A lot of shit went down. Long story short, constant changing Arita hours, no updates from organizers, constantly changing signing and lineup rules, never ending lines (6-7 hours lineup), no food or water distributed during lineup, middlemen service autograph fuckup leading stolen cards, damaged cards, cards with other people’s names signed.

Card show is a 3 day event, Fri 31, st Oct, sat 1st, Sun 2nd Nov.

Day 1) autograph rules with Arita was the most relaxed. People lined up and could give Arita multiple cards to sign based on how many autograph tickets you had. Name requirement was loose, and he allowed “dragon” or the pinying “loong” as the addressee name, and often people chosen neutral names, or somewhat associated names in Chinese or Japanese like “fire, flame”. Even this early in the event, middlemen (I won’t name names or nationalities as that’s besides the point) were lining up with multiple cards, and had a group of people (think 15+) wearing the same company branded t-shirt and asking for autos addressed to the same name. And they kept requeing. Arita notices this and got angry, and enforced a rule that each person can lineup with only one card, in his attempt to fight back against middlemen who were just in it for the money. This makes the lines immediately much longer. Hearsay, certain middlemen starting demanding certain names being written, or having the sketch drawn a certain way, a certain colour, saying they paid for it (which actually completely makes sense, although the way this is delivered may make a big difference). This made Arita even more mad… day 1 ends with many people not being able to fulfill their auto slots, despite having lined up. No official communication about their expired Friday slots from organizers initially so fans left in the dark. Much later in the night, if you chased after your middleman, they would eventually tell you that the auto slot can be used the subsequent day on Saturday.

However word began to circulate that Arita is sick, and that day 2 (Saturday) autograph may not go ahead. Once again no official communication, just Chinese whispers through whatsapp.

Day 2) 8am, organizers tell middlemen Arita signing for Saturday slots is now postponed to Monday. This is because he is sick.

Suddenly at 1:45pm they tell middlemen that Arita is signing at 2pm. Vendors get the news first and scramble to lineup. I have no idea how normal customers were informed.

Around 2-3 hour lineup to get to Arita. The line is actually split into three sections. One is in the walkway of the general venue area, which leads through closed doors into a large event room. This room is partitioned into, with a white wall of birds blocking the view of the other side of the room. Which hides away the final segment of the line and Arita. This arrangement is important for something else I will Mention later.

There is no signage about photos or videos, but security will shout out occasionally “IF I SEE ANYBODY TAKING VIDEO OR PHOTOS I WILL KICK YOU OUT OF THE LINE” (this is at the final lineup section where you can see Arita).

The lines were slow for the above mentioned reasons, but also because the autograph slots on the app were only 50% paid for, and they decided to take payment at the front of the line just before you meet Arita. After people fumble for their app and QR code, and credit card, the organizers give them a piece of paper to write down their autograph details like name, pen color, and to sign a T&A that has fine prints saying if you complain then Arita /TCGKL has the right to take away your card irrespective of value, and refund you the signing fee. Yes. Cray. This actually happened to some people.

Anyways this setup made the front of the line needlessly slow, since even after getting the slip of paper people need time to decide the name and details they want for the autograph.

The crazy part is the autograph table is covered with some plain table cloth, and they ask you to unsleeve your card 5 meters away from Arita, and they conveyer belt style slide your raw card on the table all the way to Arita. Bye bye PSA BGS CGC TAG 10.

Once it gets to Arita, he casually grabs your card, looks at the note, and then based on his mood will fulfill maybe 1 of your written request (ie red eyes). Many names were denied by Arita. The rules were nothing Pokemon related, which I interpreted to be “Charizard (and it’s names in foreign languages), Ash, trainer, red, brock, misty, team rocket”. But even names like “collector” was denied. On day two he allowed IG names or name abbreviations (AJ, LL, CY) without showing proof. He also allowed single character names like Chinese last names.

After he signs your card, he throws it into the felt trays in front of him (initially when he was in a better mood he would place it in the box). It’s best to have a large piece of paper in that tray before he throws in the card, otherwise you risk damaging the card or auto when you pry it out with your fingers or fingernails.

This whole encounter he does not look up at the fan/customer. If he doesn’t like the name you put down, he will immediately pressure you to give him your actual name. “My name is Arita, what is your name?” And he will mutter something to his assistant in Japanese, I assume he’s unimpressed, thinking all these people are middlemen, when in fact some are helping friends sign cards, or they want a special nickname on their card.

And back track a bit, earlier in the day around noon, people saw Arita get angry after a guy showed up with 36 cards asking for Arita to sign it. (Presumably these are the middlemen… that are basically associated with TCGKL, more on this later). Arita gets so mad he slaps the table and storms out. It takes an hour or so before Arita comes back. So wait times extend. Hearsay the reason Arita gets angry is because not only is this not what they agreed to, these middle men make it unfair on everyone else and they’re only in it for the money (although let’s be honest, most people are in it for the money). So throughout the second day the signing and lineup rules keep changing and become stricter, as more and more middlemen come through and piss off Arita.

Remember how the room is partitioned into two? That’s where this comes in. People can’t see Arita is absent, so they patiently wait. No fuss, no complaints. Moreover the partition occurs where there’s a door access to the outside. This is the back door where they run the bulk middlemen autograph submissions directly to the front of the line to Mitsuhiro Arita. This works for day 1-2, but not for Day 3.

Worth noting is Arita shows up with a fever patch on his forehead, wears a mask and is sniffing the whole time, so he does look sick.

Saturday ends surprisingly on time and the autograph session is over at 7pm. Once again many auto slots are not fulfilled and customers are once again left in the dark about when and if their slot can be fulfilled.

Day 3. Sunday. Arita starts signing at 9am-10am for vendors, but apparently this ran overtime to 1pm. Somewhere here Arita gets mad again (assuming middlemen), and another debacle happens.

I was inside the signing area for another purpose and did not see Arita there from 3-3:30pm, I think he came back around 3:45pm. So major backlogs from this.

2:30pm-5pm the line didn’t move one inch.

The middlemen back door route didn’t work now as Arita mandated very strictly 1 card per 1 person, and made the name requirements very strict, eventually requiring to match with your photo ID.

This is where shit hit the fan. Middlemen couldn’t use their normal trust peolple and run 50 cards at once to Arita. So they hired randoms on the street at 50 ringgit each to lineup. Kids and 50 year old men were in line holding your precious auto cards, fanning their face with it.

Presumably they go up to Arita to sign, Arita or their staff ask them to say their name. They can’t read the name on the paper slip for the autograph instructions and then are forced to put their own name onto the card. Hence all the wrong name autos. It’s not Arita going crazy writing the wrong names. Those are the names of the random people holding your cards. Or whatever name they could think of.

I personally saw 3 kids, two girls maybe aged 18-20, each holding a first edition base set zard, very old condition, and super casually and being rejected for their name.

And the ones who know the value of the cards they were holding just left with the card. Stole them. No way for organizers or middlemen to hunt them down.

Day 3 ends at 10pm, even though it’s supposed to end at 6 or 7pm officially. Arita is mega mega pissed by the end of it. You can tell by how far he throws the card after he signs it.

So everyone pays to lineup, and maybe get a decent auto. Maybe. Most middlemen lost cards at a rate of 15-20%, they were allocated anywhere from 50-300 autograph slots.

And on top of that, some people (unofficial dealers) made many accounts and spam bought the top tier autograph slots from day one. Now this is all hearsay so I think putting it all together is a full picture of the different factors at play that made this a colossal cock up. Some were semi-official middlemen and others were unofficial, but had to resort to randoms to lineup with customers’ cards without their consent or knowledge.

TLDR TCGKL was days of lining up and crossing your fingers hoping you get a decent auto and hopefully with the name you want, or something remotely acceptable. Most vendors overpriced by 30%. Now we all play the waiting for a refund game