The once-a-year and Singapore’s biggest Anime convention is back this weekend from Friday through Sunday and I will be covering all (or perhaps most) of it this year!

With this being the first multi-day event that we’ll be covering, I’ll be updating this article throughout the weekend if there is something of interest that I can try on the other days that I will be going.

PSA to eventgoers:  According to this post, there seems to be a few incidences of pickpockets and thieves so be wary while safekeeping your belongings!

Video Walk-through

Photo Gallery

If you like collecting figurines, AFA always has you covered on that front. Check out our photo gallery below!

Artist Gallery

What AFA would be complete without a walk through the merch aisle? The Creators Hub is once again located at the top right corner of the event this year and contains about 20-something booths filled with all sorts of goodies and things anime-related. Check out a couple of shots in my walkaround above.

While nothing particularly stood out for me (except for Super Saiyan Shaggy which I didn’t take a picture of for some reason, damn), I’m sure you can find your favourite franchise if you look hard enough.

  • Friday, 3pm
  • Friday, 5pm

Be sure to come in extra early or extra late though as the crowd is massive as always and wouldn’t tide down until about 6pm in the evening.

Naruto x Boruto Ninja Selection Exam

For the Naruto aficionados out there, there is a new game/event presented by The ODEX Escape in which a group of players is tasked to go through several Naruto-related challenges based on the lore of the series. Unfortunately, there is no mention of fighting your friends in one on one battle combat-arena style, for the promotion title.

I didn’t try out in the limited hours I was there but I might in the next few days!

Food @AFA

Food has always been a primary mainstay for AFA and this year is no exception. There are plenty of stalls to choose from. While I didn’t get anything to eat yesterday at the stalls, I’ll be sure to report back here if I should ever crave for some morsel.

Cold Soba

Price: $8 – 10/ cup (varies)

Day 2: Fortunately, I was craving for something light while walking the halls today, so off to the food aisle i go. What caught my eye was a cold soba store that you don’t typically see vendors selling in Singapore.

Looks like they are cooking up some cold soba with your choice of meat. I had opted for Soba with grilled beef but unfortunately, they ran out of beef so I had the Karraage instead.

The food was pretty good and high quality without the chicken tasting too much like flour, it feels crunchy to the bite with no hints of it being too dry. The cold soba did also go well with the more heaty food to balance it out. Pricing and portion wise, I felt like it was a little too expensive for the amount you get but still, its not too bad for a snack.

What is particularly special this year is that the “ground” floor, level 3 of the convention centre, also had booths for food vendors which wasn’t the case in previous years. This would be great for those that don’t want to wander the halls outside to be able to get a quick bite.

Tiger Brown-Sugar Bubble Tea

Price: $5.50/ cup

I had this drink for myself while I was thirsty and found it to be alright; not much to comment on, really. It’s bubble tea. Although it is a bit on the pricey side for a “regular” cup, unfortunately.

Bandai Namco Gaming Area

Bandai Namco seems to be this year’s main exhibitor for all things gaming related, at least for consoles. Let’s dive into some of the interesting ones!

DBZ: Kakarot

For those interested in the more iconic DBZ 3D tournament fighters, do check out DBZ: Kakarot. The gameplay should be very familiar for those that like the Budokai series of DBZ fighters with full 3D movement, combos and the rapid instant transmission dodges that PVP players like to spam.

It seems like there will be a story mode in this game that will let you go through the iconic moments from the series which further exemplifies that this game is just Budokai 5 in disguise as another name.

We’ve recorded some gameplay footage below:

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4

Bandai Namco presents us yet another One Piece Musou game and It looks pretty good. Characters are very presentable and akin to their anime counterparts, there was no slowdown as far as I can tell with large groups of enemies and for Luffy at least, there seems to be some variety in the amount of special attacks that you can do.

Here is our gameplay footage below:

Doraemon Story of Seasons

Day 2: I checked out Doraemon: Story of Seasons today which I didn’t know existed before. Reading it up a little, it is apparently a harvest moon x doraemon crossover which seems pretty interesting.

I captured some gameplay footage below (Warning: slightly shaky cam footage):

The rest

Further on display, there is also what appears to be a “One Punch Man” fighting game and another Gundam Mecha Fighter but neither were allowed to be filmed or photographed; oh well.

Chia is the horse-author from the far flung year of 2153. While not grazing on grass pastures or reviewing old time-y games and technology from the early 21st century pretending to not know what comes next (as to not disturb the space-time continuum), he can be seen exchanging vast quantities of Earth currency for parts needed to fix his damaged space ship.