AFA 2013


Yep, I went there today. AFA 2013, the biggest anime festival that we probably have in Singapore. It's like Comic-Con for anime - everybody, and I mean everybody shows up for this.

The festival always has tons and tons and tons of people attending, be they otakus or slightly less passionate fans of anime and Japanese pop culture. You'll also have, as usual, the cosplayers. Ah, the cosplayers.

You'll have your regular cosplayers going as characters from the current series that everyone at least knows about (such as Shingeki no Kyojin or Free! this season), the others who go as characters from other series that might be over but certainly won't be forgotten just yet (like One Piece), the ones who go as characters from classic anime series that everyone knows and expects to see, at least a bit, every year (I'd be talking about Pokemon here. Every goddamned year.). You'll also have the cosplayers who decide to go as characters from popular video games like Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed and Ninja Gaiden, and then you have the quirkier folk who decide to cosplay as memes.

So I managed to get a few pictures with a couple of characters that I liked:


Top Left: Jack Frost. I'm crazy about him! Too bad it was a female cosplayer, but she was really good, I loved how detailed she was oh my.

Middle: Some video camera dude. I had no idea where he was from, but he reminded me of Beyonce's music video for Video Phone.

Similarities, right?

Top Right: Echizen Ryoma, somewhat. Anyone who usually sticks around long enough for me to even mention Prince of Tennis knows that I'm absolutely crazy about the anime. I may not be the most updated fan when it comes to watching it (I can't find the streams for the new OVAs) but I am completely passionate about this anime and dammit, when I see someone cosplaying a character from the series I want him or her to be as close to the character as possible. This guy was really unenthusiastic about the character he was cosplaying, and didn't even come prepared (no racket or other prop besides the uniform, not even a bag). And the glasses kind of irked me. Sure, I might not have done a better job (I've never cosplayed before), but I know if I did a bad job I'd be upsetting quite a few PoT fans who might just happen to see me cosplaying. And I'd want to do the character justice. Sigh, I think the only reason why I'm upset is because I hardly see any PoT stuff around during AFA, and when I do I have pretty high expectations of it. 

Bottom Left: A very hug-friendly Pikachu. Yes, I hugged him!

Bottom Right: Team Rocket Goons. They made me smile, because it was straight out from childhood, from watching Pokemon as a child and playing Pokemon games on a Nintendo. Even better were the poses that they struck - one of them was pretty similar to a battle pose struck in the older versions of the Pokemon game that I used to play.

All in all, I was pretty disappointed by how none of the stalls had anything I liked. Stuff like Free! and Shingeki no Kyojin were okay, but I wasn't a big fan, you know? I wasn't crazy enough about the anime to want to buy anything from it.

It was cool to run into a guy I once interviewed for his receiving an OCS Sword of Honour, though! He was there to enjoy the festival as well, plus his brother was a cosplayer (he went as a character from AC). We chatted for a bit, and it was nice how it wasn't awkward or anything.

What was awkward, though, was when I ran into someone else after I left AFA. I don't really want to talk about it, though. Suffice to say that it was awkward as hell, and I felt pretty damned confused after that. 

AFA 2013...
Maybe next year I'll stop griping about not seeing any PoT characters and actually go as Echizen Ryoma. His costume should be pretty easy. 




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