AKB48 'live' in AFA X (Singapore) Experience - Part 1

     Hello everyone. This is the first of 3 parts of my AKB48 experience post in Singapore at the recent AKB48 'live' in AFA X. Part 1 will cover the pre concert activities which include Ticket Collection and Arrival. Part 2 will cover the Cool Japan Forum and the AKB48 Concert. And finally part 3 will consist of their departure and final review. Sorry that this took a really long time, I am still having AKB depression and can't write a full post without feeling depressed again.

Part 2: http://melosnomichi.blogspot.com/2010/11/akb48-live-in-afa-x-singapore_27.html
Part 3: http://melosnomichi.blogspot.com/2010/11/akb48-live-in-afa-x-singapore_30.html

more after the jump

Pre Concert
10 July: The First Announcement

 

image credit to AKS

     It was Day 1 of the Yoyogi National Gymnasium (Surprise wa Arimasen) Concert. I come home from dance practice at 9pm as usual. First thing I did once my laptop loaded up was open my IRC program (since it loads up the fastest). Though I don't post much in forums, I'm an active member in the stage48 IRC. So anyway once I get connected to the channel, someone tells me: "Yo melos! We'll be staying over at your place in November". Of course he was joking (stage48 IRC is an international channel) but I was still confused as to why he said that. Then he told me about the announcement. Don't need me to tell you what happened afterwards. Just read the first 5 lines of this post.

13 September: Confusion
     Since it was announced that the Concert will be held in November, most of us immediately thought that AKB48 will come in and perform at the Anime Festival Asia (AFA X), the biggest Anime Convention in South-East Asia. Since all of AKB48's overseas Concerts were held in conjunction with Anime events, AFA X was an obvious choice. However when AFA X released their guest lineup, AKB48 wasn't on the list. Everyone was confused and some people started speculating that the concert has been canceled. I myself wasn't so pessimistic and refused to believed any of their claims until it was officially announced.

8 October: A Glimpse of Hope, and Horror
     After 3 months of waiting for info and only 1 month until the promised month, a large number of the fans, including me, had almost given up hope of them coming. That's when this happened. While some fans were happy that there was finally some news, most were pissed at AFA X for the late announcement, especially those coming from overseas, which contributed about half of the total audience at the concert. Most of them canceled their flight tickets when they didn't see AKB48 in the guest list, and the price for the tickets doubled since when they first purchased. Not to mention that there was only 1 month left till the event and all they give us was a teaser video. Oh and not forgetting that the used the word "live" for the Concert instead. Note the quotation marks. Some people were thinking that it would be a live screening like for Korea.

23 October: Ticket Collection at HMV@313

image credit to supermerlion

     Only on 21 October, just 3 weeks before the concert, did AFA X finally release more information about the Concert as well as the ticketing info. It was finally announced that it will be a full 1h30m Concert. Everyone was relieved. But only for a short while. The ticket sales would start WITHOUT the list of members performing. Not a problem for me, it's one of the advantages of being an MD (Minna Daisuki, likes all members). However for a bunch of other people who weren't so hardcore, and their attendence was dependant on their favourites since they did not know the other girls, this was bad news for them.

     It was announced that the first batch of ticket sales will be at HMV@313 on a Saturday. Those who queued up for the K-Pop concert tickets several days earlier should remember the chaos.

     Fortunately it wasn't as bad. I went down and took the first train to 313 and reached at 6:30AM. By then there was already a queue of 12 people. My friends from the H!O SG thread were already there and I joined them at the queue. However by 8:00AM, the queue stretched to 50 people. I was supposed to meet up with the rest of SGP48 IRC at this time but they are nowhere to be seen. Eventually they arrived at 9:00AM but by then the queue was about 70 people long. Luckily we already planned the day before to buy the tickets through me but there was a 10 ticket limit so the rest had to queue from the back. Nothing much happened until 10AM when we were about to go up to the store, that's when it started to get rowdy. A number of people who just arrived went to the front of the queue and started asking the people to help them buy tickets. Then there were some people who sneaked into the queue while we were going up to HMV. Thankfully these were only a small group of people but still they really pissed me off.

     Anyway after a short while of waiting and queueing some more, I was finally at the counter. I purchased my CAT A ticket for $88. Unfortunately we can't choose the seats so I just went ahead and bought it. And lucky for me, my seat position is B16. Why lucky? Well take a look here at Amina's BLT Collaboration T-shirt. Lol I'm such a fanboy.

6 November: Whose coming?
     With just 6 days remaining until the concert date, AFA X finally released the member lineup for the concert. A bunch of us had a wotagei meetup earlier and some of us (me included) left earlier. That's what led to this situation (the comic below). I reached home probably around 9:00 ~ 10:00PM. Chatted on SGP48 and stage48 IRC for a while and then someone alerted me about the news. Being an MD I was happy with any member that would come, but of course a few names caught my eye. My top 2: Sato Amina and Katayama Haruka, and my other top favourites: Iwasa Misaki, Maeda Ami, Kikuchi Ayaka and Kasai Tomomi. 6 out of the 16 members coming are in my top favourites, and my top 2 too. That was all I needed to go all out.

     But for the more casual fans who only know the front few, the attendance list was a disaster. Missing from the list was almost all of the heavy hitters like Acchan, Kojiharu, Takamina, Mariko etc etc. The only frontgirls that were coming were Mayuyu, Chiyuu and maybe Sae. Remember what I said earlier about the tickets being sold without the member lineup... and a bunch of people whose attendance was dependent on their oshimen coming and so on? For those who decided to risk it and buy the tickets anyway, sure enough there were some people selling their tickets. But well it's not my fault that their missing out the fun.

10 November: Location, Location, Location

 

     For a few days we (SGP48) have been checking the flight schedules into Singapore from Japan. After checking the girls blogs, we have narrowed down the arrival date to 10 November, timing around 5pm. Problem though was that there were 2 flights from Japan, one JAL and one ANA, both departed Japan and arrive at Singapore at roughly the same time. And they arrive at different Terminals.

     I arrived at Changi International Airport Terminal 1 at roughly 2:30PM and scouted the arrival hall for any telltale signs of them coming (barriers, security, AFA Staff), but there were none. Then I proceeded to Terminal 2 to meet up with the guys at McDonalds. I walked through the arrival hall of Terminal 2 on the way to McDonalds and thats where I saw some staff putting up barriers. Terminal 2 Belt 32. From there we did the planning as well as make our signboards to greet the girls with. Unfortunately I didn't make a signboard as I was busy the previous days and I rushed straight from school. Luckily a fellow Amina fan gave me one of his boards. Very grateful to him because something is going to happen to that very board later.

10 November: Arrival of the Goddesses

 

 image credit to Kasai Tomomi

     At 5:30PM, the time that the flight was supposed to land, all of us were waiting at the glass separating the luggage collection area from the arrival hall. The clock ticked slowly but there was no sign of the girls. 6:00PM and still nothing. A couple of old Japanese guys walked pass looking at us and a few of us joked that they sent OJS48 instead. Then about 6:10PM someone spotted some Japanese females loitering outside the immigration counter. Is that them? We didn't know yet. Then they came closer and closer and OMFG IT'S THEM!!!!! AHHHHH!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!

     But because of my bad eyesight I spent most of the time looking for Amina and Haachan. Too many things happened so I'll just write about the highlights. All these happened at the glass barrier. Sadly I was in a bad position (all the way to the right of the picture).
   1. Nacchi broke off from the group and went closer to us. She took out her mobile phone and snapped a picture of us. She then waved at us but before she went back to the group, SHE BLEW US A KISS! NAGE KISSU!!!!!! Everyone went crazy for the next 5 seconds.
   2. One of my friends who is a Mariyannu fan wrote her a board saying "Ore no oyatsu wa Mariyannu" (My snack is Mariyannu), which is a pun of her catchphrase. Mariyannu took notice and she came up to the glass and took a picture of it.
   3. Another one of my friends wrote a "Watarirouka Hashiritai" board. Harugon went right up to the glass and pointed at it. The 2 of them were seperated by 1cm of glass. AHHHHHH jealous!
   4. Chiyuu came up to the glass too and took a few pictures of us. 
   5. Oh and of course, Aamin did her "Mayuge BOOOOOOOON". Those eyebrows are a killer.

image credit to Suzuki Mariya

     Then the girls started to walk towards the exit gate and.....RUNNNN!!!!! Everyone made a mad dash towards the metal barriers trying to get a good spot to see the them. I managed to get a good spot myself, to the expense of a few others hehe . First one out of the gate was Chiyuu, oh gawd shes so damn cute, followed by Aamin, Haachan!!!!, Nacchi and AMINAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! I shouted her name and she turned to look at me and saw my board and she started waving at me with a big excited smile on her face, and then she nearly tripped on her luggage bag (^_^;;)>. Once she got her posture back the turned towards me again and said "thank you". Dawwwww so cute. Then she went towards the exit and I just shouted the names of the rest of the girls that walked past.

     Then I noticed with the corner of my eye some people running past me towards the door. Time to run again lol, this time to the exit to the bus. Luckily the bus did not employ tinted glass so we could see clearly which members were sitting where. We continued fanboying and fangirling, shouting the members names hoping that they can hear us through the soundproof glass.  By the time I reached the bus, Amina just got on it so I followed her. She decided to sit on the very back of the bus with Haachan. YEAH! My top 2 favourite AKB members sitting beside each other! So I waved my board some more and continued shouting Amina and Haachan (and some Ayarin and Aamin too since they were sitting nearby). And then Amina took out her cellphone and took a picture of my board!

image credit to Sato Amina

     OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!! IT MADE IT INTO HER BLOG!!!!! Some people told me that this was the first time any fan item ever made it into Amina's blog. OMG I'M SO HAPPY!!!!! About 5 mins later they were still loading the luggage into the bus. That's when I remembered that I have some Amina BLTs in my bag. Dang should have taken them out earlier! I quickly took them out and showed it to Amina. It took her some time for her to realize that those BLTs were of her (partially because I was waving them around too much) but when she did she let out an excited scream and laugh which caught the attention of the girls sitting in front. Abe Kentaro (AKB48's photographer) also saw the BLTs and approved of them (his the one who takes the BLT pictures). Then it's time to say byebye to them as their bus drove off to their hotel.

These are the two BLTs that I showed Amina. Their quite old from 2008ish.

You can watch some of the girl's arrival in these links. More in their channel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hViJ8KioRPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqo3wDU8poA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtZ_0vQfQo

Part 2: http://melosnomichi.blogspot.com/2010/11/akb48-live-in-afa-x-singapore_27.html
Part 3: http://melosnomichi.blogspot.com/2010/11/akb48-live-in-afa-x-singapore_30.html