My 2025 Highlights @ ANISAMA WORLD and Bushiroad EXPO in Manila

 Hello everyone, since today, December 31, 2025, is the last day of the year and I know that this post might look like a repost about the events I attended in June, which are ANISAMA WORLD and Bushiroad EXPO 2025 in Manila, which was held in New Frontier Theater and Gateway Mall Araneta on June 7 and 8, 2025 but since some photos were uploaded a bit later and there are things things I forgot to mention in my original post so I figured I should make a repost and compile all the photos in one Album and coincidentally today December 31 also happened to be the birthday of Ave Mujica's drummer the lovely Yonezawa Akane-chan whom I had a pleasure of meeting attendiing the event which I will be mentioning later.  Anyways For those who don't know me, let me introduce myself, I'm Jeffry Manlutac, I'm a musician from the Philippines, and I served as the lead singer for the '90s Filipino Rock Band called White Lies, the band that sang the iconic rock ballads Alaala Mo and First Love Never Dies, and I served as the band's lead singer from 2013 to 2014. And I came to know about BanG Dream! in 2017 when season 1 aired, and have been a fan ever since. Now, imagine this: you live outside Japan and have become a fan of the BanG Dream! franchise, and all you wanted was to watch the real-life bands from the BanG Dream! franchise perform live, but unfortunately, the fandom here ain't that big around that time, and you can't go to Japan to watch them perform live since traveling to other countries like Japan ain't cheap. And, although prior to 2024 to 2025, which we will get to later, back then, although Bushiroad had been doing events here, we didn't have a seiyuu guest from BanG Dream! around that time until October 12 and 13, 2024, when Bushiroad EXPO 2024 in Manila, Philippines finally happened. Where we have the guitarist for the real-life MyGO!!!!! and Chihaya Anon's seiyuu as special guest, the lovely Tateishi Rin-chan, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on both days of the event's autograph sessions. And since the experience of attending last year's EXPO really went great, I promised myself that I will be attending Bushiroad EXPO 2025 as well, and to be honest, at first, I'm just expecting that it will be similar to last year's event, that they will get maybe 1 or 2 seiyuus this time, and since BanG Dream! Ave Mujica just aired in early 2025, so my guess for the sets of guests for Bushiroad EXPO 2025 in Manila may be the band's guitarist and Wakaba Mutsumi's seiyuu, the lovely Watase Yuzuki-chan, since she's affiliated with Hibiki Agency, since most of the guests they've got for Bushiroad EXPO are those seiyuus that are affiliated with Hibiki although there are some exceptions and they also got guests that are not affiliated with Hibiki Agency. And aside from Yuzu, the other seiyuu from Ave Mujica that I'm guessing to be the guest here is  Akane-chan, since currently she's a freelancer, and my guess ended up being right, since both Yuzu and Akane-chan ended up being the guests at Bushiroad EXPO 2025 in Manila. But what I'm not expecting in my 2025 Bingo Card is not only that I will be attending Bushiroad EXPO, but I will be attending ANISAMA WORLD 2025 in MANILA as well, since it just happened that both ANISAMA WORLD and Bushiroad EXPO coincided last June 7 and 8, 2025, and not only that, I happened to watch Ave Mujica perform live at ANISAMA WORLD 2025 in MANILA (June 7, 2025), but I also met in person the band's drummer and Yūtenji Nyamu's seiyuu, the lovely Yonezawa Akane-chan, at the autograph sessions for Bushiroad EXPO 2025 in Manila (June 8, 2025). 

Anyways, I would like to share my experience attending both days 

Since June 7, 2025, happened to be the Day 1 of Bushiroad EXPO, which coincides with ANISAMA WORLD, and since on Day 1 of Bushiroad EXPO there are no seiyuu guests, so I didn’t come early, unlike I did last year when on both days they had Chihaya Anon’s seiyuu and the guitarist for the real-life MyGO!!!!! The lovely Tateishi Rin-chan, so for day 1 of this year’s Bushiroad EXPO, I came to the venue around 3 pm and I was about to claim my freebie for the attendees of ANISAMA WORLD since both Bushiroad EXPO and ANISAMA WORLD have a collaboration event, but unfortunately, on the Day 1 of the EXPO I wasn’t able to claim my freebie since they ran out of stock, so I have to come back and claim it the following day, which I did, and the freebie I've got was an Ave Mujica Doloris postcard. Now back to Day 1 of Bushiroad EXPO and ANISAMA WORLD since I arrived in the venue around 3 pm I’ve met with a friend had a quick bite to eat in the nearest foodcourt withiin the venue since we came outside from Manila and forgot to take breakfast and lunch and after that we went straight to the venue for ANISAMA WORLD which is the New Frontier Theater and we entered the venue around 5 pm around 2 hours before the show starts at 7 pm and one of the firsts ones to perform is Ave Mujica and they performed 4 songs they are Georgette Me, Georgette You, Ave Mujica, 顔 (Alter Ego), and KiLLKiSS and the crowd errupted with Ave Mujica’s intensity and electrifying performance and I swear watching them perform live is in a whole different level than to just watching them online through streaming like on eplus and watching them performing live you will feel the intensity, adrenaline rush and their electrfying performance and hands down Ave Mujica is such a great live act. Anyways as much I wanted to talk about the other acts who performed on the event like FLOW, ASH DA HERO, Kitadani Hiroshi from JAM Project, MindaRyn, Maeshima Mayu, Miyata Toshiya and nobodyknows+ this post will take so long so I will skip it and only put emphasis on Ave Mujica since they are the only reason why I attended the event but that said each and every performers did such an amazing job. And remember when I said before in my previous posts that as an Ave Mujica superfan who’s been following them since they were introduced in 2023, and 8 years in total since I became a BanG Dream! Superfan in 2017, this is exactly one of my lifelong dreams, a live performance from one of the bands from the BanG Dream! Franchise, a live performance that I can attend physically, and I can finally say that one of those dreams that I’ve been longing for the past 8 years has finally come true. Now the next goal will be visiting Japan to watch them perform live, and I know it will happen eventually, so I will be looking forward to that. 

And now about June 8, 2025, the Day 2 of Bushiroad EXPO, where we have 2 members of Ave Mujica as special guests, they are the band’s guitarist and Wakaba Mutsumi’s seiyu, the lovely Watase Yuzuki-chan, and the band’s drummer and Yuutenji Nyamu’s seiyuu, the lovely Yonezawa Akane-chan. 

For this year’s autograph sessions, although the mechanics is kinda similar to the last year's event, where those who got a slot were determined via lottery but this time they’ve got 60 individuals and was divided into 2 groups, the first 30 participants who will be meeting Yuzu, and the remaining 30 will be meeting Akane-chan, and each participant should purchase a minimum of 3000 pesos worth of merch to join the autograph sessions. And I’m one of those lucky 30 individuals who’ve had a chance to meet Akane-chan in person. I was like, sweet, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really love Yuzu as well, but the thing is we were just assigned 1 seiyuu per participant, which is a bummer, but that said. However, it was Akane-chan whom I had a chance to meet. I also managed to see Yuzu up close in person since she’s just sitting right next to Akane-chan. Anyways, while I’m waiting for my turn to meet Akane-chan, I was a bit nervous and really excited since among the members of Ave Mujica, it’s actually Akane-chan whom I often interacted with on Twitter, in fact, during the airing of BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! in 2023 after the airing of episode 5 when Nyamu appeared in the anime for the first time I went to Twitter to congratulate her, and back then she only has a couple hundreds of followers when I came to know her and imagine that now she has 100k plus of followeres and in a way I’m happy to see how far she went like right now she’s one of the most popular seiyuus from the BanG Dream! Franchise, and it took almost 2 years before I finally met her in person, a nd oh boy, we were heading to the most exciting part cause as soon as I got my turn, the first thing she did was compliment my outfit and say I’m Kakoi, which means I look cool, I mean, there are cosplayers at the event that has better outfits than me, but for her to say I look cool is something that is really sweet. cause I actually wear full leather outfit and if I have to describe it my fashion sense is kinda looks similar to Klaus Meine from Scorpions and to Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford during their prime back in late 70’s to early 80’s when they still has long hair and those were metal frontmen who influenced me and I emulate way before I even get deeper and deeper to the rabbithole of Japanese Rock and Metal Music, and to be honest I rarely get compliments, and for the said compliment to come from one of the people I really love, admire and looked up to is really something and I’m so flattered. Anyways, it seems like Akane-chan saw me in ANISAMA WORLD as well and asked if I had so much fun attending the event, and I mentioned again that I also watched the concert and told her it was so much fun, and she thanked me for attending these past 2 days. And I swear Akane-chan is such a nice and down to earth person and she really is such a sweetheart, that’s why no wonder why she's so adorable and everyone really likes her cause aside from her talent as a great drummer, and someone who can also plays guitar and sings, not only that she's a multitalented person but she’s also beautiful inside and out, someone who’s so nice and has a genuine personality and I swear after that encounter it only made me admire and love her even more. And the whole experience actually solidified my love and admiration for Ave Mujica. Anyways, Bushiroad EXPO 2026 has already been announced, and although no announcements have been made yet for the exact date and venue for the Philippines, I will be attending once again, and I'm so excited for the Bushiroad EXPO 2026, so see you all there.