AFA is back after a 2-year hiatus from COVID and was the first anime convention I got to attend this year. This is arguably the biggest annual convention that Singapore can get, spamming across 3 days from 25 - 27 November 2022, at Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre.

From the get-go, the most noticeable difference from its preceding years is the overwhelming response:

Understandably, the country has been deprived of a chance to unite the otakus and with the continuous release of great series and games, the family is only growing stronger year after year. This lot was just for the Ticket Redemption and Purchase, meaning none of them had managed to step into the actual event...

Putting aside the questionable queueing system, my good friend and I managed to locate the right queue and redeemed our wristband after 20 minutes.

Most of the ascending escalators were blocked and we followed another disorderly group up the designated stairs, feeling much like a part of a concentration camp movement.

If we thought outside was packed enough, we have underestimated what lies within.

Behold the worst section: Creator's Hub, a living preview of Tokyo's subway at morning peak hours. Expect postcard and A3 prints, t-shirts and badges on sale. There were a mix of local and international creators (with quirky booth names I must add) and I was lucky to snatch some Dota 2 fan arts by the very talented local artist Zerox_ii:

Here I thought I was over the game... Cues a fellow teammate's haunting quote, "Dota is like the ex you cannot get over." Above A6 holo prints feature my first ever hero Vengeful Spirit, Naga X Medusa, and the hot Templar Assassin.

Giant ass dividers displaying Valiant Force's artworks

Assortment of blown-up anime posters collages

Besides the big names like Bushiroad, Aniplex and Kotobukiya, there was Hakken (a new retail booth that has a 2.5hours queue just to get in and spend money!), mobile games booth like Valiant Forces (that I have never heard of) and even a Japanese Language class booth hoping to inspire local otakus who cannot watch anime without subtitles.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get any selfie this year with international cosplayers and could only watch from afar as fans queued up to get their autographs at designated booths. Also, no Kaname☆ (a veteran Japanese cosplayer) this year.

Local influencer RURUSAMA was also spotted working in partnership with Gank, a content membership management platform to allow creators to accept donations and sell merch. For a fee, below is a snippet of what to expect:

The fellow looked so delighted that the crowd could feel his internal squeals xD

Below were some of the figures on showcase, can you spot which is my favourite?

Tanjiro Kamado - face of Demon Slayer, or at least his signature tablecloth jacket is

Suguru Geto - Jujutsu Kaisen 0's extremist sorcerer

Ren Amamiya - Persona 5's megane bishounen

Saber - Fate/Grand Order, a staple figure

Eriri Spencer Sawamura - Saekano the Movie Finale, Alice in Wonderland inspired?

Please pardon the change in editing style as I was using a camera filter for the earlier shots:

Aria - Museum of Mystical Melodies ♡♡♡ without the glitters of course

Barbara - Genshin Impact

Mai Shiranui - The King of Fighters '98

Even after we left the exhibition hall a few hours later, the ticket and hall entry queues showed no signs of subsiding - if anything it got worse. It did not help that there were other conferences happening like the Atomy Success Academy and CityHarvest Church, who must have experienced serious culture shock.

I begged my friend to wait for me as I snagged some last-minute cosplayers' photograph in front of the big screen on Level 1 as a way to conclude the event. The edits were altered according to each cosplayers' colour theme:

Sephiroth 🖤🖤🖤 Great memories of the previous photoshoot with his action figure

Ciel Phantomhive, female pink lolita edition

Hatsune Miku spicy ver.

Miku's hot friend

Misa-Misa, handsdown my favourite cos who never gets old

Overall, I have enjoyed myself despite the horrible overcrowding. The cosplay standards are also improving, and I hope more youths and adults will join in to keep the hobby relevant. Here is my outfit as a show of support for the community that I am very proud to be a part of:

Hopefully, I will get to experience an overseas anime convention in 2023, we will see.

xoxo

Nearly 2 years have passed (24/02/19) since I chanced upon Banana Fish (2018), a modern adaptation from the 1985 manga by Yoshida Akimi. The anime tags include: mafia, drugs, child prostitution, violence, shoujo (?!), shounen ai...

Say no more, I NEED to watch!

Expanding on the shoujo tag, I couldn't believe this was published in Betsucomi (ベツコミ), a monthly Japanese shoujo manga - guess the girls back then were a lot more mature - perhaps less sensitive than the strawberry generation? - than conceivable in the present...

Nearly a year has passed since I stumbled upon this beauty on Mandarake's website, which was a miracle in the figure world as it is impossible to get them (at a reasonable price) once you missed the preorder. Looking back at the Order History, my brows raised at the shipping fee, but nevertheless I applauded myself for the excellent decision:

He has also since become the cover boy of my Mail:

Kotobukiya also released their interpretation based off the above pose in their 1/8 ARTFX J line. I wasn't a fan of the basic outfit, so I gave it a pass: 

Image source: Kotobukiya website

Now I'm (finally) ready to share my interpretation of Megahouse's scale figure, inspired by the historic Jinli Street (锦里古街), Chendu, Sichuan, dating back to The Qin Dynasty (秦朝, 221 - 207 BC):

A narrow alley along Jinli Street
Image source: Flickr

The street features gray flagstones, rows of red lanterns, and I wouldn't be surprised if the spirits of the ancient civilians still resides by this ancient soil. I'll make it a point to locate this alley when I visit China!

I had a headache figuring out how to design the lanterns, but finally settled with a stylised design, rather than model after the actual lantern.

A. Lantern Making:

#1. Dig out leftover ang baos (red packets) from past Chinese New Year collections

#2. 'Disassemble' the ang bao, and cut as above

(For the DIY lovers, check out the tutorial here)

#3: Finished product! After making 5, I realised they were too huge... I made another 6 by cutting the ang baos into half

#4: Making the hanging mechanism - this was the reason for the delay in starting this project I had NO IDEA...until I realised I could use floral sticks to string the lanterns together

B. Background:

#1: Sometimes I wonder if I studied Landscape Architecture just so I was enabled to do such 'elevation plans' and photography editing

#2: Nothing like stock images to aid my non-existent CG skills! I initially started with 2 textures (stone cladding & dirty concrete), but decided to add in a door and stone steps to create depth in the backdrop

#3: Do take note to account for the material's thickness so you can save on some paper when you glue the Styrofoam boards together (In case you're wondering, the wooden bracket attached to the side of the board is for hanging the lanterns - a sudden stroke of idea)

#4: Elevation of the door & stone steps; added the Emergency Sign as an interest point; arrow aids in guiding the viewer's eye to the subject/desired focus point

C. Reflections

While I'm ashamed to admit I had not touched my Olympus E-PL8 for almost a year, I was not prepared for it to spoil on me! Turns out my lens was no longer sensitive to the camera body and had to be replaced... The good thing is I finally got a dedicated lens for close up subjects - a Sigma DN ⌀46 Fn 2.8 that gives some sick depth of field and bokeh effect!

(Not that I got to try the latter due to the nature of the set [not enough distance between the subject and light source to create the bokeh effect...])

Total damage plus the filter lens (after a generous discount by the boss T.T) = $280

Thoughts on the editing process:

While having a basic knowledge of Photoshop certainly helps, it is more important to have a concept for the subject, then editing becomes hella easy. As I don't do design & editing for a living, I don't remember all the special effects off the top of my head, but what I do know is the generous community at Youtube. It's amazing how I never fail to pick up new editing tricks after each projects. For as long as I can afford the space and figure, I never want to stop doing this.

D1. Finished Product

Theme: Vintage, washed out with yellow hues

Bonus: Night scene (this was the original intention, but I didn't think I could pull it off... Decided to give it a try anyways because I wanted to see the end result)

Surrounded & Cornered

Experimenting with the polaroid effect

Without frame; really enjoyed the dusty overlay effect (those white specks)

Gobbless: masking effect

An obligatory back view of the figure

My favourite shot (+need to include the tiny roof or I would have done it for nothing!)

(P.S.: The guns & toning are giving me Gunslinger Girl vibes...)

D2. Bonus

Just in time for Chinese New Year (12/05/21) fufu...
Although this was never my intention, I'm glad it coincides with a celebration of my race that I'm so proud of. Luv you Ash <3

Since his face is nearer to the lantern, I'm able to apply more highlights with reasonable confidence

D3. Behind the Scenes

Another obligatory shot of the set:

Unedited, taken outside my house
(Yes that is my Laneige two tone lipstick, to block light coming from the bottom of the set)

A super windy day, although I can't say this shoot was a breeze, it was certainly a whirlwind of fun.

xoxo

P.S.: With reference to my post title, this was what the author had to say,  “I intended to let him die in vain.” So his death had no inherent meaning. I found a rather poignant comment online in response to that, "It’s cruel to think that he died in vain. Still, I don’t think his death needs any lessons or meanings. Man is mortal. Our death is seldom of grave significance. So it goes. Ash was no exception. This severe, gritty style is one of the features of Yoshida’s work."

It almost justified the ending, which according to the author, was a happy one for Ash - just not the best one for me.

I couldn’t believe my luck when Kotobukiya, one of Japan’s giants of figure manufacturers, released the unpainted prototypes from a game-turned-anime series called Hakuoki (2012), 5 years after its release. 

Source Aminews Twitter (2017)

In an industry where speediness and relevance makes money, this was a giant leap. Especially considering that the consumer group of the figure industry is predominantly male, coupled with the increasing amount of otome games (literally “girl games”) being churned out over the years, I could only speculate the pushing factor to be the popularity polls - a grade book equivalent for anime - to be the determinant. Oh bless the faithful fan girls!

Okita Souji was 1 of the 2 bad boys scheduled for the 1st (and evidently final) release, and as my 2nd favourite, I had to snag him. 

As the sadist of Kyoto’s self-employed police force Shinsengumi, he is extremely popular among fan girls. Much credit is due to his seiyuu (voice actor) Morikubo Shoutaro, who also voiced Nara Shikamaru of Naruto. I wasn’t initially convinced but was eventually won over. The change of mind happened during this lovely scene:

Look how hard this basic MC who is supposed to represent all mediocre fan girls and hence “relatable,” is blushing... Oh but the sexy smirk oh Souji-

And that’s the beautiful part of otome games - no matter how basic and clumsy you are, he will eventually fall so hard for you he wouldn’t let you go...

We ladies could all do some under-the-tree cuddling, with the right man of course

This should suffice for the backstory, hehe. Let’s move on to the process.

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My Kwansei Gakuin student buddy - why didn't I take any selfie too...

I actually forgot I've been to The Fushimi Inari Taisha at Kyoto until now... Unfortunately the shrine did not inspire fond memories as it was jam-packed with people and going to a tourist spot in the middle of Summer, not wise.

To keep things in context, I decided to import these iconic orange torii gates to Singapore. While this is one of the lowest costing projects, it was time-consuming and painful to build, versus the shoji panels from Hajime’s shoot.

I had to prepare both the vertical poles and overhead columns separately, as the top ones are rectangular. Boy do I hate rolling these cylinders... While I did not have to measure and prep 6 sides as I did for the rectangular overhead columns, the lack of QC meant every poles ended up with varying diameter. Thankfully it wasn’t evident in the blurred backgrounds (hah.)

To up it’s authenticity, I even summoned the dormant calligrapher within me and diligently copied the writings on the vertical poles, based on the photos I found on Pinterest.

And this stack of paper was the only purchase I made to make this happen.

You may not know this, but I enter every project with insecurities and uncertainties. Even with faithful research and careful planning of the backdrops, there are no guarantees.

Take this Fushimi Inari shrine theme project. 

This was the second time the backdrop failed and the shoot was delayed by 2 weeks:

1. I did not make enough poles, leading to lack of intended depth;

2. Insufficient poles also meant I could not create the illusion of an endless pathway

3. (Painstakingly) gluing each poles to the floor led to jarring g a p s between them, ruining the authenticity 

4. Steps (stairs) originally created for depth were abandoned - I made 3 of these steps/risers but that meant I could not create a bent pathway... in short wasted resources

5. There was a glaring empty backdrop at the end of the pathway

Fun fact - the inscriptions are names of the individual/organisation who donated to the shrine to get aa torii gate built for them. Price starts at ¥400,000/gate.

I nearly gave up but that entails wasting my time doing these 22 poles AND no post, so I persisted...

Wholly glad I did, so now I can share with you my March-April feature model - Okita Souji.

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See what I meant by the empty backdrop? Thank goodness I managed to find a stand-in shrine to fill that space-

Experimenting with contrast and shadows

I really enjoy this night shot

Original photo - I really enjoy taking photos with this low contrast and light setting on my camera

After editing - I took an hour to figure this out

Behind The Scene - to counter the stupid gaps and save time, I pushed the poles together such that they're leaning against one another

And that's it, thank you lovelies~

And I'm running out of figures to photograh-

xoxo