The Bonkurasu Brigade

Today, several anime blogger groups attended a special news conference at Dentsu Singapore. They made several welcome announcements.

Anime Festival Asia 2008, otherwise known as AFA08, will be taking place on the 22nd and 23rd of November 2008 (Saturday and Sunday) at the Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Center, Halls 403 and 404 from 10.00 am to 9.00pm.

Ticketing charges for the entrance fee would be SGD$5 for a single day pass, and SGD$8 for both days.

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Highlights:

Section 1: Anime LIVE

Without anime, there wouldn’t be merchandise to follow. Hence this is where it’ll all start from! Animax heads the Anime LIVE section, and will be screening D.Gray-man, Shakugan no Shana, Code Geass, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Skip Beat and Domo-kun. There’s more coming up, but no confirmation as to what other titles will be brought in as well.

Thoughts:
With this, will they bring in Season 2 of Gundam 00 up to screen on local shores? One can only hope!

Section 2: Akiba Town

Figurine manufacturing companies such as Bandai, Alter, Good Smile Company, Kotobukiya, Kaiyodo, Organic, Medicom, Revoltech, Figma will showcase all their past and future figurines at their respective booths. You’ll be able to catch a glimpse at exclusive to-be-released figurines that were never displayed anywhere else outside of Japan.

There’s a possibility that the mentioned companies might bring in event-only releases for sale, ready to put a large hole for all you figurine and collectible buyers!

Thoughts:
Bringing in all the major players of the merchandising industry over to another country is no mean feat, much less all the way to our sunny island. I shouldn’t have gotten my recent Revoltech buys so early! Figma might bring out their Mail-Order-Only Figma Shana out to the event as well. Maybe this time, the ‘prototype’ would be fully colored?

Section 3: BANDAI : Planet Mech

Gunpla, or Gundam model kits, will be featured at the event, and more! Submissions from the BAKAC (Singapore’s Annual Bandai Action Kits Universal Cup) 2008 will be there too. Other kits, toys and collectibles will be there as well.

Thoughts:
Avid Gunpla builder I am, without a doubt this will get me excited.

Section 4: Cosplay

Cosplayers can rejoice, since this time, there’s FREE ENTRY FOR COSPLAYERS TO THE EVENT. The details are as follow over here.
Another perk now is that, there’s a changing area for male and female cosplayers within the event, so do come prepared!

Thoughts:
Setting up the cosplay area to mimic Comiket’s would be a good choice, since there’s always a problem with the management on cosplayers hogging the event’s toilets, using them as changing rooms.

Now… to the highlight of this post.

GUESTS:

Kunio Okawara

He’s often said to be THE mechanical designer of most of the Gundam series, Braves series, and many more. He will be judging the BAKUC Finals and giving talks about the industry.

No details on whether any autograph sessions would be allocated for Kunio-sensei.

May’n

She’ll be performing a minimum of 7 songs during her mini concert at the 2nd day of the event, on the 23rd of November. Exact timing details were not available during the time of this post. VIP tickets and areas allocated for the concert would be sold too, but no further details as to how or when are we able to buy such tickets at this point of time.

There will be an autograph session too, details will be updated soon.

The mini concert is within the event itself, so basically so long as you paid for the entrance pass (or entered free as a cosplayer), you are able to watch it.

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