Calling all cosplayers, anime lovers and Japanese culture lovers in Singapore!
The End Of Year Japanese culture Festival (EOY J-Culture Festival), annually held at the end of the year has returned!
The pandemic forced many conventions and activities to discontinue; however, things perked up in 2022.
Conventions like AFA and J-Culture Festival returned this year with a bang, and just as many fans were there to immerse themselves in the passionate atmosphere.
Stage Performances
The convention would not be the same without its featured performers.
This year, returning to the stage were HalcyonMusic, ICE, MEGAMI, Cheryl Rein, Kirameki FUTURE, Darlim, Ola Aphrodite, Circa, and Intriquette.
Sadly, Intriquette has one of its members leave after their last performance at J-Culture Fest 2022.
Fans of anime piano music will remember Halcyon’s 10-minute of continuous melody of trending anime openings, including Zankyou Sanka and KICK BACK.
The astounding performances just keep coming nevertheless; with Ola Aphrodite performing her well-known song Baka Oniichan.
Singing is not the only thing revving up the crowd; dance choreographies from Intriquette and Southern Ape had the crowd screaming at the top of their lungs in amazement at their moves (and looks).
Fans were not only involved in singing and cheering on the performances; Random Play Dance was hosted this year, with fans recognising popular songs such as Luka Luka Night Fever, Ifuudoudou and USA.
If you knew the dance for that song, you just went into the middle of the crowd and danced- along with stage performers too.
Such a simple activity, yet definitely one of the highlights of the festival- reminiscent of when breakdances in public could be seen.
Creator Booths
My wallet definitely felt way lighter before entering the convention hall.
Filling up about 70 per cent of the hall, booths selling prints, charms and badges- the sheer variety of anime, HOLOLive and Nijisanji merch, to name a few- allows fans to purchase merch of their favourite characters, as well as support the creators.
Prints of character art coming in A5 to A3, badges of characters, shirts, hoodies, enamel pins, accessories, photos of cosplays- you name it.
Cosplayers
At any J-Culture convention, there are sure to be cosplayers.
Countless cosplayers appeared as characters from their favourite animes and games.
Cosplays of characters from Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer, Spy X Family and Project Sekai could be seen.
There were even booths dedicated to cosplay and people selling pictures of their past cosplays.
Ruru sama, a famous cosplayer, caused a line for her booth to stretch past 3 rows of booths.
After the whole event, if you are still hesitating about attending next year’s EOY J-Culture Festival, you might want to take to Instagram and Youtube to search for performances and pictures of cosplayers during the convention.
Make sure to keep an eye out for when the tickets go on sale next year for an early bird discount.
See you next year at EOY J-Culture Fest 2023!
