Ani:Me brings a slice of colourful Japanese animation to the UAE

The three-day fesival at the du Forum on Yas Island brought together a strange array of characters but the ramen noodles were the talk of the town.

Eight Bautista as Yoshimura in the individual cosplay competition held during the ANI:ME festival at du Forum in Abu Dhabi, on Saturday. Delores Johnson / The National

ABU DHABI // The capital’s first anime, manga and Japanese culture festival was a resounding success this year, attracting between 10,000 and 12,000 fans.

Anime is Japanese animation characterised by colourful graphics, vibrant characters and fantastical themes, while manga are comics created in the Japanese language.

“We want to try and expose people to everything,” said Arafaat Ali Khan, organizer of Ani:Me.

“There’s so much cool stuff – including gaming, VR (virtual reality) – in true Japanese fashion. If you go to Japan, it’s so overwhelming as well and I’m glad that the event is reflecting that a bit.”

Loud, mesmerising music played as a dizzying array of colourful and strange characters paraded up and down aisles filled with merchants selling everything, including autographs and celluloid prints from famous animes, such as Studio Ghibli's My Neighbour Totoro.

In contrast to all the multi-sensory modern distractions – such as the virtual reality game visitors could step into and throw energy balls at one another – was a cultural village where demonstrations of traditional Japanese arts, such as origami, calligraphy and music, were staged beside a tea ceremony.

Yesterday, the final day of the three-day festival at du Forum on Yas Island, one of the big attractions turned out to be a bowl of ramen noodles.

Visitors lined up for up to one hour to be able to slurp the warm, flavourful Japanese comfort food at the outdoor Shichisai stand, whose chefs came from Tokyo for the festival.

“It was worth it,” said Mohamed Al Remeithi, 26, who waited an hour for his bowl, an improvement from Friday when customers lined up for up to three hours.

“This is the freshest I’ve ever tasted here in the UAE. The soup, the ingredients, the meat itself, the egg and the seasoning are amazing.”

Back indoors, anime and video game voice actor Todd Haberkorn was drawing a crowd of mostly youngsters who paid Dh75 to have him sign posters of their favourite characters of his.

Zoe Kruger smiled as she showed friends her autographed poster of Natsu Dragnee, Mr Haberkorn's character on the anime Fairy Tail.

“He wrote Zoe, nice to meet you, stay fired up,” she said.

“This is my first convention, so this is really cool and I watch anime daily. So, it’s all really cool to be able to get this stuff that you can’t really find much. I’m stoked, so happy to come here.”

He hopes to bring it back next year.

“The fans have spoken and people have spoken,” said Mr Khan.

“I think people have proven that it’s not a niche. Everyone can enjoy it.”