As we reach the end of July, we’ve been blessed with another Japan Expo Malaysia this year. The event was held on the 27th to 29th July at Pavilion KL. There were a lot of attractions from Japan Expo such as art booths, back-to-back performances, fashion shows and the main attraction which was PikoTaro who is known for his song “PPAP”.
The Japan Expo successfully pulled the crowd with all the performances they had in store. With 3 days of activities being held, the schedule was quite packed with a lot of performers, from the well-known to those who are making their way to be the top, performing on stage. Surprisingly, all of them were so good that when they were singing, it made me get “eargasms”.
Venue
The event was held at the Pavilion KL, and it was a free entry event for everyone. The location was very convenient as it was accessible through public transport.
Unlike last year, not only did Japan Expo have a stage for performances at the centre court, they also had a mini stage for the performers to perform as well as conduct meet and greets at the main entrance of Pavilion KL.
There were also a lot of booths being set up, not only at the centre court but also at Level 6 which is the Japan Walk area. This made the centre court more spacious for attendees to have fun and give their full support to the performers on stage.
Stage Activities
As the event was held from 10:15am to 9:30pm, a lot of people had fun at the event place itself with a lot of performances such as dancing, singing and even a kendama performance which is a toy/hobby from japan.
I would like to give a shoutout to the Emcees for doing so well! They did a great job in hosting and also translating as most of the performers came all the way from Japan and some of them couldn’t speak English. The translations helped most of the attendees understand what the performers were saying.
As for the singing performances, I would say that all of them did their best and gave us a memorable experience being there. The performers even went down the stage to join the crowd who was giving their full spirit in supporting them and dancing to the Wotagei.
Booths
This year, they had a lot of new booths which was interesting to me. Unlike the usual ACG events which only had anime merchandise & doujin booths, they had meet and greet with Japanese idols, Warbie Yama’s booth, booths about working or studying in Japan and many more.
But the one booth that really caught my eye was the art booth by an artist called Hiroyuki-Mitsume Takahashi. He is a really good artist and his art is so unique that his booth gave me an “eyegasm”. He also did a live painting on the 3rd day of the event which was held at his own booth as seen in the picture below.
Main Highlight – PIKOTARO!
The main highlight of Japan Expo Malaysia wass PIKOTARO of course. He’s well known in every country for his hit song PPAP (Pen Pineapple Apple Pen) and more. This is the second year PIKOTARO has been in Malaysia and I can say that the Pavilion was really crowded because of him alone on the 3rd day.
This year, he sang a lot of his hit songs such as “PPAP”, “I Like Orange Juice”(despite drinking mineral water on stage HAHA) “Neo Sunglasses” and a more recent song which is “Love&Peace Ondo”. He even revealed his newest song which is “Can You See I’m Sushi” (For years we knew he is too weird to be human, Now we know that he’s actually a Sushi). He even asked the crowd to dance to his songs which everyone did.
Lastly, he ended his performance by inviting a few lucky fans up to the stage to dance with him. There was also a fan which dressed exactly like him and called himself “PIKOTAJO”. PIKOTARO made me laugh when he said that he has a clone up here. One of PIKOTARO’s friend and a fellow performer, Misono also surprised him by being on stage together with some of the fans.
PIKOTARO definitely hyped the crowd with his interaction and his sense of humour. The emcees also did a great job in translating everything that PIKOTARO said in Japanese. But one thing that I know is that PIKOTARO is trying his best in learning English as he said some words in English and most of the crowd was able to understand him well. Good job PIKOTARO!
Unlike last year, this year’s Japan Expo did a great job in the venue arrangement by putting a standing stage rather than last year, which had chairs in the front so not everyone could watch and enjoy PIKOTARO’s performance up-close.
Unlike last year where Japan Expo placed chairs at the front of the stage which caused severe crowd congestion and made a lot of people being unable to see and enjoy PIKOTARO’s performance up close, this year’s Japan Expo improved in that aspect and everyone was able to enjoy PIKOTARO’s performance.
Conclusion
Overall, I’d say that Japan Expo is a really good event in terms of quality and content. They made a lot of improvements from last year. I really had an enjoyable time there and I hope to see Japan Expo Malaysia again every year!
