2015年6月13日土曜日

2015年6月13日土曜日 -

DenDen Town Street Festival




DenDen Town Street Festival

When I was little, my parents took me to many craft fairs. We'd leave at sunrise and sit in a booth selling wood crafts. It wasn't always fun but it helped put me through college. It's been a long time since I saw my parents and even longer since we all went to a craft fair together. Similarly, I haven't watched any anime in about five years, so I couldn't turn down the chance to revisit both when the opportunity came up.

My wife and I headed to Osaka's DenDen Town where a massive anime costume party was being held. I was surprised how few of the characters I recognized. I knew it had been a while but I didn't realize how out of touch I had become. The traffic was unsteady; at any moment photographers could stop right in front of you to shoot something that caught their eye. The costumes they were photographing were far more elaborate than typical Halloween costumes.
The most impressive were those where entire groups of people were coordinating around one theme. There was a group of pretend soldiers searching the crowd for the infamous spy Solid Snake. Also hidden in the crowd was Waldo from the children's book Where's Waldo?

The festival wasn't limited to the spectacle of the crowd. There was a live performance of a few J-pop bands. I made an aside to my wife that I thought it was funny that the crowd consisted mostly of men in suits singing along with a group of young girls. The hobby shops were lined with all sorts of collectibles. The restaurants extended their seating to the alley streets. It was quite relaxing to find a table and have lunch as the parade of cartoon characters marched on by. The food was excellent. We had a mix of tempura and grilled fish. I think the server may have made a mistake because I'm not used to large portion sizes in Japan!

It was a very high energy experience and a lot of fun. It included a lot of modern Japanese cultural exports: J-pop, anime, and electronics. For my next event, I will try to do something more traditional, maybe something at Osaka Castle, but it was certainly a good experience.

craft fair：out door market of home-made artwork：手作り市
put me through：to help complete something; to make it possible：できるようになった
turn down：refuse：拒む
out of touch：having lost familiarity with something; to know less about a subject than before：疎い
caught their eye：Generated interest for them; they noticed something interesting：目に留める
coordinate：work together：合わせる
infamous：well known for causing bad things or making enemies：悪役
an aside：a private remark; a secret comment：ひそひそ話
consisted：be made of：構成されていた
included：contained ：盛り込まれていた