Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2022 Event Digest

Southeast Asia's biggest anime event, Anime Festival Asia, has concluded. The weekend event has a crowd estimate of 120,000, similar to its last physical iteration in 2019, the organizer has told Reuters.

NewsDrop has provided a quick guide to VTuber content in anticipation of this year's event:

Guide to VTuber Content at Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2022

VTuber Fans attending Southeast Asia’s biggest anime event shall expect lots of VTuber content—take a look at our guide!

VTuber NewsDropJay Agonoy

Now that the event has ended, we take a peek at some of the highlights from this year's AFA. Do take note that we prepared this digest based on what we can gather online. That said, enjoy reading the digest until the end!

Main Stage Activities

The Day Stage kicked off with the audience meeting Fulgur Ovid from Nijisanji EN's Noctyx unit. This is Fuu-chan's first solo stage appearance. She was accompanied by Nijisanji's Zea Cornelia who served as a co-host for the segment.

Tweets from those who attended the segment read that:

• He's watching Akiba Maid War.
• He sang Legatus 505, and
• Comfydants were giving out free hand fans and cookies afterwards.

Post-event, he thanked everyone for making his first solo appearance positive and unforgettable.

Next was the "Whose VTuber Line was it Anyway?" segment from Prism Project's Yura Rikudou, Naki Kamizuki and Sara Nagare together with MyHolo TV's Liliana Vampaia and independent VTubers Kanna Tamachi and Emma Oumiya.

• MyHolo TV has photo album of the sights captured during the segment. In one photo, Liliana was seen with a label "Tsundere Maid."

• Naki and Sara expressed their gratitude after the segment—Sara had an amazing time and lots of laughs. Naki had a lot of fun with it, and hopes the audience enjoyed it too. Yura on the other hand had a blast spending her days with her two kouhai.

Another segment was the Virtual Net Meeting with NHOT BOT's Amane Luna, VirtuaReal's Nox, Gems Company's Ichimonji Maya and VReverie's Lilrya Prisvelle.

• Nox tweeted that she made it through the segment even though she got disconnected at the start.
• Maya tweeted that it was her first-time meeting VTuber fans in Singapore, made new friends and learned Singlish and Chinese.
• Lilrya had a jam-packed schedule, as she tweets she's going to meet her fans closer at the VReverie booth after the segment.

Hololive Meet (November 27)

Saturday's Hololive Meet in Singapore include Tsunomaki Watame's Watame Night Fever in Singapore concert. Anisong DJ Zeroblade has documented the set list of that fateful night in two notes:

• The DJ even watched Watame's post-event talk stream, as documented in this thread.
• Prior to the concert, Watame was asked what anime she likes—Kirakirakat told NewsDrop she answered Overlord and Busou Renkin.
• Even before Watame's segment, Kat also told us Moona Hoshinova and Anya Melfissa were having fun with the audience, which includes a trivia game for mega fans.
• One of the event's media partners, GamerBraves had a separate story for this segment, which is a recommended read.

I Love Anisong (November 28)

Strawberry Prince's management company STPR Inc. has a work diary online, with the latest entry talking about AFA. One noticeable part of the diary is the staff's description of the group's time at the I Love Anisong stage:

Who would have thought that we would hear the call and response, which we haven't heard since Seibu Dome in 2019, here in the land of Singapore...

The group performed three songs for the audience as their virtual selves.

Riot Music's Yuka Nagase had a peek of AFA's huge crowds, had her merchandise sold out and her I Love Anisong appearance graced by several fans. Yuka was very happy, and she enjoyed her stay in Singapore.

Akiba Stage Activities

• As expected, VTuber groups fill up parts of the Akiba Stage program at the Exhibition Hall 401-404. The program was also broadcast live on Bilibili Global unarchived.
• Thailand's top VTuber Aisha (Aisika Watchanaroj) performed in 3D, singing hits such as "New Genesis" from One Piece Film Red on stage.
• Singing VTuber trio V☆irus performs next, singing a variety of songs from Hololive, Nijisanji EN and even K-On!

• Indonesia's DigiKagi introduced its members and prepared a special Rapunzel skit for the audience.
• The next day, VReverie talents went live on stage to sing. Outside the Akiba Stage, each talent entertained fans at their booth. Our good friend AGCtv based in the country was able to talk to Ophelia Midnight and Nova Aokami.

Virtual Doubutsu (V:D0) debuted at the AFA Stage sponsored by XP-Pen. The four VTuber talents started with a chaotic introduction, and then they went on to draw in a canvas.

• The group also had a few seconds of international attention as the standees of some of its members were captured in the video accompaniment to Reuters' report.

Notable VTuber Cosplays

Cosplay is vibrant throughout the whole three days of AFA, and we've seen a lot of great and notable VTuber cosplays such as:

• Ryukku-k cosplaying as Hakos Baelz (Day 3)
• Echo as Shoto (Day 2)
• Yui as Alban Knox (Day 3)
• Byoru cosplaying as Ironmouse
• Tinneh cosplaying as Kanade Izuru (Day 1), Akai Haato (Day 2) and Hoshimachi Suisei (Day 3)
• Tao Tan as Gawr Gura
• Guest cosplayer Thames Malerose as Fulgur Ovid (Day 1)
• Guest cosplayer Ely as Calliope Mori (Day 1)

AGCtv also has an album of great VTuber cosplays during the three-day festival:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by AGCtv (@agctv81)

GamerBraves also sat down with festival director Shawn Chin of organizer SOZO Pte Ltd. to talk about the event, which is another recommended read.

• Mr. Chin said that VTubers are "definitely here to stay," referring to how the festival decided to include VTubers in its guest lineup.

Special thanks to AGCtv for sharing his footage (including our banner photo of a Tsunomaki Watame cosplay), and Kirakirakat for sharing her concert experience.