Goldfries' Report

I was really excited over this event ever since I saw the commercials on ASTRO's AXN channel. So, I woke up early Saturday morning in great anticipation. Hopefully, I will get to see a really nice anime exhibition with plenty of goods for sale.

Okay, let's cut through the rest of my day and fast-forward to the moment I stood in front of the exhibition hall at about 12:30 PM, which was just 30 minutes after exhibition opened to the public. I was really surprised to see the huge crowd standing in front of the hall.

The crowd

I was even more surprised when I saw how small the exhibition hall was! Even then, I was contemplating whether I should even get stuck with the crowd. Luckily, I came with a few friends, although conversation was almost impossible. So it ended up a shout-as-loud-as-you-can-and-hope-they-hear-you situation.

Entry to the exhibition hall wasn't easy. We literally had to shuffle with the crowd around the entrance just to go in. It looked like the crowd that we always see in front of a rock concert's stage. It took us 20 minutes of shuffling just to get into the hall!

The exhibition hall was so small that only a limited number of visitors were allowed to enter before the entrance guards held off the rest of the crowd and lowered the metal shutters. Being taller than most of the people there, I was able to peer into the hall. As such I was really did not expect much when I saw the layout of the hall.

I finally entered the hall at about 1 PM. Movement was very restricted. The best description for it would be "you can't move if you don't push". It was really bad, especially with the heat and congestion.

I was looking forward to displays of anything related to the likes of Vandread, Gundam, Samurai X, Initial D, Macross, Mospeada, Evangelion and Ranma. But I ended up looking at a few display cases of very limited numbers of Macross, Gundam, Sailormoon, Astroboy (I think that's what people call it) and even Zoids. Studio Gibhli products were not seen at all.

Yeah, I know I did not get to see everything that was displayed at the Anime-Tech booth so if you are lucky, you might find them there. But what's the point of buying stuff at the booth in the exhibition hall when the Anime-Tech shop itself is just outside, minus the crowd and with more choices?