Japan Festival 2011

As I mentioned in my first blog-entry, I am fascinated with Japanese culture. It all started through videogames and anime during my childhood, but at the same time I was extremely frightened by many of their customs. I was able to accept that as a simple cultural difference after all.

Before you start reading I wanted to apologize for the poor quality of the images. I'm still in the learning process and my camera is pretty bad regarding poor lighting. Thanks for your understanding.

This past weekend (the 15th and 16th of January) the Japan Festival was held in Berlin.
Honestly, I needed a friend to convince to go there together. I just wanted to see if it is like the Comic Fiesta 2010 (which is only one example of the many conventions Danny Choo reported on).

One thing you should know is that in Germany such events are mainly about the culture as a whole. That means on the one hand that you a huge variety of things to be seen, but unfortunately pretty short and not too detailed either.


The first thing that raised my interest was Go. It is actually pretty easy to learn if you have an experienced someone explaining the rules. But most importantly it's a really great game! I played it with my friend with whom I play chess occasionally and we both were thankful for something new.

 

They used the game Go to present some furniture as well. This seems to be how the game is played traditionally. It looks pretty cool and knowing that it is comfortable too, I wonder why we refuse to give it a try.

Artists exhibiting their pieces of work. It definitely looks great, but being a student makes it hard to reward the artists for their work. In the end it's just too expensive I guess. Still great!

Of course, there were Katana as well. I never been too fascinated with them, but being nearly able to lay my hands on one of them was pretty amazing nonetheless. I thought the golden one was a bit over the top though.

There was a Shorinji Kempo perfomance as well. Looked pretty interesting but not always that credible... I'm pretty sure it would look different in a really dangerous situation.

The same lovely lady once more:

Probably a bit more known due to the show Yamato are the Taiko Drums. Really impressive while being a bit scary as well... It's just overwhelming to see that happen with only about 8 drums. You should definitely go to one of these shows.

If you're not familiar with Japanese fashion: relax, I guess no one really is. I mean, look at these: a pair of glasses with a wooden frame??? Seriously? I love it!

And finally: Cosplayers! I mean, what would such an event be without them? As I pointed out earlier, these images are pretty bad actually (high ISO numbers and stuff...), but I hope you'll still like them.

Auron from Final Fantasy X

L and Near from Death Note

Unfortunately, I only know Sasuke and Naruto from Naruto, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and Sailor Mars from Sailor Moon. I'm not too fond of animes after all.

There were a few shops exhibiting their products as well. Everythign from Figma or Nendoroid, Anime-DVDs, Mangas or Cosplay-outfits.

It was a pretty interesting event and amazing to see this subculture live. I've seen many Cosplayer's work like Jessica Nigri's for example or many others on Danny Choo's website.
I was a bit dissapointed though. There were hardly any Japanese distributors representatives. Be it in sales, shows or Cosplay. It just did not feel authentic.

I'm looking forward to next year's Japan festival though. How about you? Would you attend such events? Or don't you have something like this around you?

Well then, sayonara!