After this years ITB, the next fair on my list was the Book Fair in Leipzig, so I took a car and traveled to the Leipzig Exhibition Grounds about 190km away from Berlin and like last year, the whole places was filled with cosplayers and photographers.
The third and last part of my Connichi 2010 coverage, a bit of everything.
The beginning, the large sales area, the park, the Halko Momoi concert, some pictures from this years World Cosplay Summit Qualification, the winners of this years World Cosplay Summit Qualification and this years special guests from Japan: OLIVIA, Rumi Shishido, “Halko” Momoi, You Higuri, Hiroyuki Yamaga, “Noir”, Yutaka Uemura, Gakuto Mikumo, Kumiko Uehara.
So here is the second part of my Cosplay Photo Collection. I was asked to show some convention shots, sales area, concerts, japanese guests, I’ll see if I can get some together, stay tuned for part 3.
I’m back in Berlin, back from this years Connichi in Kassel, a city about 360km away from Berlin and all I can say is, it was amazing.
The Connichi is an annual, 3-day Anime convention in Germany and one of the largest of its kind in the German-speaking world with over 15,000 visitors in 2010. Apart from Japanese artists that go on stage, Connichi hosts a variety of amateur performers showing plays and musicals, singing and/or doing standup comedy with anime-related themes.
Like the Leipzig Book Fair, the Connichi is also a place for many thousands of cosplayers and because that’s the only interesting reason for me to visit such a convention, I will show you some of the best cosplays I saw during my time in Kassel.
I’m finally back in Berlin and I’m really tired but I can say that this years GamesCom was quite interesting. I don’t think that I need to tell you about all these new games I’ve seen there, hundreds of gaming sites already did that for me, but what I can show you are the remaining photos I took during the last 3 days.
Halle (Saale) is a small town in the eastern part of Germany, it is not only the birthplace of the famous composer Händel (engl. George Frideric Handel), also the famous Halloren Chocolate Factory / Museum is located in this town.
Halle is the largest city in the German State of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale (literally Halle on the Saale river, and in some historic references simply Saale after the river) in order to distinguish it from Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia. The current official name of the city is Halle (Saale).
The Halloren Chocolate Factory is the oldest producing chocolate factory in Germany. Its origins date back to the founding of a gingerbread bakery in 1804. The main product of Germany’s oldest chocolate factory is the “Original Halloren Kugel”, small chocolate balls filled with creams in different flavors.
Last weekend, I was in Leipzig to visit the Leipzig Book Fair 2010.
The Leipzig Book Fair is the most important spring meeting place for the publishing and media sector and has evolved into an attractive hallmark both in Germany and across Europe.
But after I arrived at the exhibition grounds, it was obvious that the fair isn’t only about Books anymore. Cosplayers, as far as the eye could see.
Since Animes and Mangas are becoming more and more famous in Germany, Cosplay is pretty popular among the fans and instead of taking pictures from books and their authors, I focused on capturing all the amazing costumes I saw during my time at the fair.
After the Narrenbaum was erected, the city was ready for the big Night Parade. Led by a couple of marching bands, thousands of different Narren (as I said yesterday, Narren are something like a jester or Joker) ran through the city. Jumping, laughing, whip lashing and tangerine throwing, it was a fascinating moment.
Every city has their own traditional costumes, first you will see the city of Rottweil with their Federhannes, Schantle and Gschell. If you can sing a well known carnival quote, you will be rewarded with a handful of candy.
Last weekend, I took a plane to Stuttgart , to watch an event which only takes place every 3-4 years, the Narrentag (which probably means something like “Day of the Jester”), organized by one of four famous carnival cities; Rottweil, Oberndorf, Elzach and Überlingen, all of them part of the Viererbund, a union between these four cities since 1958.
This year the parade took place in Oberndorf (Black Forest), about 1 hour away from Stuttgart.
As an opening ceremony, a decorated tree, the Narrenbaum, was erected, as a symbol that the Narrentag has officially begun.
