The [R] @ Harumatsuri 8 - BIRTH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???

It's been two weeks since the last J-Fest I attend, which is Animaku no Hibi which held in Bintaro Plaza.

Welcome to Harumatsuri 8 at Lapangan Bulungan where you can find stuffs that you can normally see in every J-Fest. The things that differ each J-Fest are the audition bands and the cosplays.


Speaking of audition band, there's one audition band I eager to see them perform that I have to speed from my home at 9, and arriving at the place 10 minutes before it begins. One word, ten letters:

ROCKUSATSU! Yup, this audition band is what interests me after knowing that they cover tokusatsu songs. Too bad their set list was only Dekaranger and Jiban opening themes, out of the three songs they planned to bring. And they threw a gashapon too, which was found out to contain a Sentai figure... Definitely worth the show! Yet, they weren't the only audition bands; there were others like Blair (missed it), Blue Sky Line, and Exodia (which covered L'Arc songs \m/!)

 

The show continues with performances of Enjuku Theater. The first performance was about Kaguyahime songs medley which the members sang all the songs featured there. Shortly after the history, past performances, and future plans of the Theater was announced, they presented us Tokyo City Life; Two Indonesian countrymen are in Japan where they are adapting themselves to Japanese lifestyle. Both performances were great! They've fulfilled their promise of bringing their best game!

As usual, every J-Fest has cosplays. This cosplay competition was on stage, contrary to the last show's (Bintaro area) street cosplay. The cosplayers weren't just four just as soon as the second batch was deployed.

First batch of competing cosplayers. Most are from Naruto fandom.

Kamen Rider Birth, another cosplayer

The second batch of cosplayers. Another Naruto character Obito is seen here.

And I haven't tell you a thing about AI48, right?

Leon from Resident Evil is here too

For some reason, I couldn't take pics of me with every cosplayer as I did in the last event, save it for Birth. Yup, he's the only one I took pictures with, and I did it in a non-mainstream way...

Fighting against Birth is damn fucking exciting tbh, except when you don't have a costume to wear... :v

 OTHER RANDOM TAKES

Leon and Kurenai Wataru?

spotted: Rockusatsu vocalist

Looks like we're having a brand placement here :v

Kuroko...

Is he really Kurenai Wataru or I'm just hallucinating?

Center of attention: Kamen Rider Birth

Birth vs. Pain

Leon with his Lolita (somehow her face reminds me of Huggy Ragnarsson)

 

Japanese dangdut courtesy of Kazu-san~!

The show was great, with tokusatsu songs covered by the aforementioned audition band, great cosplays, AI48, Kamen Rider Birth becoming the center of attention and a lot more, we can safe to say that Harumatsuri 8 was a great experience.

To top it off...

 

BIRTH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???

~[R]

The [R] @ Animaku no Hibi 4 - The Second ANH I attend!

Animaku no Hibi is a yearly J-Fest event held in the Bintaro area in Indonesia. This is my second year in attending the event, and this year they went to the different direction; if last year it was held in STAN University, this year it's Bintaro Plaza's turn!

ANH4 - It doesn't look big, but it's worth the performances!

I arrived there at 11 am due to... well, I just want to go at that time. Actually, there's another event I'd like to attend, but since it's too far, I dropped the plan to go there... :(. However, there are things that convinced me that attending ANH is still better than crying for not attending the Hobby Fest. Wanna know what are they?

Song Covers

This is one of its Audition bands, Cassada, covering Acid Black Cherry's Re:birth

The moment the start of the Re:birth song commence, I started to swarm the stage. F-yeah! It's that one song from Another Century's Episode, which I haven't played it but managed to try just one stage, and that's the ACE 3: Final where the intro is Hitomi Shimatani's Shinku...

But, the real action got more intense starting at 3pm, where there are more bands with their own unique styles. The one band that got everyone screaming and hopping is the one whose members dressed in One Piece clothings (the singer wore Luffy's costume), but I didn't remember the band's name. What I remember is that they were singing Haruka Kanata from Naruto and a One Piece theme.

Cosplays

Some Baka to Test ripper guys that wanted to kill me!

So you think not attending a much bigger J-Fest is a sin? Think again! You haven't seen the cosplays here @ ANH! Although there aren't many cosplayers in this event than there are in that other event, some used their entrance to make people want to take pics with. Unlike last year, there isn't on-stage cosplay competition, but there is a cos-street competition, which is better than having no cosplay event ever... :v

However, I shall thank the guys who convinced me that ANH is a right choice:

ORE! SANJOU! ZX and Den-O Liner!

That's right, folks! They're Kamen Riders ZX and Den-O Liner! They're the ones that kept me going for the event! But there's one cosplayer whose entrance is so spectacular, everyone wanted to take pics with him.

I with the BIKE! LOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOL!!!!1111!!

DAT'S SHADOWMOON WITH BATTLEHOPPER FROM KAMEN RIDER BLACK OMFG!!! This could be once in a lifetime Shadowmoon invade Bintaro. I believe that there won't be cosplayers whose entrance is as spectacular as this, not even that one event. And since I'm a lucky person to take pic with him...

"Now, count up your sins!" ~The guy who doesn't henshin (transform)...

Some Other Random Takes

A really big papercraft really needs a big treatment, like Liger Zero from Zoids

Some Yu-Gi-Oh!-playing dudes fighting their rivals with their cards. It's a battle of strategies, everyone!

Random papercraft moment where WarGreymon was staring  Command Wolf and Pikachu was sniffing WarGrey's ass. Sneaky Pikachu... :v

Another random moment where Pikachu, Terriermon, and WarGreymon are attending Zorro's funeral. Zorro, are you still alive? Don't tell me you're dead by now...

It's good to be back to this event, really. I think this year's ANH is much better with the appearance of Kamen Riders, papercrafts, more cover songs, and greater stands, although last year's venue is better because of the area size and cosplay on-stage competition. Other than that, I'm thankful that I've made a right choice.

But I can't end the blog without this...

Every Otaku's pride; Vocaloid siblings

~[R]

Hi-v Fandom @ Animaku no Hibi 3, or how to tingle my otaku-ness inside.

Finally after all that confusion and delay, I've finally here at last, bringing you the newest share of yours truly. This time, I will tell my experiences about me attending "Animaku no Hibi 3: Fuuto no Kaze" at Kampus STAN in Bintaro, Jakarta (25th March 2012)

MY JOURNEY STARTS WITH...

It was actually well-planned: Me and my otaku friends (from 10th and 11th Grade, no otakus seen from 12th Grade except ME) were planning about with what we will get there, and the submission ticket is only IDR 5000 (less than a dollar). Days later, we finally get there soon and it doesn't take longer than half an hour to get there, but it's worth it.

WHAT'S IN THERE?

Selling: Merchandises.

 

STAN's Animaku no Hibi event is, to be honest, your ordinary otaku event where there's a lot of hobby store branches, snack stands, and live J-musics put together into one. What I was looking for is a Gunpla: A plastic model of Gundam. Out of my expectations though, there's only one Gunpla sold there. Even worse, it's a Tieren High-Mobility Type from Gundam 00 which means that it's not on my favorites' list (shoot, should I go to "that" place again?).

The snack stands though, their snacks are definitely worth of trying! There are lots of food stands there if you want to take a glimpse of Japanese snacks like Takoyaki (octopus balls), Okonomiyaki (Japan's equivalent of pancake with a variety of topping), Kakigori (shaved ice with syrup), Dorayaki (a cake that's very popular because of Doraemon), and more.


Speaking of competitions, there are many: one of them is a Dorayaki eating contest where you have to eat five Dorayakis within three minutes. The fastest to eat all of the Dorayakis from left to right wins. One of my friend DID joined, but he DIDN'T win, but who cares?

In the end, you can find several J-merchandises here. They're ranged from your favorite characters to your favorite characters, like Miku, Dragonball Z, One Piece, and so on. You can also buy past issues of a specific anime magazine there.







A J-FEST WOULDN'T BE COMPLETE WITHOUT COSPLAYERS, RIGHT?

Yes, in fact, most of these cosplayers choose Tokusatsu characters, notably from Kamen Rider series. The Cosplay competition is held at 1pm, exactly after the Otaku Quiz competition. Here are some of the contestants in action.

That Rider beat a crap outta that green villain

The Green villain's counterattack!

Yet there are cosplayers who take Game and Anime characters, the most notable is being this one:

This Ezria Erza Scarlett cosplay, albeit the revealing appearance, is definitely one of the best.
Seriously, it embraces her true self.

And we aren't forget to have a chance to take pics with the cosplayers!

The guy with the plan (right), a Rider, and a...?

"Nah, I don't care if you're a Green Villain."

"This blade is so great, I'd like to steal it from you"

The only non-Rider cosplayer whose pic made it to here

IN CONCLUSION


Although the event itself is a run-of-the-mill Japanese Festival, but the climax lies in its nighttime events, where there were fireworks and stuff. Yet, we couldn't watch that because we had time constraints, and we had to finish our businesses for the day after (guess what). Though it was fun, and if there's an invitation to join a J-Fest again, I would love to. No wonder that I do have an otaku self lying within me.