It seems people have started blogging about their moments at DaiCon 2009 in MMU Cyberjaya. Some were happy and delighted. While there were also some people felt unsatisfied with the event. Anyhow, I am just viewing this from my experiences and point of view. Being the one who went there for Minori Chihara, the concert was awesome. I can also say that the whole event was quite decent and nothing extraordinary except for Minorin. That’s why some people called it as “Minori Chihara Event” rather than anime convention. Of course that there were many stuffs being offered on the booths but I think the area for them was not that large as the place is being divided for the stage performance and the booths. Cosplay competition, Gundam thingy, karaoke and others were also there. The Grand Hall is indeed huge. I am just thinking the event area shouldn’t be a combination of both mini concert of Minori Chihara and the anime convention itself.

DaiCon 2009

‘Dai’ in DaiCon means big. Literally brings a meaning of Big Convention (large, huge expo or any other words that you may think). But ‘daikon’ (大根) also means radish in Japanese. Especially for the Japanese, the most widely known radish is that white, giant carrot which we’re already making fun out of it. There are some friends of mine within the DaiCon committee members and they’re also people from Anime Shrine. It’s not a surprise to see many familiar faces during the event (also some people I considered as annoying as hell lol). linkinstreet and Czero were staying at my house on both nights as we planned to go there together. Some others like ultimaweaponx and yafex were with Eccentrical at his house in Semenyih. linkinstreet acquired Media/Blogger Pass so that I could park my car pretty much near the Grand Hall.

Media Pass

I was there quite early along with linkinstreet and Czero. Apparently because we’re trying to get early shots of the event. The hall is open for public at 10 a.m. Pretty much, there were people already waiting for the opening. I immediately went to the counter to acquire my ticket for both autograph and concert sessions. As we entered the hall, we’re greeted by salesgirls from various sponsors of DaiCon. In the same time, there were girls in maid costumes strolling around (who were actually the waitresses for Maid Cafe on the left side of the hall). Doujin booths were the ones I went to as they’re selling badges, posters and other stuffs. Apparently there were some Japanese visitors who were like buying many sets of stuffs from them. Since there were K-On! and Suzumiya Haruhi badges there, I bought both sets. Wolfx was at Macross FM booth. Even though he wasn’t wearing his well-known yellow pedo hat, I could easily recognize him from afar (lolol). The TFM booth was well endowed with a bunch of cute nendroids, figmas, figurines and many more stuffs of animu characters. The Gundam booth offers a lot of stuffs too and on the first day, there was a Gundam assembling yada-yada thing competition.The most popular booth seemed to be Kareshi Kanojyo no Mise (KKnM) as they’re selling weaboo merchandises directly from Japan. People already queued up as soon as the hall is opened while the booth was only start selling their products on 11 a.m. as far as I was told. Soon after, there was the opening ceremony to officiate the event.

A bunch of Japanese guys

Yuki Nagato banner

The Figure Mall booth

Macross booth

Wolfx and his hat. This was on the second day btw

Kareshi Kanojyo no Mise booth

Goreng Gitar plastik

Maids

Things I bought

Of course there were other booths but I wasn’t really interested to look at them because those were actually unrelated booths for this event like Maxis, Shokubutsu and Fresh & White. I wasn’t weaboo enough to get into the Maid Cafe because I always had in my mind about such thing would be very expensive (typical me). Afterall, I was mainly sitting at the concert area watching those cosplayers and karaoke singers to buy some time. Well of course I was waiting for the autograph session XD. Eventually, There were a lot of cosplayers and photographers started taking pictures of them. Because I was wearing the kaffiyah and the /AS/ jacket, it was pretty much hot (stupid me) and I decided to put my jacket inside my car. When I was on the way approaching my car, a fellow photographer told me that Minorin was about to arrive at press conference room. But only offical media members were able to get inside. Oh well, the Q&A along with autograph session will gonna start sooner anyway. So I got back to the hall and patiently waited there….

Minori Chihara

There she got into the area and people were greeting her loudly. It started first with Q&A session which some already prepared questions being asked to Minorin. There were even some people from outside Malaysia like that Japanese dude and a Canadian if I am not mistaken. Soon after, the open questions for the audiences. A lolwut dude with a board of Chiaki Minami picture asking lolwut question of, “Are you married?” which was really a lolwut moment. Either he was clueless on what to ask or just simply stupid, I don’t know. It took about 30 minutes just for that session. Then, the autograph session started. Being the front row occupants, me and other people including chizzu, kusakabemisao and ultimaweaponx were lining up first. I had 4 stuffs that can be used for her autograph; Message 01 DVD, Message 02 DVD, and two posters from Pickup Voice and Voice NewType. kusakabemisao asked me to give him any of my collections there and he’s willing to replace it later. I gave him Message 01 DVD and decided to use Message 02 DVD instead for mine (as posters kinda hard to be preserved later on, I think). The lining up just below the stage is pretty much nostalgic because it’s just like the graduation day with official photographers were the ones taking picture of us at the table (since no photgraphy is allowed during that session, only during Q&A). It’s my time. I went forward to the table and directly looking at her. I bowed a little bit and gave the DVD case to her. She smiled, wide, and asked where did I buy the DVD in Japanese. Being weaboo enough, I could tell what she asked but before I replied to her, the translator guy beside her translated it to me. Well, I told her that it was from Amazon Japan. Then the translator guy beside her asked me where should be her signature will be. I simply pointed my finger to the booklet inside the case. I believed that was the best place for her signature. With the marker in her hand, she signed it off. She then returned the Message 02 DVD back to me with a lovely smile and said, “Terima Kasih.” I bowed to her again and received it back gladly. Eventually I could shake her hand but I opted for not doing it because my palm was sweaty (whether it was hot or I was nervous like hell). I knew it was a chance once in my lifetime (even igor_lexus thinks it’s such a waste for not doing it). But I was afraid if that would make her feels discomfort. Plus there were 94 more persons behind me waiting for their turns and that’s quite a crowd for such autograph session. Upon moving away from the stage, Cholic said to me, “Suka la tu.” Well, of course, my dear.

The same Japanese dudes

I went back to my seat and chatting along with other people there. Usually, the autograph session would only take about 50 persons rather than a hundred (like what ejump shared about his experiences). I was really worried if that many people would make her feel uneasy. You know, some of the fans are capable of speaking in Japanese (eg. kusakabemisao and ultimweaponx). When they went up there, they might even started talking to her. That might lengthening the session. Some even giving her presents like the kuma-san (a stuffed bear) given by ejump to Minorin. So, yeah, the session getting longer than what have been scheduled. Being a professional, she didn’t give any kind of tiredness but surely that was tiring as what she did was to make her fans pleased. After the session finished, she’s then prepared to get back to the Traders Hotel, the place where she stayed during her visit here in Malaysia. What she did was already posted in my previous post. It’s time for me to get back home too.

*pokes*

Sunday, the second day of DaiCon. Also, the mini concert of Minori Chihara first time ever in Southeast Asia. The concert is scheduled at 3 p.m. Though, we went there around 11 a.m. just hoping whether if there might be interesting thing happen. The crowds were quite similar like Saturday. Still got some rooms to play around the hall. I can tell that things getting a little bit boring because less activities than yesterday. As much as I anticipated for the concert, I had to do something to fill up the time. Well, there were cosplayers. Cosplayers that willing to do some photoshoots outside the Grand Hall. It’s quite funny because when a few of us started to take pictures of them, more photographers coming just to take pictures. Valho was pretty good of ‘taking away’ some cosplayers to some isolated areas for such thing.

Cool Sturmtruppen

PUNCH!

It wasn't raining inside the hall...

D-D-DOUBLE KILLS!

Fuwa fuwa time

Pirate CD vendor *just kidding*

While people busy taking pictures, I realized that it’s already 2:15 p.m. and decided to go back to the hall. As I thought, people has started gathering up near the concert entrance. I was standing there, near the entrance for such a long time. You can say that eventhough I am the AWSM Ticket holder, I can’t wait to get in faster (well, my seat is already there, unchanged). I was unsure when they will allow us to enter so there I kept myself standing-by until 3 p.m. They started to allow people with tickets coming in. I went straight away to my seat yesterday. I saw some stuffs on the seats. It’s actually a friendly reminder on what to do and what we should not do during the performance for the sake of our conveniences. It was prepared by MSS (Minori Smile Seasons – a Minori Chihara fan club). Along with the stuffs were light sticks. Being a nubfag, such sticks were quite amusing because I only saw these on those Japanese concerts (like on those concert DVD-rips lol). A row of seats in front of us was for the Japanese fans of Minorin from Japan. Eventually, the MSS. They were the ones who guided us on how to use the light sticks and jumping like mad during the concerts. The seats kinda useless because for the whole concert, we were mostly standing, following the guidance by those people in front of us. Minorin entered the stage and started singing Shijin no Tabi, a song from her Contact album. Then, Fragment~ Shooting Star of the Origin, a song from Suika visual novel (I really like this song). Followed by Yuki, Muon, Madobe ni te (Yuki Nagato character song), Junpaku Sanctuary, Kimi ga Kureta Ano Hi (cool), Aoi Kotou, Paradise Lost (wheee), Tomorrow’s Chance, Prism in the name of hope and everlasting… Most of these songs, I could memorize them lyrics a little bit. Especially Fragment~ Shooting Star of the Origin and Paradise Lost. It’s awesome to listen to the songs being sung as live performance. Plus, she’s a very tough singer for having straight away singing 10 songs plus 3 encores. I couldn’t remember the title of the encore songs but one of them was Ameagari no Hana yo Sake and I think another one was Future Star. Not sure about the other one. For the encores, she wore a Kebaya dress (which she said ‘kubaya’ instead). That was lovely but I think she might had some troubles with the dress as I saw her trying to do at her shoulder or something. All in all, it was great, fantastic and awesome concert. People were applauding and in full of joy.

:3

Until the “Bottle Incident” happened. Throughout the concert, I kept looking at the bottle that she drank. The bottle is placed on top of a small table where she could easily reach. About 4 times she drank from the said bottle. It’s actually Evian drinking water, quite popular for celebrities worldwide. After her performance ended, she then moved away to the backstage. While I already realized about it, suddenly people beside me started to talk about the bottle. Eventually I joined in the conversation and then told Setsuna-san about it. He getting hyped and linkinstreet starting to say something about taking it. So, there Setsuna went… quickly climbed up the stage, took the bottle and jumped off the stage. Crowds started to realized what he did and it became a ruckus in the hall. While some might think it’s just a bottle of water, there’s a thing that popular in anime fandom called “indirect kiss” (also popular for those who always watching J-Drama or movies). He’s like running away from the crowds while they chasing. It was intended for fun stuff. But things getting worse later on just like today when bloggers started to express their uneasiness with the action while some others kinda support it (like the shitstorm happened in SankakuComplex). You can say I was one of the people who gave the idea of taking the bottle hahaha. But I can’t help it when looking at those comments in SC. Well, there are always Malaysian bashing stuffs (usually by Singaporeans and Indonesians while not forgetting those anti-government sentiment within the country). I can tell that things like this might happened but it’s nosepickworthy to watch this nationalist bashing when it’s related with other rival nations. Stuff like this was for fun. Another example that I can show you is the Hirano Aya ruckus where she was actually in Malaysia. As I was also included in such case, I can tell you that it’s to make it lolworthy yet bashing continues. Maa maa.

At least Minorin said, “Malaysia is the best, you idiots!”

Edit: Gallery links below.

• DaiCon 2009 – Minorin Gallery
• DaiCon 2009 – Cosplayers Gallery
• DaiCon 2009 – Booth Gallery