Anime Festival Asia 2012 ~ Singapore - comments part 1

(photo courtesy AFA)

I would like to write a longer post about my experience at the AFA2012 this year.  I have tons I would like to write about and photos that I would like to put up.  But I am truly tired and I have to work tomorrow so I really would like to try and get to bed by 11pm or so.  Hence, first up, an over view of my experience.

In general, I really did enjoy myself at this year's AFA.  I have several regrets but these regrets are actually not really negatives.  In my opinion, the organisers for the AFA are going in the right direction... sort of.  Okay, there is room for improvement but then, there always is.  That said, I really would like to give credit where credit is due.

In spite of some organizational mistakes, some of them quite monumental too, this year's AFA was really pretty good.  It was packed to the brim with so much stuff, much of it free too, that it would be wrong of us fans not to acknowledge just how much effort that must have taken.  The festival has gone from something I easily completed in a few hours in a day last year to one where there were so many things going on, I had to make very difficult choices.  Last year, I walked the festival and attended the stage events and did everything I wanted so quickly, that I didn't even think that it was worth coming back for the 3rd day of the festival except that I had free tickets to the festival and stage events and Kalafina was singing that night.

I was lamenting to my friend after AFA2011 last year that the so called festival exclusives were all available online shops at one point in time in Japan.  This year, however, there were items at the Sword Art Online booth, the Mahou Shoujo Madoka booth and the 009 Re:Cyborg booth (I think) that are usually only available at events and online auction sites in Japan.

It's regrettable that I didn't get to do everything that I wanted to do... I still wish I managed to get Watanabe Shinichi's autograph and I wish that I could have gotten into the Sword Art Online booth but even so, I am happy.  I am happy that the AFA is becoming the kind of festival really worth going to for 2 full days.

Yes, things could have been done better but if you've ever done any kind of production work or event production work of some scale, you'll know that things always go wrong even for the most experienced of teams.  That's not making excuses for them but it's just me acknowledging just how horrid this job can be sometimes and me just wanting to encourage the organizers rather then simply tearing them down.

I would like to write more about the fun stuff that I managed to attend, the fun stuff that I missed :( and some of the not fun stuff that happened for everyone but all that will come in a later post.  For now... let's leave it at... AFA2012 was really quite good and I hope that next year's will be even better.  Otsukaresamadeshita guys!!! Good job and I hope that all the experience gained this year will be put to good use for next year's event... and bring in Kalafina and/or Kajiura Yuki (with FictionJunction & the Front Band Members) to SINGAPORE please!!!! :D

Arrrrggghhhh... it's past 11pm.... bedtime now. :)