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C3 AFA Singapore Announces 1st Wave of Musical Guests

The Anime Festival Asia convention announced its musical guests for its C3 AFA Singapore event on Friday last week. The guests include ClariS, FLOW, fripSide, Luce Twinkle Wink☆, May'n, and Shiena Nishizawa.

ClariS began with the singer duo Clara and Alice, whose names formed the portmanteau that is their group name. The duo began collaborating when they were still first-year junior high school students in 2009, releasing covers of anime songs on Nico Nico Video. They signed on to SME Records in 2010, and released 10 singles until 2014, when Alice departed to focus on her studies. Despite this, ClariS did not disband, and Clara teamed up with Karen, a classmate of hers in music school, and they released the group's 11th single in 2015. They moved to Sony Music's Sacra Music label on April 1. Since their major debut, they have released 18 singles and four studio albums. They have performed songs for such anime as Oreimo, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Nisemonogatari, Nisekoi, Tsukimonogatari, Qualidea Code, Classroom Crisis, and most recently, Eromanga Sensei and Owarimonogatari.

FLOW consists of vocalists Kohshi and Keigo, guitarist Take, bassist Got's, and drummer Iwasaki. The band began when the brothers Kohshi and Take began playing together. The band debuted in 2001 with their self-released "Flow #0" single. The band signed with Ki/oon Music and released their first professional single, "Blaster," in 2003. The band has performed theme songs for such anime as Eureka Seven, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, The Seven Deadly Sins, Naruto Shippūden, Durarara!!×2 Ketsu, Tales of Zestiria the X, and Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

Musicians Satoshi Yaginuma and Nao formed fripSide in 2002. Nao left the group in 2009, and Yoshino Nanjō joined it in the same year. The duo has performed songs for such anime as A Certain Scientific Railgun, Hayate the Combat Butler! Heaven Is a Place on Earth, Black Bullet, Schwarzes Marken, and Ajin, and have also performed theme songs for many visual novels (when Nao was still the vocalist). They released their latest single CD, "clockwork planet," on May 3. The single's title song is the opening theme song to the recent Clockwork Planet anime. The group will also perform the opening theme song for the upcoming Saredo Tsumibito wa Ryū to Odoru: Dances with the Dragons anime, which premieres in October.

Luce Twinkle Wink☆ consists of the members Yukino Usami, Saki Fukasawa, Megumi Nishikiori, Saori Itayama, and Kaho Higaki. The group released their first single under NBC Universal titled "Koi-iro♡Shikōkairo" in November 2015. The song was used as the theme song for the FuRyu's To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness: True Princess PlayStation Vita game. The group then released their second single, "1st Love Story," in June 2016. It was used as the opening theme song for the And you thought there is never a girl online? anime. The group released its third single, "go to Romance>>>>>," on March 8. It was used as the ending theme song for the Urara Meirocho anime. The group's fourth and latest single, "Fight on!," shipped on September 6. It is the ending theme song for the Gamers! anime.

May'n performed songs as the Macross Frontier anime's "Galactic Fairy" idol Sheryl Nome. Beyond her performances for Macross Frontier, May'n has performed theme songs for anime series including Accel World, Phi-Brain - Puzzle of God, Aria the Scarlet Ammo, Inari Kon Kon, and M3 - Sono Kuroki Hagane. She performed the opening theme song for the television anime series Aquarion Logos with composer Yoko Kanno, and also performed the opening theme song for the Taboo Tattoo anime, and the ending theme song for the Izetta: The Last Witch anime. She most recently reprised her role as the singing voice of Sheryl Nome with the new song "Gooorgeous," and collaborated with the Wake Up, Girls! group to perform the opening theme song for the Restaurant to Another World anime.

Nishizawa debuted in February 2015 with her "Fubuki" single, the title song of which was used as the ending theme song for the Kan Colle television anime. She released her second single, "Brand-new World/Piacere," in November 2015. "Brand-new World" served as the opening theme song for The Asterisk War anime, while "Piacere" served as the ending theme song for Aria the Avvenire. The song "Cross," which appeared in the same single, was the ending theme song for the BAD APPLE WARS PlayStation Vita game. She released her third single "The Asterisk War," in May 2016. The title track served as the opening theme song for The Asterisk War anime's second season, while the coupling track "Brilliant Star" is the theme song for the A.W. : Phoenix Festa game based on the anime. Her fourth and latest single, "Kikan," shipped last November. The title song served as the theme song for the Kantai Collection: KanColle anime film.

The convention is one of five in content company Sotsu Co., Ltd. and Singaporean events and marketing agency SOZO Pte Ltd.'s "C3 AFA" joint events that bring together their C3 and Anime Festival Asia events. Aside from Singapore, the events have also run in Thailand, Indonesia, and Japan, and will also have an event in Hong Kong in February 2018.

The convention will take place at the Suntec Singapore Exhibition & Convention Center on November 24-26. The event will also hold a preview screening of the first episode of Kyoto Animation's upcoming Violet Evergarden television anime, which is scheduled to premiere in January 2018.

[Via Anime Pilipinas]