(Originally published at Deremoe on November 1, 2013.)
We never knew this would happen.
Animax Asia will hold its second iteration of the Animax Carnival Philippines this year; and aside from its change of venue to the TriNoma Activity Center (previously, this event was held at the Activity Area of the Robinsons Place Manila’s Midtown Wing) is a big surprise — Anisong Artiste May Nakabayashi (aka May’n) will be performing here in Manila.
To think that we’ve been monitoring the current trend of Japanese artists coming to our country this year — from Japanese Cosplayers in 2012, to Manga artists (like Bow Ditama), musicians (like Joe Inoue) and idol groups (like Starmarie) this year. May’n is a great addition to the trend, and thus convince us that the trend is getting higher.
…and if you mention May’n to your friends who watch Accel World or Macross Frontier, chances are they know her. She’s also with the guys at Horipro (who has three AKB48 members and Tomomi Itano in their roster) and in addition, she’s in what I can refer to as the “Animax / AFA clique”, which includes the guests for AFA 2013 in Singapore.
When this piece of news broke out, fellow Otaku media (Otakultura, ZEN, AnimePH) and even events like Cosplay Mania shared this, convincing us that the hype has exploded, exaggeratedly speaking.
This, in turn, turn into a huddle with the fellows on Twitter — Even one aniblogger I spoke to gets excited.
With all these mentioned, this “Save the best for last” serving for the 2013 Events Calendar has made 2013’s events sweeter — and soon enough, everyone’s focus will be on this one, they might even forget that there are other events that will come from this time on.
In addition, if this event became successful, we can see chances of AFA coming to our country in less than three years. Even Danny Choo said it last year: We need to have AFA Philippines soon.
We’ll still keep our eyes out on updates, because who knows, the next thing we’ll see is the talk of the town.