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- (From left) The character Jumin Han, Yoosung, 707 and Zen of the highly popular game Mystic Messenger operating a BL Cafe during Yukimatsuri 2 event.
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- Participants during a game card competition.
KUCHING: Yukimatsuri 2, an anime club gathering, saw fans dressing up as their favourite characters, in a Jan 14-15 event held at the International College of Advanced Technology Sarawak (iCats) West Campus at Jalan Stampin.
Organised by local anime enthusiast club ChronoForce Kaiser in collaboration with Kuching-based anime club in iCats College, Gendai-bu, president of ChronoForce Kaiser and organiser of the event, Mohd Zharif Jamil, said this was the second Yukimatsuri.
“The first time we organised was last year, also at iCats. Since now it is snowy season in Japan, we decided to organise Yukimatsuri (snow festival) in Kuching,” said Zharif.
Centering on the theme of snow, Mohd Zharif said participants were garbed in winter attire like scarves, mittens, knit caps and hoodies.
According to Zharif, the event was to expose the anime (Japanese film and TV animation) culture to the local community.
“Through a promotion like this to the public, we hope it can slowly gain interest in the hobby and build a community that shares the same passion,” said Zharif.
As a community-based event, advisor of Gendai-bu Adruce Amirol said they kept the cost of organisation down as the event was for exposure, not for profits.
Established in 2014, Gendai-bu had less than 10 members when they started out but now has more than 20 active members.
“When we first started the club back in 2014, the target was simply to have a venue to display and share the hobby with others,” he said.
Adruce said the anime culture is slowly showing potential to become a mainstream interest.
Through invitations from other clubs and associations, Adruce said the club has collaborated with Azam Sarawak and participated in the Sarawak Toy Fair 2016.
With 35 booths available during the two-day event for participants to display their manga (genre of animated fantasy) and anime character miniatures and statuettes collections, other activities included a Cosplay contest, Vanguard card and anime singing competitions.
Visitors got to see some their favourite anime characters coming to life.
To know more about upcoming activities, check out ChronoForce Kaiser Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ChronoKaizer/ and Gendai-bu Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/gendaibutracker/.