What do you get when you mix an otome game company and 2-day event for Golden Week?
Organized chaos.
To say that this event was tiring is an understatement.
So many firsts have been crossed out on my bucket list, ranging from ‘first time to buy the maximum number of quantities allowed for merch that’s in blind packaging’ to ‘I’m gonna stay in this karaoke room from 12MN until 5AM, go back home, nap for an hour, then go back to the event’.
Even I was surprised with what I did for this event.
Never have I ever stayed out overnight at a karaoke place just to make the most out of the collaboration room of my most favorite otome game [as of now].
Never have I met so many Japanese fangirls all in one place and end up becoming acquaintances of sorts.
Never have I spent so much money on goods that the total amount I spent easily surpassed what I spent for Animate Girls Festival 2018.
Still, this event was worth every yen I spent.
As always, I went to the event with no expectations whatsoever, as this is my second time to go to a Voltage event wherein they’ve decided to mix and match all of the games they have published. The people I was with have been to the 10th Anniversary exhibit as well, but we didn’t know each other at that time, so it was a relief that I have fellow fangirls with me this time around.
We all agreed to meet up at 8:30AM, but because I’m so damn slow in getting ready, I was late. Thankfully, Y-san was kind enough to let that slide… though to be honest, during the two times she and I had to previously meet up, she was late twice.
We waited for another friend to arrive, as she was still on her way to the venue on the Shinkansen. Turns out that friend journeyed to Tokyo all the way from Shiga!
By 9:15AM, we all set off to the venue, only to get lost as there were little to no signs pointing us to the direction of VolFes. Took us five minutes to figure out where it was, and from there, we began to queue to get in.
At 10AM, the line began to move, and on our way to the event hall, everyone started taking photos of the characters’ portraits.
Once inside, we all scrambled to take a look around anything that was of interest before it was time for us to queue for the goods, which meant we only had twenty minutes or so.
To give you an idea, Voltage divided each event day to three sessions:
Session 1: 10:00 ~ 13:00
Session 2: 13:00 ~ 16:00
Session 3: 16:00 ~ 19:00
The way Voltage designed their event made it seem like they were making the attendees choose one activity over the other, which I found exhausting as I spent the whole time during Day 1 of the first session simply queuing for the goods. Add to that, it took an hour and a half for me to reach the goods table and to pay for everything.
While Voltage did apologize for taking too long with the goods preparation and selling, I think they should lengthen the duration of each session to more than three hours… you can only do so much during that period.
Another thing: seems like Voltage also thought that those going to Session 1 would not attend Session 2 for the same day, which was totally not the case. My friends and I purchased tickets for each individual session as we all wanted to make the most out of the event by going to the booths, take photos, “register” our marriage(s) with our favorite male Voltage character… the fact that the sessions were scheduled so close to one another meant that, again, you need to sacrifice some of your time to eat and/or relax before slugging it out again at the event.
We basically took an hour off from Session 3 just to have very late lunch ~ early dinner before going back in again…
Hopefully, they improve on the scheduling/timing next time.
One last thing to note: this event was definitely not foreigner-friendly.
I don’t mind this one that much as I can pretty much navigate the event without having to rely on any of my friends to do any translation/interpretation, but I’ve seen some foreigners who attended the event struggle to communicate with the staff. While I did want to help them out, I was doing other things and got really busy, so I was unable to do anything… nevertheless, this should be something that foreigners need to take note of when joining Voltage Inc’s events in Japan.
Photos of the event:
No photos of my loot as I am too embarrassed to share how bad my impulse buying can get…
Next photos: karaoke-themed rooms!
Wanderlust 
Oh my gosh. This was a lot of fun to read haha! Thanks for sharing so many pictures, even though you’re hoarding your loot to yourself. 😛
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I’m still thinking if I should take photos of the loot ヽ(*´∀｀)ノ
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Aw yisssss~!
Dooooo it!
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So many gorgeous men T_T 😩 thanks for sharing once again!! 💕💕💕
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Thanks for sharing! I was contemplating on trying to go this year, but I don’t speak or read Japanese which increased the level of difficulty pretty high with Animate Girls Fest when I went a couple years ago. Are there performances or presentations in addition to the merchandise booths?
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Apologies for the late reply!
VolFes 2019 had a short talk session with seiyuu from their games like Terashima Junta (Asahi Yuuki from Anidol Colors).
They dedicated one session for a press conference for the Doubt! (Liar!) movie, and that wasn’t too interesting, haha.
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