SINGAPORE, Nov 27 (Reuters) – 1000’s of cosplayers and anime followers flocked to the annual Anime Competition Asia (AFA) in Singapore over the weekend, held for the primary time because the COVID-19 pandemic started greater than two years in the past.
The three-day conference celebrates all issues Japanese popular culture.
Anime, a sub-culture originating from Japan, has continued to thrive and develop internationally in recent times regardless of the pandemic, largely on account of its huge on-line presence and supportive contributors.
AFA attracted 120,000 attendees the final time it was held in 2019. Though actual ticket gross sales is not going to be out there till a later date, competition director Shawn Chin informed Reuters that he expects the Singapore occasion to succeed in the identical quantity, if not surpass it.
“Now that I am in Singapore it looks like a meetup of outdated pals, as a result of I used to be in fixed on-line contact with individuals right here,” mentioned a featured Taiwanese cosplayer, Hiko, from her sales space on the exhibition corridor.
Singapore eased most of its COVID-19 curbs this 12 months, and had seen numerous worldwide occasions returning to the city-state in current months.
Reporting by Lion Schellerer and Chen Lin in Singapore; Modifying by Kim Coghill
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