Gelar Jepang UI 2011

*This is gonna be a long post. I've warned you. 

As a 'newbie' in the community of Japan lovers, although I have fallen for their dorama since a long time ago, I decided to visit Gelar Jepang UI 2011 (An event created by the University of Indonesia. Some kind of Japanese festival which is held once every year). Thanks to Ema, Kartika, and Vina who were willing to accompany me today, although you guys are not a fan like me hehe. You're the best ❤

So, we promised to set off at 9 am because the schedule of Gelar Jepang itself is started around 9.30 am. But, because I was staying up all night long to download some Shounen Club episodes in order to watch my beloved Hey!Say!JUMP, I woke up at 10 am 👀 Ema, Tika, and Vina who are not just ordinary friends for me indeed have known about this habit of mine, so they didn't go to my house until I called them. In the end, we went to UI at 12.30 am (I know it was already late, but at least my Dad was willing to drive us to UI so we don't have to pay for the train, hehe). Well, because that was the first time for us to visit such an event, we were fascinated by so many anime characters that surrounded us, such as Naruto, Ichigo from Bleach, Kamen Rider, etc. Well, of course, they are not real anime characters. They are just ordinary people without any supernatural power who dressed like those anime characters. Hmm... how do you call it? Cosplayers?

Anyway... I was tempted to buy a lot of unimportant stuff that was sold there such as Hey!Say!JUMP Uchiwas, pins, and other interesting things. But I managed to hold myself not to buy it by thinking that that stuff will only satisfy my fangirling desire for a moment. Although I couldn't stop myself from buying those Japanese foods.  I even bought Okonomiyaki that cost 26.000 rupiah, which is very expensive for me. Well, the hardest thing that I can do is hold the temptation of foods. I was also tempted to buy a Japanese traditional toy, Kendama. If you don't know what is kendama, here is the picture. But, because the price is expensive, I decided to save it for when we were about to go home. Too bad when I was looking for that toy again, the seller said that the toy has been sold out -__-

About the event itself, I think it's quite fun. Even Ema, Tika, and Vina who are not fans of Japan said that they would love to go to such an event again next time because they thought it's kind of unique. The most unique thing about this event is the fact that we were surrounded by a lot of cosplayers indeed. There's a cosplay competition too and we watched it. From that competition, we can make some conclusions: If you want to win the cosplay competition, make sure that your costume looks really similar and very expensive to the original character anime, and you have to be good looking. Or make sure that you choose an anime character who always hides his face with masks, such as Kamen Rider or Power Ranger. Evidently, those cosplayers with these traits won the competition. Judging by their performances, I think there's nothing special about it. It looks kind of ordinary if I may say. I don't know was it because I never watched a Cosplay competition before, but overall, the performance of those cosplayers was ordinary indeed. Some of them even looked super zonk, where they were only standing at the stage while moving their mouth to follow the song. What do you call it? Lypsinc? I don't know what to say anymore...

There's an awesome performance from a group of college-student of UI. They showed us some kind of Japanese traditional dance attractively, it was pretty amusing when they asked the audience to dance with them. In the end, me, Ema, Tika, and Vina decided to take a walk again because we got bored with the dance 😆

Overall, it was fun and it's not boring because of the appearance of those cosplayers around us. The four of us took some pictures with those cosplayers too. But we were so selective in choosing cosplayers who could take pictures with us, hahaha. Here are some pictures...

I forgot his character, but he won the number 2 for cosplay: the most favorite

And that's all for now. Jaa nee~