Hyper Japan 2011 – Sunday highlights

Hyper Japan, the UK’s biggest J-culture event was held at Olympia Two in London from the Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th July.

This wasn’t a expo I’d heard of before, but when my friend discovered it via a Groupon offer, we figured it might be worth checking out, so we attended for the Sunday. I’ve never actually reviewed a con before, so I figure the best way is to give you a general overview of the expo and then talk about some of the more specific things I saw/did. I apologise up front for the pictures, my camera is somewhat old and not great when it comes to zooming in on things!

Getting there early (about 9:15 in our case) was useful since the queue for ticket holders was already about 50 people deep and the doors didn’t open till 10. We later heard that in the afternoon people were still queuing for over an hour to get in. The Olympia Two isn’t a massive venue (at least the parts of it that were being used for the con) and the expo was split over two levels.

On the ground floor you could find a series of stalls selling a variety of goods and providing information on Japanese culture, from Nanoblocks (think tiny LEGO) to Japanese crockery, Japanese tourism details to massage chairs and fashion. There was also the main stage where a variety of events occurred throughout the day. It wasn’t the largest of seating areas, and the crowd grew quite thick around it during the most popular events and I feel that they could have easily had more seating, but this may be simply down to logistics at Olympia Two.

The ground floor also had the food and drink area, which was filled with all manner of savoury and sweet delights. In addition to the obvious large amounts of sushi (including a place where you could have a lesson in making your own) there were Japanese sweets and snacks, bento boxes and tea. Freshly fried Takoyaki (octopus balls) and Yakitori (chicken skewers) as well as filled rice balls and Okonomiyaki (sort of a Japanese pancakes) ensured that there was plenty of choice on offer.

On the tasty beverage front, Asahi provided a mini bar and there were several stalls with a selection of sake, plum wine and shochu. Much to my personal delight, sake samples were handed out and much appreciated. Of the two stalls I sampled for this, one charged and one did not, the one charging though was only £2 and that was redeemable against the price of buying a bottle, which I certainly couldn’t help myself from doing, so all was well.

Heading downstairs you found yourself with three gaming areas, one specifically for Nintendo’s Unleashed stand, another for Namco Bandai Partners, shared with Toei Animation and finally a Konami area. Square Enix were also in attendance with some nice figure displays (all of which were purchasable).

Further stalls for your browsing and shopping pleasure ringed the outside of the lower floor, providing a large array of items, which fits nicely into the fact that these stalls were referred to as the ‘Bazaar’ in the programme. Manga were there selling there wares along with a number of other sellers of manga and anime DVD’s, as well as the usual massive assortment of Gundam’s and plush items along with various anime paraphernalia from T-shirts and posters to statues and figurines. A lot of fashion and accessory stalls could be found as well as arts and crafts. If you were in the mood to pick out fabric swatches or buy a kimono or two, you’d have been rather pleased.

The downstairs also hosted crafts workshops with a number of hands on activities. I saw origami folding lessons and watched a friend have her name spelt out in Japanese characters and written out in beautiful calligraphy for her to copy (and keep both!). We also made cloth flowers, an activity I was especially bad at (shameful for such a simple thing, I know) but that the especially enthusiastic teacher was very kind about.

This year Hyper Japan was supporting Japan Society Earthquake Relief Fund to provide aid in the wake of devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11th. 10% of net ticket revenue and a full third of sponsorship money went directly to the charity. In addition to the workshops there was a charity exhibition of photographs taken in the wake of the disaster, telling the stories of hope of ordinary people, titled ‘Yet I Still DARE to HOPE’.

Within the charity area was also a small show area providing a number of exhibitions over the weekend. I caught the tail end of several, a cosplay workshop and some traditional Japanese dance. According to the website there were quite a few fascinating events there across the weekend that I wish I had seen including some traditional Japanese story telling, a tea ceremony, karate and akido demonstrations and a manga workshop.

The flowers mentioned earlier were of the style that are attached to lanterns that are released into the sky during Japanese lantern festivals. This was linked into a very interesting area, where you were invited to write a message of hope, support or whatever you wished to the people of Japan to be taken to Japan and actually released on a lantern during a festival. I thought this was an extremely nice idea and from the look of the slips, they had a lot of messages from attendees to take.

The final area to be found on the lower ground floor was the Maid Café Experience. Here you would be waited upon by a maid (or butler, or schoolgirl if you were there on Friday) and paid for your time there, 30 minutes or an hour, during which a few snacks and unlimited soft drinks were provided. It was a nice break from the bustle of the con floor and a fun little experience.

Throughout the day there were a number of events taking place on the main stage. We witnessed the Square Enix Cosplay Battle, where a number of cosplayers of Square Enix characters showed off before the packed crowd. Later on we witnessed the UK Kawaii Star of the Year 2011, where in typical pagent style, the finalists paraded for the judges in their cutest outfits as well as yukata (a light, summer kimono), spoke about themselves and gave small performance’s/set pieces including singing, dancing and something to do with cupcakes.

Both the cosplayers and the Kawaii Star finalists put in a lot of effort and clearly my photos do them no justice at all, I encourage you to seek out better pictures of them.

The event was extremely enjoyable and I cannot wait until the next one. I came away with a nice bottle of sake, the complete Vampire Knight series (anime), Rozen Maiden volume 1 (Manga), a pair of tea cups, a Final Fantasy Advent Children fan and a proper set of sake cups. I had to stop myself from also walking away with a black and white pair of plush Mokona (from xXxholic and Tsubasa), more sake and shochu and any number of other items. My wallet hates me.

If you like all things Japanese, the culture and food as well as the media, then Hyper Japan is an event that definitely cannot be missed.