF has just broke 6-million users, which incidentally was somewhere around the current population of Singapore. To which Soramaru went "Oh so it's almost as if the entire country of Singapore is playing, that's amazing."

We then had footage of the 4th live concert aired, specifically Bokura wa Ima no Naka de. It was incredibly fun doing the calls along to the video, and both Mimorin and Soramaru who were still seated there in center-stage in front of the screen were doing bits of the dance along to the video.

The next topic was on LLSIF. Soramaru started by commenting that it was actually a very easy game that is very fun, simply "shan-shan-shan" the notes. Mimorin followed up with that it was a game that anyone could play anywhere, and feel just like they were with μ's. Soramaru then noted that ever since the game began to pick up popularity, they had received a lot of messages on Twitter from other people who said they had started playing the game too. (They then noted that the AFA pamphlets given out freely had codes for R Alpaca cards inside them.)

And what followed was a play-demo of the game, where they had to play on an iPad that was hooked up to project onto the large screen. First up was Mimorin, who was playing Snow halation on Normal... and managed to fumble the very first note as a Good. While she was playing the audience were all doing the calls to the song, and Soramaru was actually doing bits of the Snow halation dance. As it turns out, Mimorin was simply not used to the large iPad screen and different timing, resulting in her having a max combo of 47 at song finish.

Soramaru was up next, and not only did she do Natsuiro Egao de 1,2,Jump! on Hard mode, she went ahead and turned cut-ins back on for a better promotional show. It was hilarious because she was going "Nico" on every note at first, while Mimorin was voice-acting the characters as their cut-ins appeared. In the end her combo broke around 176, though it was only one mistake in the entire song if I remember correctly. Pretty amazing for someone playing with cut-ins, on an unfamiliar device and while the audience are roaring with calls to the song that don't quite fit the notes!

When that ended Soramaru noted that she was very grateful that we LLivers in the audience actually knew the calls to the songs as well, having done them to all the songs shown up to that point.

What followed was promotion of merchandise at the relevant booths, and then a lucky draw: two copies of the Season 2 promotional posters, signed by all 9 members of μ's. To be drawn from over 800 entries. The two who received it were real lucky. In fact Mimorin took the first draw, and had to draw 5 times before she finally got a name that was present at the event. Throughout all the misses she was questioning the host whether this really was the right box for LLivers.

They then mentioned the 5th live and the upcoming movie in 2015.

Mimorin noted that she can't even remember how many times she's been here in Singapore, that it's practically her second home. And that she wants to bring more of the other members here (except Jolno was already around).

Soramaru said she saw Love Live! cosplay earlier, and that she was really happy about it. And that Singapore was warm now while Japan was starting to get really cold. Again, the Natsuiro vs Snow halation comparison joke that always gets pulled out.

They then said that would like to perform here next time. (Though notably Emitsun said the same thing last year and welp. Nothing happening, they're not even coming for Lantis Festival next year either.)

And with that the session ended.

Love Live! School Idol Festival Booth
They had a booth where people could live-play LLSIF on a tiny iPhone that streamed to the television there. Each day had a different song of the day, and the top 3 highscores would obtain special prizes.

I actually held 2nd place for a couple of hours before people knocked me off the charts orz.

Day 1: WILD STARS Hard. Day 2: Paradise Live Hard. Day 3: ? (I wasn't there heh) On the right is a set of stickers one would receive simply for attempting the booth. These also happen to be the cards that are used inside the team of the display unit.

Incidentally the display unit LoveCa count is over 9 million and LP is always full after each song. *drools* You would think that with that many LoveCa they could afford to give us a team of URs instead.

Bushiroad Meet & Greet Session
One might wonder what Milky Holmes has to do with Love Live!. The answer lies in the fact that they share two seiyuus: Mimorin and Soramaru. The third seiyuu in the meet & greet autograph session was Izumi Kitta (nickname Izusama), a member of Milky Holmes who also voiced the protagonist Tomoko Kuroki from Watamote.

There was only one way to obtain access to this session: To be one of the first 50 people to spend $50 at the Bushiroad booth on Friday or Saturday and redeem the autograph ticket. I missed out on it the first day. I was determined not to fail on the second. After waking up at 4.30am, taking the very first train down, and a couple of sprints (first from the convention centre entrance to the convention hall's closed doors, and then later from the opened doors to the Bushiroad booth), I finally secured that ticket.

The smell of sweet, sweet victory. (I erased my name but that's where you write down who you want them to address the autograph to)

Stuff I bought just to hit the $50 twice orz:

1st picture: Concert Towel ($40) and Concert Lanyard ($10). 2nd picture: 1st and 3rd year rubber mats ($20 each) NicoMaki Square Badges ($8 each). 3rd picture is just some random brochure thrown into the bag for free.

And here are the autographs, arranged in the order they were seated. We went up onto the mini-stage and received our autographs from the seiyuus one at a time from left to right, and had some time to converse with them or pass gifts to them (or specifically the staff members behind them, but at least they could see it). It was a strictly no photos/videos session, I actually witnessed people having their phones checked and photos forcibly deleted.

I spent the entire time in the queue agonizing what I should tell them. It didn't really matter because when I went up there the awe factor was so high all my Japanese conversation patterns fled from my head.

Soramaru flashed me that brilliant smile of hers when we exchanged greetings and I was just stunned for a moment. Then while she was signing I told her my favourite characters were NicoMaki. At which point she looked up at my Maki tee and said it was extremely cute. I asked if she also shipped NicoMaki, to which she said she really loved them too. So there you have it people, NicoMaki is One True Pairing as decided by Nico's seiyuu herself. =D

When I moved onto Mimorin the shock from Soramaru had completely wiped my mind blank. In fact even afterwards, I still couldn't remember just what on earth I was going to tell her. In the end I could only tell her that I really love her voice. =X

And lastly was Izusama. I told her that her voice-acting for Tomoko in Watamote was really fantastic... Which was actually sort of a lie since I dropped Watamote at episode 5. But I just felt sorry for her because it was very very obvious half the queue were LLivers, almost the rest were Mimorians and I really didn't want her to feel more left out than she probably already did. (Incidentally I almost screwed up by saying the character voicing was really realistic, which could be misinterpreted as being like Izusama. Which would NOT be a good idea, for those who are familiar with this anime. xD)

After the queue was finally cleared, the seiyuus signed the gigantic wall behind them before leaving the area. The staff were asking us to wait for them to clear the booth of name-plaques and drinks before we started taking photos and I was just like whut, no, that's totally the reverse of how it should be...

... I'm still kind of in shock actually. Being up that close when their stage persona was on, it's really stunning. Soramaru's smile was absolutely just dazzling. Mimorin looked really tired despite hiding it well, but it was bellied by a sense of strength that could only come with years of experience. Maybe I'm sort of imprinting their characters onto them, but it's really the feelings I got from them while being that close and talking to them. (Meanwhile, Izusama had a sort of quiet aura that was disrupted when I talked about Watamote, and it felt like she really was happy, so I was really thankful for that.) When I left the stage and met my friends, all I could really do was squeal unintelligibly for a while.

Love Live! Ichiban Kuji 3rd Stage
Ichiban Kuji is a sort of lucky draw that they do merchandising with. Basically there are several tiers of prizes, with the majority being cheap ones such as keychains/cups. So you tell the staff how many tickets you want to buy (priced at $10 each this time round), and then you draw the tickets to see what you get. Generally you're able to see which goods have already been won, so you can tell whether you want to buy or not. In order to prevent a bunch of lousy bottom-tier prizes clogging up at the end, the person who buys the last ticket always receives the Last-Ticket Prize, which can be as valuable as (or even more than) the top prize.

This one is the 3rd Stage, meaning it's the 3rd set of Love Live! goods they've made for Ichiban Kuji. All of these are limited edition and will never be produced again.


 * 1) The first tier is a picture frame with the characters in their Natsuiro outfits.


 * 1) The second tier is a set of towels, only one for each character (again in Natsuiro outfits).


 * 1) The third tier is a music CD, containing a remix of the 3rd single Natsuiro.
 * 2) The fourth tier is a small plastic cup & coaster set, randomly assorted. The cup (about the size of a Japanese tea-cup) features all nine members, the coaster features only one.
 * 3) The fifth and final tier is a rubber keychain of the girls in their Natsuiro outfits, also randomly assorted.
 * 4) The final prize is an art poster of all nine members in their Bokura outfits, complete with their character signatures printed directly onto the poster.



So anyway on the first day after my friend and I failed to get the autograph ticket, we were feeling kind of meh and so decided to throw money at the Kuji. I bought 2 tickets and got an Umi cup and Honoka keychain. My friend got an Eri cup. We looked at each other and swapped immediately without question.

My second encounter with the Kuji took place on the second day, after breathing a heavy sigh of relief at finally securing the autograph ticket. I threw in $10 for another draw, and managed to win the big prize of an Eri towel. I was really hoping for Maki instead, but welp, big prize is big prize.

My third and last encounter with it took place after the autograph session, where I was stumbling around still dazed from the encounter and passed by the booth only to notice very few items left. And yet the people queueing weren't moving, looking at each other. When I went up, the staff informed me there were only 4 items left: a CD, two cups and a keychain. It didn't take long for me to pull out $40 to "sweep" the lot, claiming the final prize. This was only made more satisfying by the following:

Dude in queue says smugly to me, "Thanks for clearing for us." Then he asks the staff, "So are you all gonna open the next set now?" Staff: "Sorry, not until tomorrow."
 * cue me giggling away at getting the last laugh in every way possible*

In the end one of the cups (Hanayo) I sold to my junior for $8, recovering some of that money. And the other cup was a Maki so yay, personal favourite. Kotori keychain... would be hard to get rid of. CD is just for collection's sake.

That poster's art isn't perfect, but it's still really pretty. ^_^

Other Love Live! Merchandise/Displays
There was a display of the Wonderful Rush series by Volks. Personally besides Honoka and possibly Hanayo, the rest all happen to have some deformation that didn't go quite well in their design. Umi's eyes are a bit off, Kotori's face is weird, Rin's nose is questionable... and so on. If you intend to buy a Love Live! figurine, you're better off waiting for a proper Good Smile Company 1/8 scaled figurine (so far only Honoka's has been made). The Kotobukiya figurines for Honoka, Kotori and Umi in their Natsuiro outfits are decent too, but well, bikini figurines never went well with me.

There was also a shop selling Love Live! merchandise, where I bought these keychains. The chibis were just too much for me to resist.

And then the gigantic Love Live! wall for people to take selfies with. Amusingly, no one kowtowed to the wall this year. That was a phenomenon which started one year ago right here at AFASG 2013 by a SG Twitter user @saiseki, which quickly spread to the rest of the world where people started kowtowing to their idols (and specifically Love Live! displays).

It was put to an end at AFA Indonesia 2014 earlier this year when Bushiroad deployed staff to guard the wall from people trying to do exactly that. I assume crazy LLivers worldwide have discovered AFA is no longer a place they can do that, though other events still appear to be free game.

Concert: fripSide
The concert lineup for the second night was LiSA, The iDOLM@STER, yanaginagi and then fripSide. fripSide being a special showcase here because its singer is Nanjou Yoshino, (the voice of Ayase Eli, nickname Jolno) While Jolno exudes a very cool yet cute air during Love Live! concerts, in her fripSide persona she's all business and takes the cool meter off the charts.

Setlist was as follows: As the closing performance, fripSide certainly did not disappoint, with the entire concert hall's atmosphere charged to the maximum. Jolno's crowd control capability is just stunning, drawing all eyes onto her.
 * 1) only my railgun
 * 2) future gazer
 * 3) secret of my heart
 * 4) rain of tears
 * 5) black bullet
 * 6) trusty snow
 * 7) LEVEL 5 -judgelight-
 * 8) sister's noise

And every time the dazzling lights focused on her, I nearly cried because the only thought in my head was "That's a goddess right there, in front of me." Never mind the fact that she's a pint-sized midget at just 1.5m tall.

And of course, they closed with two railgun songs, which is the anime series the duo is best known for (they all make their OPs). sister's noise is also known for topping the Japan Oricon music charts during its release.

Overall it was a crazy performance that left my arms and throat sore the next morning. Definitely worth the $161 I blew on a VIP ticket, along with the other artistes.

So good that I had to wake up impossibly early the next morning (today actually) yet again, in order to get down to the airport to see the artistes off on their morning flight. My friend and I were the only fans there because no one else knew when they were flying. =D And that was how I concluded my AFASG 2014.

Here's to hoping we get lots of Love Live! features again next year! And if we do, it's definitely something I'll be updating here.

In the meantime, time to look forward to the 5th live concert!