Life in the Eastern Fantastic Land

So quickly time flies and now it's already September.

Sometime this August, Singapore Toy, Game and Comic Convention (STGCC) put up an online notice saying that White Canvas was participating and that they were selling Touhou T-shirts, bags, tapestry, jigsaw puzzle and Comiket 80 items. In previous years, I mostly gave STGCC a miss due to the ticket cost and due to my utter lack of interest in most western comics. But because this year had White Canvas involved, I definitely had to go.

Myself and Friends in Front of White Canvas's Store in Akihabara, as seen in March 2011

White Canvas is one of the most well-known doujin-goods shops in Akihabara. They are well known for their extensive range of Touhou derivatives, which is better than Toranoana or Animate! I was also slightly interested in the appearance of Kishida Mel and Kipi, who are famous for illustration and cosplay respectively.

But I knew there were restrictions. Sure-as-hell WC couldn't sell their usual m-18 doujinshi or dakimakura or risk the bloody regime stepping down on them here in Singapore. They also surely wouldn't be able to sell Touhou Shinreibyou, which had just came out the previous weekend. Further, I also was put-off my the marketese emphasis on "Exclusives" So I had my reservations. But I decided to go anyway, since they said they had c80 items. No inventory of catalogue of items was offered, save for the following single image of a Remilia & Sakuya Tapestry, the HUGE Cirno plushie, and Cirno T-Shirt.

No, they did not sell Monster-Cirno at STGCC

Further, a relative of mine died on the Wednesday right before STGCC. The time I had previously set aside for me to work on my Tengu Geta [天狗下駄] vanished faster than I can say "ayayayaya". I was obligated to attend a wake and funeral on both Thursday and Friday. Anyway, this humble crow reporter was desperately looking for a pair of suitable shoes, given that the geta weren't going to be ready yet.

Fast forward to 20th August, the first day of STGCC, I went down to the venue at Suntec City Convention Center, excited at the news that a major doujin shop was coming to Singapore. Their presence here was, to me, a tiny hope that the repressive regime of this country would finally stop stiffling our artistic minds.

After reaching the place a little early, I collected my 2-day tickets which I had earlier bought online at $18. There was already a sizeable crowd by the time I entered the hall. I went straight to WC's booth and then had a fun time browsing their items. The variety did not disappoint at all. Most interstingly, they even had Sound Holic's PVD2. This was surprising, because I know these animated PV-DVDs are one of the first things to get sold out at Comiket and Reitaisai.

They had a very pretty Tenshi tapestry which both me and another anynymous fairy wanted to buy(I was there first). Personally I have no business displaying Tenshi's image in my home, but I was thinking that it would be good for Ren AKA Sy to get it, given he's a big Tenshi fan. Eventually, after some desperate messages over Facebook, I managed to contact him but he didn't want to buy it unless he was able to visually confirm it's worthiness it first. So the anonymous fairy got the Tenshi Tapestry.

Afterwards, I hung out a bit at the WC booth. I found out that the STGCC staff were actually the ones who approached WC's boss, Suzuki-san. As far as I can tell, this is the first time that items in Singapore were sold by a specialised doujinshi shop. At rates much closer to market price than a certain magical anime merchandise store too, if I may add. The one who invited them was Melvin from STGCC, a different Melvin from Melvin H., in our group. It also seems to me that the marketese on the official STGCC website and Facebook pages was written by this group of over-enthusiastic STGCC staff(I am guessing they didn't know how inappropriate loose use of language such as "exclusive" and other half-truths can piss off hardcore otaku).

Anyway, after I realised that Suzuki-san was not the one who initiated the marketese, I resolved to try to make things more palatable. Their pricing for regular items like Tapestries, Jigsaw puzzles, and T-shirts was pretty cheap, actually below market prices. For example, after coming back to the booth after lunch and a spot of walkabout shopping, I bought their Sakuya-Remilia Tapestry at $50 SGD, where the usual market price would be about 5000-8000 yen for a tapestry of that size. Perhaps they were doing a little bit of clearing of items. Their range of T-shirts was actually pretty poor compared to what they had on their website and when I visited their flagship store in March 2010. I only liked a few of them, and although they were selling at $20 dollars, I wasn't motivated enough to buy.

However, prices on C80 items and some official goods(ZUN's CDs, original games, Bunkachou Spinoffs, Tasofro Spinoffs) were pretty steep. I get the feeling that their pricing strategy was roughly like this:


(Price in JPY including tax/100)*2=Singapore dollar price.


Even when I bugged the STGCC staff about this rather steep pricing, all they would say is that they needed to add in the shipping costs(a true statement, but doesn't totally justify the increase since they bulk-shipped). After much deliberation and browsing, I decided to support the muscicians by buying Unlucky Morpheus's HEAVY METAL BE-BOP album as well as Team Shanghai Alice's Magical Astronomy CD. Oddly, though, even though I have some of the so-called official CDs, I've never bought any of them just by themselves. Those I have came with something(e.g. Bohemian Archive Book). Interestingly, they had all the windows games up to Seireisen, including spinoffs, and all the ZUN albums up till Michi no Hana, Michi no Tabi. The Tasofro games sold out by the second day.

I ended up buying 3 items in total, which is pretty humble and frugal by my standards:

Tapestry:$50, Unlucky Morpheus CD: $25, Magical Astronomy CD $15

Some time later(or was it earlier?), I met with Phoenix who was to handle the maintainance of 2 wigs. We discussed my plans for the makeup for the second day.(Memory is foggy, the exact order of events can't be remembered)

At about noon, I met with Schkyder, Dom and Melvin. Me, Schkyder and Dom met up with Jun Himemiya and we went over to the restaurant where Tim works(Just Acia) at Marina Square for lunch. After lunch we went over to Liang Seng sports shop because Jun wanted to look at some sparring equipment. The shop's staff stared at us pretty bad because Jun wanted to test out their

Shortly afterwards, while still in Marina Square, I ran into the perfect pair of red shoes for a non-geta version of my Aya. With that in the bag, I was able to cosplay for on the second day(my geta had become irreparably damaged after SOY'C)..... It was extremely hard to find neutral red shoes of the right size, I had been searching around for the past few weeks and then I finally found it. Most of those I found earlier were meant for ladies and did not have sizes above 41.

Shoes in the bag, we headed back to Suntec City, where we rendezvoused with roze, e2, and kuuki. Later, I went off alone and met up with Ren and kuma, and we played a spot of Hisoutensoku on a laptop near the crowd. At about 4.00 or so, went back to kuuki's group. We mostly waited outside the hall till Myon came, and later Tim. After we toured around I a bit, I went back to WC's booth, saw the Remi-Saku tapestry on display, and impulsively bought it.

Anyway, at about 6.00pm or so, we bid farewell to Schkyder and friends, and moved over to the Japanese Primary School in Changi for Natsumatsuri.The travel from Suntec to the Japanese Primary School took about 40 minutes of train ride to Bedok MRT followed by a 15 minute bus ride. At about 7.00pm we reached just as the sun was about to set.

Ouside, we paid $2 each for an entry pass. For the uninitiated, natsumatsuri [夏祭り] is the annual Japanese festival organised by the Japan Cultural Society and the Japanese Primary School at Changi. The event is held on a weekend from afternoon to evenimg, on the School's premises. It's attendees are mostly Japanophiles and Japanese expatriates, and it contains the typical elements of Japanese festival celebration.

It was getting dark just as we got in. The timing was right on cue for the Muslims in our group to break fast so we ordered from the many vendors in the area. I ordered some salmon bowl and katsudon, which each costed $5. The bowl was small enough that I needed 2 bowls(big eater). There were many stores in the area, selling various things including food, drink, merchandise, toys(including nendoroids), and, get this-broadband subscriptions.

The food and drinks being sold were pretty much common carnival/festival things, like rice bowls topped with ingredients(donboori), ramen, Korean Bulgolgi, sausages, sushi, ice cream, colourful sweet drinks, and, somewhat uniquely, Asahi Beer. Also on sale were colourful water balloons tied with rubber bands. Great fun when used as a mace.

After we bought our grub in containers, we walked around in the field till until we found the spot in the school's field where Knife and some others had set up. The main stage was located in the center of the school field and was open for viewing from all directions.

By the time we got there, it was pretty late, nearly sundown.

Thanks to Knife and friends(Melvin?) for letting us join in their picnic mats on the spot. Once we settled down, we ate our grub and chilled out. There were various groups performing on the stage, including a taiko performance.

The atmosphere was positively euphoric, with children running about in Yukata blowing bubbles and launching illuminated spinners into the air. Sometime later, the performance then moved on to the final segment, the bon odoori [盆踊り]. A large crowd gathered around the stage to dance various folk dances. These folk dances mimicked the motions of the agricultural and fishing livestyles that the Japanese ancestors presumably led. For reasons I cannot fanthom, one of the songs they danced to was Rasa Sayang.

Tim, looking very Japanese in a Tengu shirt, Kitsune Omen, and with a water balloon.