Sound of the Pathfinders

We had been sitting here for some time.

Welcome to Comic Fiesta, the annual ACG event that attracts tens of thousands of fans to gather around for their favourite anime, doujinshi, authors, video games, artists, cosplayers, or just to have a great time around. Gather with friends, join Discord server meetups, take photos with great cosplayers, watch esports tournaments, feel the crowd or let your wallet bleed to those merchandises…you choose how you want to enjoy the event. Or, you can follow their schedule and enjoy the stage, like what we were doing at that time.

I was there with my secondary school friends and it was really a great time since we haven’t really met for quite a long time. Walked a long day, chatted a lot, visited a lot of booths together, and lastly we ended up in this hall where the Cosplay Invitationals were going on. It’s like a short drama contest, but by teams of cosplayers and the amount of effort and creativity poured into it is just beyond the roof. From reliving the classical scenes in Final Fantasy series to bringing us all back to our childhood with Crayon Sin Chan then bringing absolutely relatable Dark Souls moments to us gamers, it’s fantastic.

Honestly, we weren’t there for this, but it’s so unexpectedly good that I have to mention it.

Well, yeah. We are indeed waiting for the next event…here we go.

Let’s see what the official site says.

DJ NIGHT: SOUND OF THE PATHFINDER

Our Comic Fiesta DJ night will be featuring the trio from Exit Tunes - kors k, Ryu☆ and YUC’e back to back as you dance your heart out to the craziest dance-off ever!"

Crazy. YUC’e (pronounced somehow like “you-say”) is here. I won’t lie that I only know YUC’e among those three… I mean, not totally don’t know who they are, but in comparison I only listen to her songs the most. Thanks to the game osu! I got exposed to her songs such as Sengoku HOP and Future Candy, then from Spotify the chain goes…her songs are a little unique, going under the genre Future Bass but have many elements from other genres at the same time. Probably you can feel a little Pop, some Trap, tiny pieces of Electro, and probably even some Happy Hardcore and Dubstep vibes spinning together with a relatively high BPM. Most importantly, she sings her own songs. And, they are cute.

“Are the KLCC security guards about to kick us out again?!!” That’s what the MC shouted before passing the stage to her to start off the show. I legit chuckled, dang, the crowd isn’t really that big anyways…

Watching live on the spot is indeed a different experience. Besides getting to see her sing, we get to see how she actually enjoys the stage - to be honest, her songs aren’t the best for dance parties, the beats are sometimes too complex and most of the times it seem to lack some oomph you will expect in a dance party track. So, going insane isn’t the real thing for her stage, but following the crowd, and her, to enjoy the show is. From fast-paced hit tracks like Future Cake to tracks that keep you moving in parties like Night Club Junkie, immerse in what a live show can offer and cheer to the beat like you won’t be able to do alone.

It’s really fun joining her in the interactions she did on-stage, and we’re indeed lucky to be able to watch her first performance in Malaysia :) Oh, also, watching YUC’e smashing the beat pad like crazy during Future Candy is just so satisfying. That is why we crave for good EDM - the beats are just unbeatable.

After she ended her performance with a soft and calm song (I don’t know which song is that…doesn’t seem to be on Spotify, or is lurking under some album I haven’t heard yet, but surprisingly she does calm songs very nicely too), another DJ took the stage - it’s kors k.

I won’t lie that this name is pretty unfamiliar to me, but he’s one of the very active artists in Bemani so I somehow expect his tracks to carry vibes that I will feel familiar…since yeah, music rhythm games. Even if I don’t play those titles their songs might have also appeared in osu! or my YouTube recommendations, and turns out that I am somehow right :P

Kosuke Saito (斉藤広祐 Saitō Kōsuke) (born December 17, 1983), is a Japanese DJ and music game composer. He is best known for his work in the Bemani series made by Konami. He has produced music under a number of different aliases, such as kors k, Eagle, StripE, and teranoid.

From his Wikipedia page, and yes I do have a few songs from StripE in my osu! folder. What I can say is, a pretty awesome DJ that can do a variety of styles and really knows how to keep the energy flowing non-stop throughout a dance party. And indeed, this is the time to go insane in what we can finally say as a crazy dance party.

kors k is best known for his works in music rhythm games, so here we go. Fast-paced high BPM tracks with strong beats that can hype the stage from the very start, keep the adrenaline pumping and party moving, then land insanity onto the crowd with every countdown for crazy drops. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, Go! and everyone’s hands go high in the air while jumping to the beat like mad. I never heard any songs he performed that night, but one thing for sure, that isn’t required for one to enjoy the show.

Check out some of his tracks here on his Spotify. Or just YouTube, that would work too. Not sure if someone did a recording of the show that night, but I doubt so. Who can resist the urge to dance along?

For the last third of the show, here comes Ryu☆…

Ryu☆ (pronounced Ryu-star) is a pretty familiar name for us rhythm gamers, or vocaloid fans, or just about anyone that dives deep enough into the Japanese music world. Check out his Spotify page and you might hear some familiar ones…that’s exactly us during that night. “Hey this sounds extremely familiar…any idea what’s this song?”, “No, I feel that it’s very familiar too”. But same as above, you don’t need to know his songs before to go in the realm of his EDM fantasy.

Seriously, I’m listening to his Spotify page while typing this. I highly recommend you to listen to it while reading it too.

Compared to kors k, you won’t really feel the extreme haste in Ryu☆’s songs. But that doesn’t mean that the hall is calmer than just now - it’s the opposite. Some might feel that kors k’s tracks are too fast and too complex for dance parties (they work for me, but it highly depends on what you like), but Ryu☆’s will just sit right in the spot of night clubs and parties with a fascinating mix of Japanese elements with EDM elements you can find in the best party tracks.

Someone once said that they should leave the best to the last, and I guess that’s why Ryu☆’s at the last of the show.

Kicking off his part with a chilling 8-bit classic from Super Mario, he swiftly connected the cooled hall with his hype-building beats and drops come one after another keeping everyone in the party moving to the night. In the second part, he built the hype up again as usual, but didn’t followed with another EDM drop - Ryu☆ threw out a remix of only my railgun instead. Immediately, the crowd exploded with everyone singing to this classical anime hit - I did too, it was my first anime series to be honest - and that doesn’t really end it, he continued with another remix of Levan Polkka, an extremely well known Vocaloid track featuring Hatsune Miku, then, with another remix of one of the Kamen Rider Series’ anime’s opening song. That’s like the climax of the night. Wonderful.

I heard that Ryu☆ did threw out anime song remixes last year for the crowd last year, and this year I got to see it in action. One of the best Comic Fiesta moments confirmed.

In the euphoria by these dance music and hallucinating lights, I had a weird thought in my mind…

Normally, we, those who love these “unpopular” music that does not fall under pop and classical will have weird places to go when people start talking about music. Not only we don’t normally get to join in the discussion, even if we get to join into people will also rarely agree with us on what we like to listen. Can’t blame anyone anyways, it’s not like everyone likes high BPM, hardcore drops, electronic music (instrumental or not) that can either be extremely happy and bright or go the other way round showing pain and sadness. Some also question what’s so good about the songs sang by computers through vocaloid software; why we prefer these super unpopular stuff, is it that we do so to make us look unique; why we like these instrumental creations that do not seem to make sense to others; why on Earth are there people who can live with noisy music like these…the common ground just don’t seem to exist sometimes. Well, there are some in Discord servers, but when I get down from the online world it’s still the same.

But here it’s totally different. There is no need to feel different for enjoying things that you enjoy - even if you’re headbanging to some 200 BPM madness or screaming to your favourite anime tunes, with hands in the air catching the sound waves that are colliding with your fingers as if you could feel it. No one’s going to ask weird questions, because everyone’s doing the same. Even if they aren’t, they understand.

It’s like finally finding a opportunity to be myself.

I guess that’s why Comic Fiesta is like a magnet to me - I went there last year, didn’t do anything too meaningful (I even skipped the concert, missed the chance to see kradness live and his singing), but this year I still feel the urge to go, and now I’m indeed waiting for next year’s. It’s just great to see people doing what they like such as cosplaying as their favourite characters or singing Padoru Padoru, and they are not doing it alone. Nothing is too unique here and everyone has their place.

Meeting other pathfinders throughout the event is just as wonderful as it can be.

The concert didn’t end on-time - we are totally fine with that because it didn’t start on-time either. The DJs even answered our call for an encore for another two minutes of awesomeness. Indeed a marvellous and unforgettable night.

And yes, the security guards didn’t kick us out. Lol.

Me and my friends were like totally wet after the concert. Who needs the gym when you can come to Comic Fiesta…Google Fit recorded a total of 40 minutes of rigorous activity and that is like the sum of two weeks of my normal activity. Aches at the leg and arm immediately came right after we arrived at my friend’s home, but absolutely no regrets.

Now I’m hoping that we get back the same gang next year, or having Camellia will be super awesome too.

Looking forward for Comic Fiesta 2019 although it’s approximately 1 year to go! Also, we’re close to new year…let’s just put an early Happy New Year over here just in case my next post didn’t come fast enough :3

See you next time!

–Lilacse

Special thanks to my friend’s Pixel 2 for those amazing photos, if you think the photo is beautiful, it might be from him :)

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