AKB48 @ STGCC (Day 0 & 1)

It has been more than a week since the Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention (STGCC in short) was over and many AKB48 fans are probably now suffering from AKB48 "hangover" effects . I did some photo coverage on the facebook AKB48 fans community but I know this is probably not enough for the hungry fans. So here we goes on the full coverage on the event =)

Day 0

It was Day 0, the day where three AKB48 members Ucchi (Mayumi Uchida), Tomochan (Tomomi Nakatsuka)  & Harukyan (Haruka Ishida)  were expected to arrive in Singapore for the appearance in STGCC on Friday.While many fans (including myself) had hoped  that they would take morning flight and reached Singapore on Thursday evening, they took the 5pm flight from Narita Airport instead.

Photos of the trio at Narita airport. Photo from Tomochan's blog

Taking the 5pm flight means they would only reach Singapore only at around 2am midnight! I had to give it a miss as I had to worked in the morning next day. However, this had not deterred the resolution of the local  AKB48 fans. According to source, there was around 30 fans welcoming the girls at midnight. Remember its 2am midnight where everyone was already asleep and these 30 fans would have to wake up early next morning for the handshake event queue. Kudos the fans who stay up for this. The JPH!P duos did probably one of few media coverage of their arrival which you can find here.

Kris, Ucchi & Harukyan's arrival in Airport. Salute to the JPH!P duo (maliciel, kohilist) who had to give up their sleep to wait for them at airport. Photo from JPH!P & more photos can be found on their site.

Day 1 

STGCC entrance

Day1 was the day where AKB48 trio Ucchi, Tomochan  & Harukyan  were expected to have an appearance on the main stage of STGCC. STGCC is an annual event in Singapore that features comics, anime, film, toys, collectibles and games, bringing the best of east and west to the local fans. STGCC has been pretty much less associated with Japanese stuffs in the past but this year STGCC went for a slightly different tone, bringing AKB48 to Singapore. This time round, all the senbatsus for the 19th single "Chance no Juban" came to Singapore with the exception of Acchan, Kojiharu, Aki-cha and Nacchi. While some fans had complained that the lineup was inferior (who don't want to see Takamina, Acchan and rest of the front girls...) , many of the local fans were just delighted to have the girls here again.

Plenty of autograph sessions in STGCC. There should have been one for AKB48 too...

The first 50 fans who queue early in the morning were entitled to touch shake hands with the Ucchi, Tomochan & Harukyan. Handshake sessions for AKB48 member happen regularly in Japan but this is only the first time an AKB48 handshake session is held in South East Asia. While it may sound like a pretty usual event, handshake session is always a very special occasion for AKB48 fans. It is the time when fans will attempt to deliver their messages & encouragements or even engaged in a very short personal conversation with their favorite members face to face.

Fans queuing as early as 10am for AKB48 handshake session. Photo from STGCC site.

As I had to work in the morning , I only managed to reached the venue around 2pm .As expected,all 50 handshakes places had already been taken up so no handshakes for me =(.  Fans had started queuing as early as 10am even though the official queue started at 12pm. The event would begin only at 4pm so the queuing fans got to wait for more than 6 hours to see their idols. Nevertheless, the long hour of queuing did nothing in reducing the enthusiasm of these fans. I was surprised that the fans even prepared the light sticks as performance was not guaranteed as part of the Day 1 event.

STGCC stage for AKB48 appearance

Since there was still 2 hours to event, I moved around the exhibition hall for other panels to kill my time. There was already a line of fans who lined up around the stage when I came back half an hour before the AKB48 appearance. Soon, fans began to gather around the stage and at 4pm we have around 300 audiences waiting for the show to start. Most of the audiences that day were casual fans or onlookers judging from the fact that only the crowds near the queuing area can do the mix. The turnout was not bad considering AKB48 was still relative unknown in Singapore and that that day was a weekday afternoon. After a long run of advertisements, the three girls  finally appeared on stage causing the crowd to go wild. The trio started with " Zannen Shoujo" which is probably the better known stage song for Ucchi and Tomochan with Mayuyu replaced by Harukyan at center.

This is the first time this song is performed outside Japan and more importantly they performed this song LIVE !!! Many have expected them to lip-synced like many other appearances at overseas events but these girls beat the odds to do a LIVE in Singapore. Ucchi was real good and meet my expectation of the new front girl. She was charismatic and confident throughout the performances. Harukyan executed Mayuyu's part pretty well but lack behind in term of her expression and movement (cannot blame her, Mayuyu is simply too good in this song but Harukyan's time in Team B had done her well). Tomochan is much prettier in person and appeared to have a good vocal too.

The next song they performed is "Tsundere" . A Team A song which is not in my list of fav songs but the girls had done well enough to win the crowd with their energetic performance.

Ucchi, Tomochan & Harukyan's version of Tsundere

Tomochan & Harukyan + a sneaky photographer at the back

Adorable Ucchi

After the performance, there is a short  MCs session with the host. They were asked about what they thought of Singapore guys and they replied "Cool!" . When asked how was their stay in Singapore, they replied "We like it very much." The host then went on and asked if they had tried Singapore food like Hainanese chicken rice. Harukyan replied that they had tried and Ucchi (suppose to good in English according to her profile) replied in English "Delicious". All the answers were pretty diplomatic with no surprise. 

MCs session with the trio

Tomochan !! Really beautiful in real person

Harukyan is the cutest out of trio. Many oshihen had probably taken place in these 2 days because of her

Ucchi. Small in size but huge in energy

Shortly after the MC was the handshake session the fans had been waiting for. There was  a warm, happy atmosphere surrounding the whole handshake session. This was unlike the AKB48's first Hong Kong handshake session which had became really chaotic where security guards started to grab and push the fans/reporters away.  It's like an old friends meetup rather than a fanmeet handshake session here in Singapore. This is one of the thing I like about AKB48 compared with other kpop or jpop group - there is almost no gap between them and their fans . I think the Singapore fans and STGCC organizer should be given the credit for keeping it this way. Overall, even though the event lasted less than half a hour, many onlookers and fans were impressed by what they seen judging from their reaction. The appearance session had been a success and provides very good publicity for AKB48.

 

The girls waiting patiently for handshake

Handshake session

Everyone is filled with joys even the security guard is smiling.

Bye Bye everyone

As there is around 2hours before the group interview with the three girls, I decided to take the risk to try to go for the arrival of the remaining 9 girls. The girls were expected to reach airport around 5-6pm on 3 possible flights at 3 different terminals. I did some analysis and realize that if the girls took the first 2 flights that were be arriving earlier, I should be able to return to STGCC in time for the interview. And if they took the last flight, I could always give up the whole idea of seeing them at airport and return to STGCC immediately. There is a 66% of success so why not try it? However, it turned out to a bad, bad decision which I will probably regret for the quite some time.

There are approximately around 50-60 fans at the airport who rushed from the STGCC handshake event all the way to airport. Most of the fans are from SGP48 with their trademark bright pink T-shirt while there are also many from Indonesia forum. Initially, we stayed in Terminal 2 where the first possible flight will arrive. But after waiting for almost half hour with no one resembling AKB48 coming out of the gate, everyone started to get worried. Some of the crowd began to move on for the next possible flight which is at Terminal 1. Thinking the chance that the girls taking ANA is very high, I decided to join the last group of fans going directly to Terminal 3 for the last possible flight from Narita. I am now hoping of miracle that they somehow can arrive earlier so that I can still rush back.

Soon, others who went to Terminal 1 earlier began to join the crowds in Terminal 2 as it seems that the flight had landed in Terminal 1 with no sign of AKB48. The presence of large crowd with Japanese signboard had attracted quite a number of curious Japanese onlookers. Many were surprised that AKB48 have fanbase in Singapore (Come on, its AKB48 !!!). With time running out, I started to get worried and fall into a dilemma of whether to stay or return and then....someone let out a scream....followed by more shouting as someone had spotted Tanamin at the gate!!

Its Tanamin (in white)!!! Also in the picture is Harugon & Hachan

The whole crowds started to get excited and moved forward ,raising their signboards fanatically. I had a hard time finding the girls as there were just too many passengers at the gate. The girls didn't seem took notice of the fans until Harugon started to point at us . Mocchi then turned her head and probably got a surprise since it is only the first time she was here as AKB48 member.

Harugon to Mocchi : " Look what we have here..."

The next 15min then happened very quickly. All 9 members seemed to be in a rush as they immediately moved on towards their waiting bus once they were out of the arrival hall.  However, this did not stop the fans from singing the birthday song to Sakiko whose birthday happens to fall on that day. This did surprise Sakiko a little as all other members & staffs paused for a while to look & congratulate Sakiko. 

Chikarino, the first member to be out of arrival hall.

After the birthday song, the members then began a 300m long walk to their bus with the fans "escorting" and cheering them on the way.

Mocchi & Hacchan.

The girls soon went out of the terminal 3 and reached their waiting bus. Some of the girls were surprised by Singapore's hot weather and remarked "あつい!! あつい!!" (Its hot!! Its hot!!)  in a kawaii fashion once they stepped out of the air-conditioned building. Sakiko had to stop momentarily to take off of her winter jacket as if she was on fire!  (I never realize Singapore is that hot, must be too many fans surrounding them).

Mocchi on the bus posing for the fans

Aamin with Sakiko

By the time the girls left the airport, it was almost 630pm which was too late to rush for Ucchi, Tomochan & Harukyan's interview. I could have done and plan better if I applied the media pass earlier which is one of the miss ( I only applied a week before the actual event and got it very late...shit...)  Nevertheless, it was still a tremendous experience for me and hopefully would prepare me better if I have the chance again. For fans who want to read the three girls's interview, you can find it at supermelion website or  Nihongogo forum.

Ucchi, Tomochan & Harukyan posing for interview. Photo from Nihongogo forum. 

Interestingly, two different fans had given me similar comments when we were leaving the airport. "The girls don't really feel like big stars" , "They are like the girl next door". Some may had conceived these as negative comments but I actually found a lot of positive in the them. Where in the world would you find an idol group taking photos of their fans while their fans take photos of them? Which other idol group would be so willing to pose in the bus at the airport for their fans. This is exactly the direction Aki-p had been leading AKB48 to -  idols that fans can meet and know about like a friend in school. While many kpop groups choose to keep a distance between them and fans, AKB48 did the opposite by trying to keep the fans and idols as close as possible on the same level. This is exactly what make AKB48 unique.