Hyper Japan

This weekend I went to Hyper Japan for the first time. What is Hyper Japan? Good question. Hyper Japan is a massive convention in London which showcases Japanese culture and anime. It happens at least once a year, sometimes twice. I've never been before because although I love Japanese culture and anime, I don't really spend too much of my time focused on it. But the passion I feel for it is pretty strong - strong enough that I've started trying to learn Japanese through Memrise (they have other languages and it's free!).

Anyway, back to my main point: Hyper Japan. I had heard mixed things about it from friends but knew I had to come to my own decision. So what was it like?

I'll describe my day.

Yes, that is a massive Attack on
Titan character head behind me.

I got to North Greenwich station and from there, immediately joined the queue. Our ticket allowed us entry from 3.30pm and it was about 3.10pm when we arrived. The queue took us nearly an hour to get through, so we entered the O2 at about 4pm. We weren't worried, there was still plenty of time to look around before the event ended at 9pm.

We got trapped for a bit in the Nintendo area before we realised there was more to the event than a 3DS marathon. We walked a little way on and discovered the hall of all halls that was crammed full of marvellous stalls.

Ahem. Pardon the rhymes.

It was amazing. There were stalls where you could buy kimonos, tableware, stickers, manga comics, fans, art work, badges, CDs, jewellery, posters, stationary, t-shirts, sweets... The list goes on. Everything on offer was a small representation of the island country; whether they were authentic or styled in the fashion of Japan. Personally, I wish I had gone after pay day so I could have bought more plates and bowls but there's always next time.

That's some advice for you if you haven't been to Hyper Japan and are thinking about going: take some money. You will inevitably buy something, whether that be a cute plushie or so you can try the famous onigiri (which was likened to the American burger or European sandwich by the stall owners). That's probably sound advice if you're going to any sort of convention really: take. some. money.

You'll thank me for it later.

Also, don't be afraid to dress up. And by 'dress up', I mean put on cosplay of your favourite fictional character of Japanese origin - that's fancy dress to the uninitiated - but I also discovered that a certain kind of dressing up is also appropriate for Hyper Japan. I'm talking about dressing in Harajuku fashion. Now, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on it. In fact, I wasn't even sure what it was called until I started writing this post. What I was certain of, however, was that it looked super cool.

Roll on, Hyper Japan: Christmas festival!