Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

A Certain Magical Event (A.C.M.E) is actually an event that I never knew existed till an instructor told me about it. Excited, I told my buddy and we arrived at around 3pm after a heavy lunch at Bugis Junction.

Held at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) Seminar Room, A.C.M.E is a mini event that attracted card players, gamers and doujin lovers. It’s mini due to the physical space of the event as I could walk from one end to the other in a minute. Actually I thought that A.C.M.E would be a large scale event; something like the Singapore Toys, Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) but then again, though mini, I got to spend some quality time there.

Locating NAFA Campus 1 was easy since I have been there a couple of times before but I didn’t know where the Seminar Room was. My worries were dispelled when uniformly spaced signs guided my friend and I there. While climbing the flight of stairs to get to the Seminar Room that’s located on the 2nd floor, I became terribly worried because I spotted a queue and thought that I had to queue to enter. Fortunately, the queue was for some To-Love-RU card competition so we could immediately just enter the Seminar Room unless we wanted to do card battles with other players.

I felt that the event was an eye opener. Firstly, I had to apply for a media coverage pass before I could take photos when I could do so for other events without a media pass. Furthermore due to photo taking regulations, I was only allowed to take "general photo shots". Hence, please forgive me for the lack of photos as I would like to abide to A.C.M.E’s rules and regulations.

The Seminar Room was divided into roughly 3 sections; one for card games, another for doujin booths and the third for video games. First off is the section for card games.

The card game section was crowded with card players as they battled it out with one another. I glanced at their cards when I passed a few tables and noticed that each card is represented by an anime girl. Think pokemon card game but instead of pokemon, they’re anime girls! It’s rather interesting as I haven’t seen anime girls on cards or anime girls booster card pack before. They’re pretty handy for players who need a harem. XD

I visited the doujin booths next and though there were only 10-20 booths, many of the artists’ works caught my attention. What’s best is that the artists themselves are present so when a purchase is made, one can get his/her signature on the spot. It’s like a sales cum autograph session. I got the chance to meet local artists like the Mugen artists and I got the chance to peek into the works of the team from Collateral Damage Studios (C.D.S). Fans of K1, Hetalia and Kuroshijitsu would be on cloud 9 as fanarts were readily available.

The last section was what I assumed to be the video games section as there were 2 controllers plus a screen so that all visitors could watch. This section is probably what I know least of since games were only played periodically with only a crowd gathering now and then. XD

Overall though the event was mini I enjoyed myself as the artists there were friendly and willing to share their works. It’s the quality that counts, not quantity right? Before leaving, I bought a bookmark of chibi Lightning from FF13 for $2. It looks quite cute so please feel free to check out the artist’s deviantart account if you’re interested. I even collected the name cards of the various artists so that I could view their deviantart accounts during my free time!

Till my next post, this is Hynavian signing out.