[Event Diaries] AFA Indonesia

In case any of you wondering why I've been spamming Japanese on my Twitter account yesterday (I doubt anybody even cared, though), I just came back from Anime Festival Asia Indonesia, which was the very first actual Japanese event in Indonesia, and I was blown away by the concert. After getting home, I went to thanks every artists on Twitter before sleeping despite sore throat and sore legs & arms muscles (worth every hops and glowstick swings).


My only loot from AFA ID.
Had I not found this, I probably would've bought the Aniki Muffler.
I want it soooooo much, but it was pretty expensive :(.
I only participated on the first day, and skipped the second day for monetary reason (I should've come though, the standing ticket for the concert ended up being open for free for some security reason). First thing that I went into are the exhibition (I came too late to hear Danny Choo's speech :( ), and I have to say it's not that good.
First place that I came to is, obviously, the Bandai stand, and as I feared, it was done by a local shop (Kidz Station). The prices are way marked-up as usual, and even the 30% discount only set the final price very close to the local reseller price (literally only $2-3 difference in dollars), and the selections was pretty poor and no limited items.

The other Bandai stand (non-gunpla) was done by another local shop (Multi), and it was done much better. The list of stuffs available was nice, and the discounted price (especially on some of the limited Tamashii Nations stuff) was great. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my wallet), among all the stuff they sold, I'm only into SIC Kiwami Tamashii, and all they had were SIC KT Blade Jack form, Kaixa (which I avoided so that I wouldn't get trapped to want Faiz & Side Basshar), Kiba, and Gouten.
I later found SIC KT Kuuga in a stand called "Little bubu" which I never heard of before, but had some really good things, but was pretty expensive because they didn't have any discount (I bought the SIC KT Kuuga for Rp 200.00,-. Still glad it was there though).
There's also the maid and butler cafe, but I avoided it since I expected the prices to be unreasonable (and apparently it was, as my friends told me that the menus were at least Rp 100.000,-).


The Mirai itasha.
Wouldn't dare drive any itasha in Indonesia.
Leave one in any public parking place, and you're guaranteed to have scratches all over it.

The GSC stand on the other hand, seems to had great success. I didn't ask for the prices, but it was totally crowded and the Moekana cards are selling like crazy. Also, a local forum that I mostly frequent to, Video Games Indonesia, opened a stand and had a fighting game tournament for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Persona 4 Arena. Didn't participate (didn't have any next-gen console to practice on those, and a friendGODLIKE-being was participating, so all hope is lost :p), but heard that it went great :).


Seriously man, just go to EVO already.

Well after all that, we queued for the concert (couldn't pay for VIP ticket), and boy, what a line it was.

From this.

To this.

To this (behind).

And finally to this.


Surprisingly it was a pretty orderly queue, especially for Indonesia's standard. Thanks for the securities, they did a great job :).

No photos are allowed inside the concert hall, so I took none, but this concert is definitely the greatest thing about AFA. I had doubts about the concerts because Indonesia's sound systems tends to be horrid, but it turned out incredible! The lighting was awesome, and all those glowsticks were just beyond words.
First up is the great Aniki, and of course it started with ZZZEEEEETTTT!! Mazinger Z!! Seeing Mizuki Ichiro live was a dream come true, and I pretty much sang along every song he sang (at least the ones I know, I missed quite a bit of the latter medley ;^^) to the point that I hurt my stomach when he went backstage ;^^. He finished his concert by singing Conbattler V's theme song! It was great and all, but I think it would've rocked the place if he sang Voltes V instead, since Voltes was once aired in Indonesia a long time ago (while Conbattler wasn't). I was on the verge of tears when Aniki left.
Next up is 7!!. I actually never heard of the band 7!! before this concert, but after hearing their cheerful songs, I would definitely like to hear more of them.
After that, bless4 came out with Sousei no Aquarion, and the crowd immediately sang along! I just realized that the rest of the group other than Akino was actually dancers, and they had great moves! Also in between songs they talked to the audience, and just as they sounded from the English version of the Genesis of Aquarion, they had perfect English O_O. In between they also talked about their experience riding bajaj. Boy I couldn't even imagine them riding one LOL. Speaking of which, they also sang the English Genesis of Aquarion, and later the Kimi no Shinwa and Gekko Symphonia. 4 Aquarion songs in a concert XD!!
And finally, it's LiSA's turn. Even before she showed up, the crowd was shouting for her! And boy does she had the crowds pumped, even if by this point most our glowsticks are already a bit dim (things to do before next year's AFAID, get the electric gloswtick, I saw some of those in the concert and those are the brightest I've saw). Among all the other artists in this concert, LiSA had the most and newest anisong of them all (Angel Beats, SAO, Fate/Zero), so it's pretty easy to see why the crowds are most excited to see her, but her performance was also the most energetic of them all. She spends less time talking and more singing compared to the others (I think she had the most songs too). It's incredible seeing her move around the stage energetically, where did she get all of those stamina!? Even so, when she sang the slower "Ichiban no Takaramono", I almost cried for the second time in this concert ;^^. Her performance ended with an encore. We ignored our tired body for one last song to jump around and swing the glowsticks with full force XD!

AFAID was great, the exhibition could definitely be better, but then again this is the first time they held the event here, and I also heard news about a friend of mine which is also a local reseller getting a deal with the boss of GSC itself. Also several local groups/interested persons got contacts with important peoples... Seems like the prospect of direct business with Japanese related merchandises in the future are pretty bright!
Will definitely come for the next AFAID. One of the best day in my life! :)