Unlike majority of the event bloggers, or people who wants to crash to any major events for the sake of being there to report events that almost no one cares. I take fancy on finding minor events that people should know. If time permits, I look around, judge events that doesn’t spell anything but “any event that has cosplay”, which I would take immediately for a breath of fresh air. I for one and together with my trusty Jay happen to go to this cool and pretty much an enjoyable concert event, featuring the best of the best J bands within the urban radius.

What Is Otomonogatari

Aside from the event title that I honestly don’t know. The purpose of the event is bring forth aspiring bands — those we rarely see in general events — to play and express their passion to their hearts’ content. They are no longer the sideshow, they are the main reason why this event got started. The great team of Ninjin events bite the bullet in a win-all-lose-all scenario to put forward this event, not for the sake of money, but to put one in the development of exposing the passion, the cultural influence of Japanese music to people who are interested in knowing. People like us, who can’t fly to Japan can at least experience live Japanese music, hard-worked by those who devoted a portion of their time to bring us this authentic experience.

The Experience

For starters, this is entirely an assorted concert of bands from amateur to professionals. Ranging from J Rock to J Rap. The event hall is simply an auditorium of an office building owned by CAP. (Yes, that pre-need educational plan that destroyed the life of thousands of young, bright dreams. Well at least we got this.) You won’t find any cosplay here. No perverted photographers to speak of. No JeJe people. It just us people wanting to listen to music, and people who somehow is part of the clique of a band. The venue may give you an impression that it’s small, which actually is if we happen to have media partners and major sponsors from big known corporations. But it’s just a few bloggers and photographers that are quite courteous to one another.

The event started late, perhaps due to the very low attendance, which is inevitable for a minor event. But eventually people came to enjoy the event. As I left the building around 18:00, half of the venue is full. Which may not sound good if you are expecting the event to be a money-maker. At least my impression of it is that they at least manage to break-even from the ticket sales. Or if they own the catering of sort, at least that’s one way of cutting the expense. I am hopping that people attended the event got out positively, hoping that there would be another event of this caliber in the future.

Of course, finding the venue can be a bit though, specially if you don’t happen to have a map with you. It’s out of way from Ayala avenue and you have to navigate the connecting street to find it. You best bet is to find the Amorsolo Mansion, which is a shy away from the CAP building. At least, there’s a tarp hanging at the front gate, so you can tell that you are in the right place.

Band

I don’t think you would be going to this event if you aren’t interested in listening to some music. My interview with Ninjin events promised a unique and quality bands to perform, and they really did deliver. Typically I would be listening to them with my earphones on, for safety and more so diluting the ear-shattering noise they call music. However, I listened to all the bands, including the amateur singers without them. Their performances are quite good, actually very good. The band brought me back as to why I yearn for Anime conventions in the first place. It reminded me of my first Anime convention that put me here covering event is to listen to some live J music. The fourth band (Yui for President) did a wonderful performance on playing the Sword Art theme song and all of the remaining has their unique parts as well. The singing contest also brought great experience. The contestants are all good. They aren’t just con goers who happened to have a vision that he/she should participate at a risk of ruining our eardrums.  One particular is a trio of vocalist from various bands, which is very good, really.

Overall

All in all, it is a wonderful event. It showcase the best of the best in J music. Bands perform at its most quality and you will never get board on the variety of music they have in store. Despite the weird venue and audio equipment mishaps, I can say that Otomonogatari is of to a good start. The only thing left is to spread the word out so that next year, people would look at this and start marking their calendars. That job would be for us people who attended this pioneer event.

Rating: 4/5

Note: Youtube links are taken from here and here. Credits goes to them for bringing this video.

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