C3 AFA Singapore 2018

I felt so tired after 2.5 hours extra volunteering hours on Saturday and I thought I would give this year's AFA a miss. Somehow I managed to wake up at 530am, went for 7am mass, and then I went to Suntec. The ticket booth was open from 830am so after I bought the ticket ($15), I had breakfast at McD. With more than an hour to kill, I decided to be greedy and got a breakfast wrap and sausage mcmuffin.

As some halls in Suntec were used for church services, it was confusing with some escalators being blocked off for church goers but the people were holding no entry signs bearing AFA 2018 logo. I thought they were blocking the escalators before the hall opened at 10am. The crowd was size-able by the time the doors opened but there was no human jam for the entry.

This AFA is hyped as the 10th year but unfortunately there is nothing special to commemorate the occassion. This AFA definitely felt less claustrophobic. The walkways are more spacious as the booths are smaller and it got really squeeze-y inside the booths. I think the crowd was also not too bad since there was no queue to enter Muse or Odex booths which I usually use as a gauge of the crowd level. Lol.

Similar to last year, there is more area for displays and experience zones compared to the shops. The food section is also smaller this year without any maid or butler cafe. Unfortunately, everything seems lacklustre this year. Some booths have stages but I did not see activities, maybe because it is Sunday today, I don't know. The figure manufacturers such as Banpresto, Bandai, Good Smile Company, etc did not really have impressive display for their figures. Sad..

As always, a huge Gundam always welcomes the visitors upon entrance

A smaller Gundam at Bandai/Banpresto booth

Banpresto's display completely went non-anime with Harry Potter and Disney Princesses Qposkets. I think they were out of place in an anime event so I was not suprised that people were not really interested in them. Well, not complaining since that means I got to take pictures without people inside.

Poor Newt is excluded from the wallpaper

Cute but I am not a fan of this cutesy style so I am not tempted

Another wallpaper promoting Qposket

Disney Princesses

The "big" thing for this year AFA is definitely gaming. The booths related to gaming such as Fate, Sword Art Online, Namco, some live online gaming, and card game were crowded all the way since morning. Fate has the biggest and most impressive booth although their wall display of numerous acrylic stands of the game characters were so lazily done. They did not even bother to put lights and I did not even bother to take any pictures.

Character boards

No matter which angle, Gilgamesh's face is always affected by the glar

They even have this mini stage

Their wallpapers are impressive too. This is the only one that I took a photo.

Sword Art Online recycles the character boards from AFA 2016. Lol.

This is an inflatable balloon

There is an interesting booth for Tama and friends. I have never heard of this character or series despite it celebrating its 35th anniversary. The booth was always empty and was unmanned which made me wonder what the purpose of having it in the first place. Again, empty means good photo opportunities and since my name also contains Tama in it, let's support ba :p

For me personally, Natsume Yuujincho is the star. It has never been a really mainstream anime series so it is really nice to see some big posters on it to celebrate its 10th year and the movie released earlier this year. There is The Odex Film Festival at GV Suntec and Natsume Yuujincho movie is one of the movies featured but sadly YESTERDAY :( If I knew earlier, I definitely would not mind watching it and paying $45 for the ticket since one of the included merchandises is a t-shirt. Here are some of the large posters (thanks Muse!).

Thank you for 10 years (and more to come) of heartwarming stories

Pre-order opened since September and I completely forget about this :( Now pre-order is already closed T_T

For the first time ever, there is Detective Conan Bakery booth. It is not a restaurant so the food offerings are terrible. I bought the Berry Medley boba drinks ($10.50) just to get the souvenir bottles.  The quality of the bottle sucks =x I bought Conan version in the morning and I put it in my bag. There are already scratches on it now. Haiz.. Oh well, I am just showing support in hope that in the future they will consider opening a proper cafe like in Japan although even if it happens, I may not have the chance to eat there just like the Final Fantasy cafe. Haha.. For buying the Berry Medley drink, I was offered to get the food items for $2 instead of the original price $4.50-$5. I got the Conan spicy curry chicken donut which was not warm (despite I bought it near opening hours) and nothing fantastic and the Amura sandwich which was just normal sandwich with a silhouette of Amuro's head etched on it. No photos for the food stuff because there is nothing fantastic about them.

No standees whatsoever. Just this picture at one wall of the booth

The blue colour looks yucky for a drink but the taste is ok.

I bought both bottles since this is special "Singapore" version. Haha..

Notice the red arrow in the picture above. That is to show bad the quality of the bottle. The red arrow is the "invisible" line of the plastic materials being fused and they cannot even bother to have the printed stuff nicely avoiding cutting across this line. Initially I thought it was my bad luck but Amuro bottle also has the same issue so it must be the production.

I had not been buying anything in the past few AFA so shopping is no longer my main goal. The irony is that even though I was not looking for anything, a few things ended up catching my attention. Lol. I saw Fate/Extella Archer by FunnyKnights that I have been tracking online but not yet able to find a discounted one. Compared to the original price $140-150, I think $110 is reasonable enough and I bought it.

I also bought 2 haoris for a total of $30. I was lucky that I was patient because I felt a bit iffy with the designs that I initially saw. The shinsengumi one has nice colour scheme but there is a silhouette of a girl at the back while the others have kanji characters that I cannot understand (I don't want to risk if the writings are something inappropriate). Then I found another set of haoris with more classy designs but with crazy price of $90 for 2!! The ones that I finally bought are similar to the $90 for 2 but only for $30. Wow.. it is crazy how the shops here just anyhow price their items sia.

The most enjoyable part of the whole AFA, however, is the experience zones. Canon booth still offers free photos but I did not bother. The staff were like not interested in asking people to take photos so I also felt paiseh. Karin's Mound is back but the area is much smaller than last year and does not look appealing to try this year. Although last year I wanted to try it badly, I did not bother about it. Manga de Japan is also here again. Knowing my drawing skills, I did not join the manga drawing session again as the outcome will be similar to last year. Haha.. I participated in the quiz but when it comes to the lucky draw, I suck as always and I just got the lousiest prize which is a lucky draw chance for travel to Fukuoka. The best prize is to get a manga portrait drawn by the artists there.

Eh then what so fun about it? At about 3pm, I decided to take a taxi home because of the figure and the haories that I bought. With all the Natsume stuff, I watched 2 special episodes at home and then decided to enter the lucky draw code. Then I discovered that below the lucky draw, I can also put in a code to get a manga portrait drawn! I put the lucky draw code and somehow it works. Thus I decided I should go back to get another code so that I could get 2 pictures drawn. Mwahaha!! So yes, I returned to Suntec.

I am glad I did that because the code for lucky draw is actually not the code for the manga portrait -_-". Haha.. I reached again at about 6+pm and they removed the prize of having the manga portrait drawn over there. I supposed they also wanted the artists to go home soon. The changed was done at the person in front of me. Hehe and guess what, this time for the lucky draw, I got the code for the manga portrait drawing online. If I did not return, I would not get manga portrait. Just a note, although the official closing time is at 8pm, many shops already start packing up at 6pm+ so it may not be a good idea to come so late. Conan Bakery fridge is still full of the drinks so perhaps it is not that popular :(

Last picture before leaving

I am very glad that despite my initial reservation to go to AFA today, I feel happy at the end of the day. It is ironic that when I read news about anime conventions overseas, I will imagine that it will be fantastic to visit but when there is an event here in Singapore then I am lazy to go. Ok lah, must go again next year just to experience the atmosphere instead of expecting there will be things I that will like or buy.