August this year felt like a personal fandom renaissance, with my recent return to otome games and the 1st being an unofficial celebration of yaoi day (now more commonly referred to as BL). There were also two limited-time otome and BL collab events in Manila this month: the Tears of Themis photobooth frames and the Given pop-up café, and I was lucky enough to visit both even with the awfully rainy weather we’ve been having lately. If you’re a fellow otome & BL enthusiast, keep reading to see what went on for full oshikatsu goodness.
Tears of Themis Photobooth
The Tears of Themis global server celebrated its 5th anniversary through July and August, featuring a wedding theme with SSR cards, story events, and lots of rewards. The Union Chapter overall was a very sweet culmination of the relationship that you, as Rosa/the main character, have built with your in-game love interest throughout the years.
There were three branches in the Philippines that that had the photobooth tie-up, and my husband and I visited the PHOTOGRAY branch at Ayala Malls Arca South. I noticed that while the staff was heavily promoting the store by calling out to customers, there wasn’t any obvious promotion (e.g., posters, standees) for the ToT collab. I’m not sure if it’s because the mall is fairly new and doesn’t have a lot of foot traffic yet, but it would’ve been nice to have had more signs promoting the event.
That said, the staff was very polite and approachable when I asked them about the ToT collab, and they accommodated us well despite the queue of people coming in and out. If you’re already familiar with Korean photobooths, the process is pretty much as usual: enter the photobooth, pick the frames you want via touch screen, and pay by inserting an exact amount of bills. I chose the large-sized 5th Anniversary frame, and got ready to pose for the next couple of minutes with my Artem plushie, can badge, and tablet with the full-sized illustration of Artem’s wedding SSR on-screen.
I asked my husband (who I’m featuring in the blog for the first time) to go into the shot for the frames that don’t include Artem, as I wanted the whole thing to come off as having a silly, lighthearted vibe overall—especially since we also got married earlier this month!
You get a 10-second countdown as well as two tries for each shot, and at the end you get to choose the ones you liked best. After which, you scan a QR code to get digital copies of the photo and video of the 10-second countdown.
Once done and the photos are finished printing, the staff give you a free plastic sleeve to protect your pictures. We then left to grab a snack and do some more oshikatsu by pooling my Artem merch together with the freshly printed shot.
2D oshi meets 3D oshi—I’ll always appreciate my husband for being such a good sport when it comes to my more niche, geeky interests.
Given Pop-Up Café
Next, we headed to another location for the Given pop-up, which was in collaboration with Cosplay.ph and hosted at Moshi Gran Café, One Ayala. This was also the first official BL pop-up café, which was really neat. The place was decorated to the brim with chibi versions of the Given characters, from huge panel boards, buntings, standees, and wall stickers. They also played songs from the Given anime, which of course added to the overall ambience.
We arrived after dinner time so there weren’t a lot of people, but I talked to the staff and they mentioned that the place was quite packed especially during the first few days of the event. A lot of the merchandise had already sold out by that point as well. I really wanted the glass marker charm, but since it wasn’t available anymore I just got a couple of the collab drinks.
Aside from having limited-time merchandise on sale, another main part of the event is the specialty drink menu where you get a random character coaster with each drink order. I got Mafuyu’s Strawberry Tea and Haruki’s Ginger Ale, and pulled a Ritsuka Utatane coaster and a Haruki Sailor coaster. I was okay with getting anyone at that point since I don’t have the best luck when it comes to gacha, so as an AkiHaru girlie I was ecstatic about getting half of my favorite ship—pun not intended.
There was only a week left until the last day of the event, but I took my chances and lurked online to see if there was anyone looking to trade their coasters. I found a really nice fan who had an Akihiko Sailor coaster that I traded Ritsuka for. She was also looking to sell her AkiHaru Sailor acrylic standees, so I came back the following week to complete our transaction. I then happily took photos of my new AkiHaru collection, albeit at Coco Ichibanya.
I wasn’t able to stay long enough for the ending of the event where they raffled off the standees, but I did get to meet fellow Given fans, had my photo taken at an amazingly set up shrine, and went home with a happy heart.
Fans used the café’s private booth to set up this huge Given shrine filled with lots of merch where fellow enthusiasts could have their pictures taken. It was also cute seeing a different POV from outside the café.
As silly as these events may seem to some, it all comes down to people enjoying what they love, even if it’s about celebrating their fictional faves. Whether online or offline, it always feels great being able to interact with individuals who share the same enthusiasm and interests as you do.
Though both events have now ended, you can keep posted by following Tears of Themis’ HoYoLAB account which also lists their social media, as well as the Instagram accounts of PHOTOGRAY, Cosplay.ph, and Moshi Gran Café for future ACG (anime, cosplay, and gaming) event collabs. Here’s hoping that the next HoYo Fest finally includes an official merch booth for Tears of Themis and that Kizu Natsuki-sensei, the author of Given, is invited for a fan-signing—especially since she posted about wanting to visit the Philippines!
Leave a Reply