Otasuke AniSong Festival 2022 aka My First Anime Themed Event in Years.

OtaCute’s AniSong Festival 2022 is a concert/cosplay event that took place on where else? OtaCute cafè at Youniversity Suites here in Metro Manila.

Indie idol group AiDreamin’ doing their rehearsals.

The list of performers are:

• Pepper Keibu
• Poly V
• Hibana Wotagei
• DJ Zeroblade
• Ivy! Musume (a PH take on Morning! Musume or something)
• Bella6ix (who will make their debut here)
• AiDreamin! (another debuting idol group)
• Day Night Explorers (aka the ones who did that Heavy Rotation cover)

First off, we have Bella6ix. I wasn’t able to get the whole setlist because my lunch order took so long to make. Anyway, based on the one-minute snippet that I got, for a debuting idol group, their performance is okay.

They have some things to work on but they knocked it out of the park as the opening act for this event.

Then we have not one, not two, but THREE groups under the Hello Project Philippines umbrella. Poly-V got the most audience participation, but Ivy Musume got my attention because of Memory Ni Daite, a song from the second Morning Musume album. They also get the most memorable last song of the first half, singing a 48g song. It’s something no Hello! Project group has done before or since.

To close off the first half, we got Hibana Wotagei. If you don’t know what wotagei is, it’s basically cheering for your idols via dance with cylume lights. They also did some audience participation of their own by asking members of the audience to perform live on the open floor.

The second half of the night belongs to AiDreamin!, Arin Gili, and Day Night Explorers respectively.

She may be an anime influencer, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of Arin Gili. She gets the most unique performance of the night as she’s the only one who brought an instrument. An electronic keyboard.

AiDreamin! made themselves known by having one of those introduction skits and not only that, they kept kayfabe by not introducing themselves with their real names but with their character names.

Day Night Explorers end part 2 of the night’s festivities because.. they’re DNE. Kidding aside, their bombastic renditions of KyoAni anime songs got the attention of everybody that the loudest wotagei cheers of the night belong to them.

The event ends with DJ Zeroblade showing his mixing prowess after two years of inactivity, which set the audience wild and let it loose on the dance floor.

Based on what I’ve noticed, with how the event was timed from start to finish, the OtaCute management is running a tight ship here. Aside from the few technical difficulties here and there, everything was neatly structured that at 5:00 PM, the event has already ended despite the advertised 8:30 PM ending time. I think advertising could use a bit of work.

For the first anime-themed event of 2022, OtaCute, the performers, and the maids at Juice Cubi knocked this one out of the park to start the post-pandemic era of events. With this, and Cosplay.PH’s upcoming Cosplay Carnival this April, I hope this would signal a return to normalcy.