Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

I received a mail a few days back informing me that I am a proud owner of an Anime Festival Asia media pass as I had registered with them as a blogger on their website. I found that rather perculiar as I haven’t been surfing the net for a few days now, other than sourcing for exam study materials. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt to accept a free offer, would it? I checked a couple more times:

“Thank you for registering online at the AFA08 press room for the media
pass.
Please come by to pick up your media pass for AFA08 from Friday 21 Nov,
2.30pm if you are attending the press conference that starts at 3.00pm.”

It would appear that someone has registered my name and a RSVP wasn’t required. However, given what tjhan had tried to pull off earlier, I wasn’t expecting RIUVA to be of any welcome at the event anyway. Oh and by the way, tjhan won’t be going to the event. Call him a pussy who submits to death threats from weak otakus if you may, but we have our final exams from today onwards. Threat or not, grow up kids.

That said, I gave up my study time and headed over on Friday afternoon. Voila! My name was unsurprisingly not on the list. That’s okay I guess, since I got one after 40 minutes of waiting for everyone else to successfully pick up their passes. I dropped my namecard into the card vase filled with name cards, and lo and behold the staff hands fished it out quickly, as if my dirty card would eat up all the important names in the container. A second procedure was taken, involving leading me to another person in charge of the “bloggers”. So there is a certain level of differentiation between the professionals and ego-wankers. I’ll admit that I wasn’t too impressed about it.

The next person after me to have a media pass problem was seemingly given a reprimanding from the staff for not having RSVP-ed.

“You are journalists. Learn to RSVP like every other journalist!”

I do think that people will take the effort to RSVP if the requirement for doing so is clearly stated in the notification mail. If there is a clear distinction between blogger and professional journalists, then don’t expect the ego-wankers to be behaving like the latter. Learn to include the requirement for RSVP in the mail like EVERY OTHER EVENT INVITATION I’VE RECEIVED.

The press conference involved a slight introduction to the event itself, of which numerous videos and photos have been taken. As I had only a single cameraphone, I ended up helping DM record the entire guest introduction. You may view it when he places it on YouTube eventually. Speaking of DarkMirage, he made it clear once again that his name is DarkMirage and not Dark Mirage. He insisted on not having his real name written on his media pass but ended up having a frustrating tale to tell about how his name is not Dark Mirage, which is some horse’s name.

As it was preparation day, the venue itself was rather bare. So I just helped about with my college’s animation society’s event booth while taking some time to exchange contacts with some overseas journalists.

One of the IFS artworks on exhibit at my club’s booth which I fancy very much. I’m buying the PC version of Mirror’s Edge when it’s out next year.

Later on, Mizuki Ichirou and May’N had a little rehearsal on stage and I got to have a free VIP-like preview treat to Sunday’s performance. The staff members were particularly strict with prohibiting cameras for the May’n portion of the rehearsal so there won’t be any photos of her in action. Some guy was typing an SMS with his head bent low, and this action attracted the patrol horde to stalk him for the next ten minutes. Not cool.

I’d like to commend May’N for possessing an extremely good live performing voice. In fact, she sounded way better than her CDs. In stark contrast, some trashy people can’t perform live without heavy EQ settings and distortions utilised for CD production. However, May’N did go way off tune on the last song, “Iteza Gogo Kuji Don’t Be Late”. She went into minor pitch right at the start, and struggled to pull it back into the right chord at the chorus. She hit the right pitch for three syllables before dropping back to minor again. This wavering process continued till the song ended. I wonder if the music had partially deafened her, or she just needs water after singing 6 songs in a row without any misses. Overall, I really enjoyed the rehearsal performance and gladly agree with DM that this young star has a bright future.

Now I’ll just need to find a way to get her to sign on my palm before embarking on a hand-kissing tour.

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