"To become the largest J-Culture festival in Indonesia, AFA presents a variety of content and activities. So it's not just about concerts, exhibitions, or cosplay, but AFA has many integrations from each content. In AFA ID 2024, there are about 95 booths or creator hub areas, which are one form of incubator."

Around 250 people, including artists, crew, and creators from 30-40% of Southeast Asia, were involved in this event. There were creators who came from Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and Australia. Exhibitors were not only from the local area, but there were also exhibitors from Singapore and Japan who came to showcase their products and provide a platform for fans to access their products more closely.

"By the return of AFA, we hope to reintroduce and remind our market in Indonesia that this J-Culture festival is something truly extraordinary and hopefully it can grow even bigger and attract a larger crowd," said Harry.

On the first and second day, AFA ID successfully attracted a lot of audiences, ranging from J-Culture fans to the general public, to come and experience the excitement. "This is my first AFAID, it's really cool and the vibes are great. Usually, small anime events are only held in malls, but this is truly a big annual event that is back after five years. So finally, I went to AFAID after five years of absence. Hopefully, AFAID can be held regularly again like in previous years," said Icha (29), one of the visitors to AFAID on the third day.

If you are bored with buying merchandise in a 'mainstream' way, you can buy gacha tickets to get official merchandise from "Naruto", "One Piece", or "Pokemon". The sensation of excitement and enthusiasm when checking the gacha number and guessing what prize will be obtained becomes its own attraction of the gacha.

Anime Festival Asia 2024 officially ended, but the euphoria and enthusiasm of J-Culture fans did not stop there. Many hope that AFAID can continue to be held every year as a platform for expression and collaboration for creators, exhibitors, and of course anime fans themselves. Report by Aykaputri Amalia.