St. Patrick's Day - A 501st Legion Trooping

15th March marked an epic milestone in my normally mundane life. It was just one month back, on the 15th of February, after doing a minding stint with the 501st for their China Square Central trooping (minding is where you accompany your armoured buddies around as they mingle with the crowds, to ensure they don't encounter anything serious like a fall or a boisterous crowd member wanting to peel stuff off his armour kit. Visibility inside a Stormtrooper helmet is severely limited as it is), I was asked by the Singapore Garrison CO if I had the time to borrow his spare armour kit and take part in next month's St. Patrick's Day Trooping. I was elated to know that it was on a Sunday (absolutely nothing on that day), and gladly accepted.


Guess who?


Darth Vader and the Jedi Knights lead the procession.

It was just two years ago when I first encountered the 501st legion, at a Cosplay event in Ngee Ann City's Civic Plaza (later met them again at Cosfest the same year. I was still a greenhorn back then). They were doing promotional work and escorting duties, and I conversed a bit with a stormtrooper manning the booth, who handed me a flyer. He was a Blackhole Trooper, a black variant of the usually white stormtrooper.


Company of heroes.


Troopers need their hydration too. This is Keith, our commanding officer.

I turned 18 in January, meaning I am fully qualified age-wise to officially join the legion. The only thing holding me back is the lack of funds to purchase my own armour. One needs to have his own so that he can file his application to the headquarters. And with the poorly state I live in currently, plus the added stress and time consumption of my 'A'-level studies, joining this year, like what my other same-aged friend (younger than me by a few months) managed to do, would be quite the impossibility. While I understand and acknowledge how eager the garrison is to accept me into the family, I really don't have the money to back myself up. Such is the misery of the world today, more so than your financial crises and MRT deaths and what have you.


A youngling gets educated about the teachings of the Empire.


He would make a fine soldier.

While I present to you some pictures courtesy of Lester Lim, a comrade at the 501st, of the event, I thought I'd just say something somewhat related to this topic.


Lester looking strong indeed. Stormtroopers look cute when they do funny poses.


Everybody's favourite snowtrooper, Leonard a.k.a Dranoel.

What kind of leisure do grown men and women, already settled down with jobs to work and families to support, partake in to walk among society dressed up as fictional characters with cumbersome, non-ergonomical costume designs?


Cue the Imperial March.

A documentary, Heart of an Empire, was produced to answer that very question.

Human beings, from the beginning of time, have always felt the compulsion of being part of a large congregation in society, among breathren of a similar cause.


SEJA (Sub-Esplanade Jedi Academy, from this we all can derive where they go for practice sessions) guys get to sit down. Troopers can't sit due to their armour. This guy's called Spiff around these parts.

All interest groups, big or small, share this same characteristic, but the 501st distinctly involves Star Wars fans who have dreams of emulating their silver screen heroes, and set about bringing onscreen fantasy into real life, obtaining armour moulds from the original prop manufacturers and blueprints from movie costume designers, and building up from there.


A rare smile from Ivan, a senior in our company.

The Stormtrooper, in particular to most other cosplay, enjoys the added value of having this aura of mysteriousness and anonymity around his costume; it is uniform, worn by many all across the world, and somewhat detaches the wearer from the rest of the world, which he views from behind his visor.


Our resident Boba Fett. We're good friends but I forget his name sometimes. :P

In extreme cases, the armour, bulky as it is, offers santuary to the wearer, a portable security blanket that covers him wholly, providing warmth (too much, during sunny days) and protecting him from the elements (I should say at this point of this that it poured heavily during the marching procession. I received ample shelter from the rain while inside my armour). It is like a life support system, emotionally speaking (as long as the person does not suffer from claustrophobia).


I'm in love with his P90-modded sniper rifle.Complete with bipod and scope.

The 501st is also not just a costuming group who entertains the masses. We play a part in promotional events and charities, such as movie premieres and various fundraising programmes all around the world.


Yes, the Imperial Army trains their men from young sometimes. That's Samuel, Keith's son. The other dude I dunno.

As an international community, we take the opportunity to bring the world closer by understanding each other's lifestyles and cultures through regional exchanges, visitations and event participations. We have troopers from Australia and Malaysia coming over to join us in trooping events, members from our legion fly to Taiwan every year to take part in the Asia-pacific 501st showcasing, and a lucky few have attended the highly-acclaimed Rose Parade in CA, USA, which features a gathering of garrison members from all over the world.


Awesome Commando Cody. He's Reno from Movie Mania if I'm not mistaken.

Man, if it weren't for the pictures I think you might've mistaken this post to be an errant General Paper / Knowledge & Inquiry essay without a conclusion. Yeah, I suck at writing conclusions.

Anime Festival Asia 2008 (Full Review)

Yes, I know I'm friggin' late. But still, it's better than nothing. Post will go in order of of the pictures I have taken. It is the only chronological order I have.

Pre-Event

So you might've noticed that plenty of bloggers out there had actually attending the Media Conference on Friday. Sadly, I was never informed of it so I have nothing. It was to my utter dismay that I had not registered at the Press Section as a blogger to be granted the media pass. But oh well. I learnt from this experience. The hard way.

Day 1.


As planned, I arrived at the venue at exactly 8.30am. This was how the queue looked like then. The first few guys already waiting a the ticketing booth had arrived at 7. Hardcore.

Gordon dropped by later on. By then the queue behind me had snaked two times down the corridor. It was lucky I was already waiting there. Panther and the rest of Team Blue were one of the earlier ones so they had been long since waiting outside the hall gates. A good thing for us, since right after we received our pre-reg tix, it was a big queue jump right to the front of the line awaiting entrance into the event. Saw tueac and xkaonslaught (I think) outside, who got the both of us to do a video segment.


At ten sharp, it was the big rush in. Gundam Exia happily greeted the visitors. Many people rushed to the Takashimaya booth to grab the exclusive greyscale 75-something Gundam and Exia trans-am model kits. I first checked out the Bandai gunpla displays. I would later on return to that exhibit many times over as I undertook my photojournalism roving.






Pretty empty at the beginning.


walked around a while to get myself familiar with the place. The stage was set at the far corner of the exhibition hall; they were holding the opening ceremony that time. To my surprise, the audience was treated with a preview of what's to come later on in the evening:


Mazinger, MazinGER, Mazinger... Z!



Within half an hour, KKnM had assembled a queue of customers stretching all the way to almost the entrance. Spotted two schoolmates in the queue, and they agreed to let me join them in the queue later on as they got closer, in exchange for my give-me-a-discount-since-we-know-each-other skills. actually, it was more of a "if I want to buy this Sekirei shirt and promise that I shall wear it now, will you give me the 10% discount on it?" Yeah, buruburu13 is a really nice person after all.


Maplestory anime lol.



The Toys N Toys booth. I'm sure you all agree with me when I say DO WANT.


Such a sweet, supple body Ryouko has.





This I could use for my room...





Not a lot of people know this, but there were actually serving food at the back of the staging area. Why don't you know about it? I was practically the first guy there, together with Actar (you know me, free food is my weakness and always my primary target of any event. I can smell it from a mile away), and then I attracted the attention of some Team Blue guys, whose sheer size practically attracted about 10% of the present crowd then. Everything was lapped up in a matter of minutes.




Fariz managed to snag himself a Figma Miku & Rin twosome set. They sold out pretty fast. Lucky guy.


Oh, but who is this charming young lady here? Apparently she belongs to some guy...


Mmm... Reiko. As it turns out, I never got a chance to meet her personally and take another picture with her like the summer Matsuri at Central Mall. Sad.


Power Rangers lol.



Missed this guy at Cosfest. Very nice.



Peach ice dessert and Kagamin for lunch.


Booth lady at Toys N Toys. Her face is too long IMO.


Reiko with closed eyes. Mmm... Also, Okawara Kunio-san.


Chibi Medusa is cute.


Her too.


Faust from Guilty Gear.



Some dude attempting to finish building and painting an X105 model within two days.


Gaiafags have established themselves here.



MOAR cosplay.


BAKUC-teh winrars.


BAKUC-teh man.


Koji Morimoto.



Some moar cosplay.


Got the Light guy to hold my wallet. Some girlies were present when I was photographing, and when they saw my wallet it was a chorused "so cuuuute!".


Priceless expression GET.



Yasufumi Soejima autographing session.




Decided to head outside a bit to check out the cosplaying there. Met up with DM and double around this time. Man, even at this time it was still pretty crowded with visitors and ticket booth patrons.



Collateral damage Studios.


Tragic Comedy himself.



Yes, signed by May'N.


Odex has gotten pretty good of late... Tch.



Plenty of manga to be had here at Chuang Yi.


Imaginary Friends Studio.


Artgerm signing DM and double's Pepper Project artbooks. He pulls that wide-eyed expression very frequently, that guy. Maybe it's natural to him. To me it's pretty funny.







Back at the Toys N Toys displays.


Mmm...






Ending off the day with Aniki. Very soulful performance by a very talented and likeable superstar. He even agreed to do two encores on behest of the audience. Sadly I was suffering from a severe case of sleeping legs and dizzy head by that time, and had to take a premature leave.

Allow me a deep breath before I resume on Day Two.