Finally, My Say About UP Otakufest 7: New Golden Age

February 08, 2014

For others, this might be an ordinary day. But for me, this was one of the most challenging and memorable day I have ever had. And I owe it all to UP Otakufest 7.

For those who do not know UP Otakufest, this event is Cebu’s biggest collegiate cosplay and hobby convention in Cebu. It had humble beginnings on its introduction waaaay back in February ___, 2007. In fact, I was there when I witnessed how it started. I remember as clear as day. It was still so simple: only a few people, no official rented stage, and there weren’t many booths in the event, it was just a gathering of all “Otaku.”

From there, slowly it grew popularity yearly, more people talking about it, and more improvements and theme changes for every event. In fact, this was one of the few reasons as to why I decided to enter UP, hoping that I could play an important part in this event someday.

And it did happen.

I remember how Otakufest was on its fourth year when I entered the university, and on how I was just a mere volunteer/marshal through being a member of UP Nichibunken (ユピ日文研), the university’s Japanese culture appreciation organization. It was tiring to run around and be a messenger to the heads but it was fulfilling. And at that same time a new dream and challenge opened to my interests: to be UP Nichibunken’s head and to head UP Otakufest on my fourth year in college (since Otakufest was a yearly event made by the fourth year batch organization, a tradition that happened as years went by).

Once again, it happened.

I was still on the middle of my foreign exchange program in Japan last 2013 when I gained the confidence to volunteer to my batch mates that I will be leading the next Otakufest. It was not because I was thinking way over my head, but because I believe that I could make use of the things I learned from my one year stay in Japan and hopefully inculcate it in organizing Otakufest, and to hopefully make it as innovative and the best Otakufest ever, and to make it a different convention than what other people go to yearly.

So when I went back home last July 2013, a lot of things happened that may be a sign of success to lead this event. I immediately became UP Nichibunken’s head, and as I was struggling to catch up with my studies, I and with my fellow batchmates and UP Nichibunken, had our first meeting on that month. They were surprised that it was early, too early maybe. 7 months before the event and yet we already have decided on the theme New Golden Age and on the things we wanted to have on the day, and we were already starting with promotions and advertisements.

I also remember on the first day of our online promotion in Facebook, it already gained a lot of likes and noise on just its first night. That was what got us so excited. From then on, we started with the final conceptualization and stared on the papers, actions, and more meetings.

As months passed, stress was getting over me. I never expected for this event to be REALLY big. To top it off, the pressure and anticipation of everyone was getting to me, and as the head organizer I cannot help but make an event that exceeds their expectations.

There were a lot of problems that we encountered as we were getting nearer and nearer the event day. And please allow me to rant on things I kept to myself for months on this blog post.

One was on the delays, both evitable and non-evitable. Non-evitable things like delays on operations due to the recent major earthquake and supertyphoon that hit our country. They were somehow okay, but the evitable delays got me the most. As a business student, I organized this event on a business perspective, applying all the things I learned. One of those things I learned from my professors was to never be late on meetings, deadlines, and tasks no matter what the reason may be (except death). And it really gets in nerves when people put up a lot of reasons as to why they were not able to do such tasks in the given time. One of the reasons was that they were not the only ones who were busy. I was busy too, in fact, more busy than them perhaps. Another one was that when you promise something that you can do something, it is then expected of you that you will do it, regardless of what. Lastly, delays give out a lot of consequences financially. But despite those things, after all those project crashes and patience, things went okay (for most of it).

Another problem we came up with was on the issue of including a Kpop Dance competition in a cosplay and hobby convention, which has never happened before. There was a lot of clamor when we posted the official guidelines, with people claiming as to why there be a Korean Contest in a “otaku” convention, and with people saying that they would not attend because of this. Because of this, we posted an official statement a week after and thankfully it cleared out the issue, and everything was calm again. But there were several reasons why I decided to include a Kpop competition in Otakufest: one was that from my exchange program in Japan, I first handedly experienced the Otaku culture, and knew that there was a growing community of Japanese kpop otaku. Second was that I had to be innovative. Otakufest, being in its 7^th year, definitely would not remain stagnant. Lastly, being a kpop and anime fan myself, I wanted to try these things to be together and somehow people could get to appreciate these things.

The rest of the problems were already minor issues (like on the ticket prices and the code of conduct) and I was glad everything went okay.

As the event got nearer, we were starting to get sleepless nights, lots of arguments on issues, and losing focus at school. We had a lot of challenges to conquer, along with our studies. Probably one of the greatest challenges I had was when I left for Korea for an exchange program, 2 weeks before Otakufest, and I had to balance work, studies, and managing the event.

Stress was increasing until it came to the day of the event. Finally, all our labor realized. With 3 hours of sleep, exhaustion, and nervousness for anything might go wrong, I just did what I could, and that was to stay strong.

Despite the rain that delayed the program, and some minor problems, I’m really thankful for the success of the event. I have a lot to be thankful for. Thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed the show, to the sponsors, partners, and contributors for helping realize this event, for my friends and family for the support, for our special guests Ae Ri, Lyron, SIXX, and F Prime of X for attracting a lot of people and for gracing our event. For our hosts Ara and Gab for keeping up with us and for making the event more lively despite the gloomy weather, for the whole team for enduring months of exhaustion to give an awesome event, and lastly, to God for helping us make this event happen.

This event helped me add more fuel and motivation to achieved my dreams. I hope I could be able to organize more events soon and learn from them to be better (and hopefully organize kpop events soon? :D)

Otakufest 7: New Golden Age: the biggest collegiate cosplay and hobbies convention in Cebu was the first event to inculcate kpop in a mixed convention, was the best Otakufest of all the seasons in terms of earnings and attendees, and was the first event in Cebu to have an international audience (all thanks to our Japanese partners and for the advertisements). This event, despite being a student-organized event, and having no compensation on our part, was really for everyone to enjoy, and for having a day where people with interests can gather and be happy. This event gave me a lot of insights and realizations on what I needed to improve as a person and on my skills.

めずらしいけいけん

This blog post was written last March. But I just decided to post this now after a bit of thinking. So here goes. Enjoy reading! :)

"From finals, directly to spring break vacation, this prevented me to have the time to update my blog. But let me catch up by writing this.

Travelling Half of Japan on a local train. Beat that.

This spring break, I travelled Kansai and Kyushu with my fellow foreign exchange friends. We went all around Kansai from March 8th to 18th. Our Kyushu trip was supposed to be from the 19th to the 28th, but in the middle of our Kyushu trip, an emergency went out and had to let me go home to Tokyo asap by March 23rd. Since Fukuoka (The place where we were staying for the duration of the trip) was nowhere near Tokyo (Fukuoka is on southern Japan, Tokyo is on central Japan), and I had no money to afford a bullet train, overnight bus, or plane, my friend sold me her used 5-day unlimited train rides all over Japan to me. 

So there I was, planning the rides and searching for train timetables. A day was not enough to go home. The total amount of travel time needed was approximately 23 hours. So I planned my route to stop at Nagoya, then continue in the next day for Tokyo. I took the first train from Chihaya station (4:55am) on the 22nd of March, and went on to my soon to be unforgettable adventure.

Since I was only limited to ride local trains, and bringing all my things (3 big bags, with my laptop, clothes, camera, and xbox), I was expecting this travel to be dead tiring. But it was the exact opposite. Even though I had no sleep, I was wide awake from being awed by the beauty of the sunrise, the rurals of Japan, and by the people around me. My mind was afloat the whole trip, thinking about anything that would pop out of my head. I was also able to rest from the trains' comfortable chairs. As I said awhile ago, I was supposed to stop to Nagoya and spend my night there (from 3 reasons: 1.) Nagoya was in my opinion, the middle of the trip, 2.) Nagoya was a bit crowded, so its safe to say you could find a place to stay for the night, and 3.) It was one of the places where Dream High, a Korean drama, was cast. And since me and my mom loved it, I wanted to look at those exact places.). But looking back on the things I'm bringing, and remembering the reason why I need to go home, I decided to try my best to reach home, even if I would ride the last train in Tokyo (which is one thing you DO NOT want to experience. Trust me.). Sadly, a day of travel from south to central Japan is not enough. Thus, the last train led me to Numazu, which was in the middle of Shizuoka Prefecture and Tokyo Prefecture, so the travel for the following day would not be that long anymore. I arrived at exactly 12:10am. The first train for home was still in 04:55 am. So I had to look for a place to wait for 4 hours 45 minutes. My places to stay were as limited as to everything. I literally only had 1,000¥ on my wallet. So inns and hotels were out of the option (an overnight stay costs 4,000¥). So it led me to my next option: manga cafes. Looking around, I saw one near the station, but was saddened looking at the prices. Apparently the cafe was a high-class one, so my budget did not fit. I only had 2 options: wait outside the train station or stay at a 24-hour place. I was relieved to see a 24-hour McDonalds across the station. I planned to buy a coffee to be able to stay there. But as soon as I bought my coffee, all seats were taken. And it looked like everyone was doing the same thing I was supposed to do. Without any options, I was left to staying outside the train station. It was really a good thing that spring has now come, so it was not that cold anymore. To add it, there were free wifi zones around me, so I surfed the net to distract me from looking at my watch. I thought about how i'm gonna survive this night at ease. But then that's where my thought backfired.

From that night I was able to look at Japan from another view. I saw drunk people shouting around and wandering around, women waiting for their rides, people with the same situation as me, waiting for the first train, policemen doing their rounds actively, and vomits from people who drank too much. Avoiding trouble, I sat at the closest bench outside the train station and police box, and surfed the net and watched Family Guy to get me distracted. On the middle of my watching, a policeman and policewoman went up to me and asked the usual stuff (age, what I was doing, name, etc). At first I was nervous because they were shocked that I was still 18 (and 18 year olds were not allowed to be out at this time), but I was really glad they were very friendly, so they were more like chatting with me rather than interrogating (yes, chatting. Since I am now able to converse in Japanese). After I told them my situation, letting them check my bags if I was really travelling, and showing them my residence card, they told me to take care (with smiles), and went off. After that, I went back to watching, and updating my twitter feed on Super Junior (March 23 and 24 is their first day of their Super Show 5 world tour). I was enjoying myself when suddenly a middle-aged man (around late 30s to 40s) was biking near me and paused in front of me. Thinking that it might be someone who wants to ask me something, I paused the video and looked up to him. But at that moment, as soon as I locked eyes with him, he suddenly winked at me. Not the prank wink, but the you-know-what wink. As I was registering the thing he did, he was also staring at me, waiting for a reply. Being too creeped out and scared as hell, I plugged back the earphones to my ears, and went back to the video. It was a good thing that I was beside the police box, so all he could do was wait for my reply and since I brushed him off, he want back to biking, maybe to look for another victim.

The bench at the left was where I sat, and where I had this experience.

From that moment, my eyes opened of how Japan is during the night. Generally Japan is a very safe place to live in. But given these circumstances, danger always lurks everywhere. Also, before I started my spring break, my friends also told me on recent killings which happened on the middle of the night. What i'm trying to say is, even if a place would be full of security cameras, policemen, and strict law enforcement, danger will always be present. It is our task to be always aware of the surroundings and the people around us. Especially when on a foreign place, be a traveller, not a tourist. We should not be ignorant of everything. This is just an experience I had to share. Always be alert, especially when travelling alone. And keep safe. :) "