Shangri-La Cosplay Festival
Date: Fri Jan 20, 2017 - Sat Jan 21, 2017
Location: Asian Confluence Centre, Shillong , Hosts: Asian Confluence
Location: Asian Confluence Centre, Shillong , Hosts: Asian Confluence
The first edition of Shangri-La Cosplay festival was organised by Asian Confluence and NEOtakus for two days, to promote Indo-Japan relations. The event was directed at achieving a people-to-people level of interaction and exchange through popular culture. Cosplay is a performance art where the participants called ‘cosplayers’ wear costumes and fashion accessories to replicate their favourite characters from the Japanese genres of manga or anime.
The event witnessed an overwhelming response as people thronged the venue to be a part of this unique experience. Various characters like Hood, Naruto, Bleach, GATE, SAO, and many more were brought to life by young people dressed as their favourite characters in the course of two days. On the first day, the participants got a glimpse of the various programmes, activities, and workshops that were lined up besides being able to avail the range of merchandises on display.
The second day of the event received an overwhelming response from the public, and consequentially led to a larger cultural exchange and reception of the pop culture in the North East. People looked forward to participating in the Cosplay competition where they see opportunity to mimic and portray their favourite fictional characters. The Cosplay mannequin challenge also proved to be a hit among the participants as they thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it.
Chakbi Lombi was announced as the preliminary winner at the Shangri-La festival and will also get a chance to represent the country after further screening at a National level, along with the famous cosplayers from Arunachal Pradesh - Juno Pinggam and Chiichi Gichik, who were also the competition’s judges. They will represent India in the upcoming World Cosplay Summit 2017, to be held in August at Nagoya in Japan. Shangri-La Cosplay festival provided the perfect opportunity for the youth of Northeast India to connect with the young people of Japan, to foster further cultural exchange.
