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| Source: click! |
Aikatsu!, short for Aidoru Katsudō! is an arcade collectible card game released by Bandai, one of the biggest toy company in Japan. Aidoru Katsudō literally means idol activities, so yes this is about the success story of girls with fighting spirit dream to become an idol. This game revolves around the collectible cards with various clothes and accessories to help them pass the auditions and become the idol. Aikatsu! is also adapted into anime and Nintendo 3DS game.
I was invited to Aikatsu! launching event (or you can call it Press Conference) at JKT 48 Theather in FX Lifestyle last week. I'm so sorry I just post this now because I have to finish my final project first. When I got the invitation, I wondered what Aikatsu! is. After I googling about it, I know I have to come, because I love anime and Aikatsu! itself is really kawaii. Just see their hair, clothes, shoes, and the colors they use in this anime, it's totally cute and girly.
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| The main characters of Aikatsu!: Ichigo Hoshimiya, Aoi Kiriya,and Ran Shibuki |
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| The purple hair girl is Mizuki Kanzaki, Ichigo's role model. |
Okay, let's go back to this event, Bandai held a press conference to announce their new project in Indonesia. A lot of bloggers and press were invited, and I had no idea of how crowded it would be. We're told to reach there by 11 a.m. but the press conference actually started at 1 p.m. They let us to try the card game and provided lunch while waiting for the press conference to start. I didn't have chance to try the game though, but I took some photos of it.
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| How the game machine looks like :) |
Despite of the genre of the game, which is for girl, a lot of boy tried this game! To play this game, you simply insert your card into the special card reader, and the items will be used by your character. In Indonesia, one play will cost you IDR 10.000. I also took some photos of the screen when they're playing:
I also got a chance to capture some of Aikatsu! merchandises and all of them are so cute! Ready?
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| This caught my eyes! |
After I took these photos, the press conference was about to start. It started when JKT48 appeared on the stage and sang Calendar Girl. JKT48 is official partner of Aikatsu! in Indonesia. They sing the songs in Aikatsu! anime, model for the special cards and TV commercial.
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| Yupi! |
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| Reino R. Barack |
Next, Reino R. Barack, Senior Vice President, Business Development, PT Mediacom Tbk. gave greetings and started his presentation about Aikatsu!. Bandai presents Aikatsu! anime in Indonesia and it will be broadcasted on RCTI, one of the top TV channel in Indonesia, on the 20th of September. It will be aired every Saturday at 6.30 A.M. He said that Aikatsu! is very popular in Japan, and he hopes it will be a success in Indonesia as well. He also give a preview of the anime but I didn't take photos nor video. Watch it on TV! :))
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| Masashi Harada & Yoko Takebe |
The next presentation was given by Masashi Harada, Deputy General Manager, Card Business Department, Bandai. He spoke Japanese and Yoko Takebe is there to translate it to the audiences. Mr. Harada said he loves Batik so much and he just bought a new Batik to wear on this event. Then, he explained more about the game machine. Beside the card game, they also plan to release fan book at the end of this year and mobile application next year. Bandai sequentially begin installing the card game machine on the Malls from the October, 2014.
Yoko Takebe continue explaining about the cards used in the game machine. There are some types of the cards:
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| I think this is the basic cards |
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| Special and limited edition with JKT48 photos |
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| Same type cards- this is Cute style |
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| You can save your custom character into this ID Card! |
There are three types of the costume style: sexy, cute, and cool style. There are 70 different cards in the first series.
We had talk show with JKT48. They told us how they love playing this game and Haruka (orange dress) is really cute and funny. She is actually Japanese.
Lastly, we had Q&A session with Reino R. Barack and Masashi Harada, along with JKT48. They gave three chances for the audience to ask. This event was closed by photo session and personal interview.
And I got this goodie bag, love the color!
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| Poster, JKT48 notebook, CD, name tag, brochure, cards |
AIKATSU! Launching Event
P.S.= For more information, you can visit the official website. This is more like an event report, so it might be lacking at some points. Believe it or not, it took me almost 5 hours to finish this post :")
