Japan-Day in Düsseldorf

The Japan Day in Düsseldorf is a annual festival which does exist since 2002, it’s purpose is to bring the japanese culture closer to the german people and show them as much as possible of it. The range of the topics is vast, from animation to sport or food, you will find a lot of different topics there. The festival also morphend unofficialy into a gathering opportunity for anime fans and cosplayers, despite this fact the coverage of anime related topics is rather low.

Anime Fans on every corner.

The gathering spot for Otakus.

Well. i started the day in Düsseldorf with heading for some lunch, i arrived at like 11:50am, i was a bit late… considering how long the waiting line already was for the NaNiWa Noodles shop, it’s an awesome noodlesoup restaurant.

The NaNiWa Noodles restaurant, the waiting line is rather long, prolly an hour or more.

So i went into the Sushi restaurant and had some lunch with Yuki and Haruhi, Haruhi was being mean and did demand all the good stuff for her. Yuki couldn’t decide what to pick and ended up reading a book… so i had Haruhis leftovers for myself.

Yuki, Haruhi, Sushi, Misou soup and green tea

When we were done with our lunch, we were headed towards the local japanese supermarket, the Dae Yang. Of course a bunch of other Otakus who know the town were there as well to stock up on japanese snacks.

Dae Yang, can you spot the Kigurumi?

At the festival again you could do lotsa things, one was to have your name written by a calligraphy talented person. So, i was nosy how she would write my name (Ta mi) and did get in the line. You had to write your desired phrase or name on a paper in german and they would translate it.

Tsukurimashou, tsukurimashou, sate sate nani ga dekiru ka na?

Hai! Dekimashta!

A mysterious container ship passing by alone… is Lelouch ploting something? Nightmare Flames inside?

A bunch of cosplayers and such.

Around 2pm or 3pm we had the rain bargin in on us, yea… great… so i ended up being half soaked and started to freeze since it got cold as well. I did search some cover in the GO tent, ended up tutorin some people and had to endure Yukis silence as well because she couldn’t stand how stupid Haruhi and Lelouch did move their stones. Being a god or having Geass isn’t everything in the world mhh? ^^; I guess i will have to teach them both the game sometime properly.

Haruhi, Yuki and Lelouch trying to play go, Yuki resigns in front of their stupid moves.

On the other side close to the shore you can see white things near the trees – the firework setup.

Well, Haruhi did look a bit bored so we decided it would be nice to try out this fishing game with the paper fan.

Someone is trying their luck, the helpers in the happis (the blue short sleeve coats) did help.

Here she goes! The japanese people in the tent were very amused when i took the picture.

Haruhi sadly took a little cold bath, so she didn’t feel like being photographed anymore for the time being. ^^;

Despite her bath, Haruhi did fetch a fish and it was sooooo huge.

A pokemon cellphone strap with screen cleaning ability… “If it has a screen, give it a clean!”

Haruhi is as hot as wasabi! The panty shot actually wasn’t on purpose.

The festival also has a main stage, but it is very very hard to get a spot in the front rows, it’s always very crowded and because of that geting good pictures is more then a pain. Non the less i managed to snap a showable picture of the group HINOKIYA. I don’t know how to describe their music else then…. “interesting”, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad… but something new for my ears.

HINOKIYA

This poor fellow is the guitarist, first they forgot to plug his guitar into the sound system. He looks nice or? ^^

Now, we are in germany… is it possible to create a short moment of Akiba here? I would think so… seems girls in Lolita dresses always work as a magnet somehow.

My first view of the crowd… “Huh? Whats going on? Posing Lolitas!?”

A bunch of Lolitas posing for a ton of people with cameras, i took the chance and made a picture to for our Lolita fans out there.

The snacks we bought, can you imagine that these few things did cost me barly 16,- Euros!?

Yuki is shocked by the price of the 500ml Calpis bottle – 2,40 Euro. (c) Shoku face by Chun. ^^;

Back at the location, i was looking for Lelouch and as i found him i did smell his plan! Despite his cute face he seems to plan something with the fireworks in the back.

Lelouch, in the back is the fireworks setup.

Naruto got his own tent… err? And whats with Haruhi and Konata!? *shakes fist*

People gathering for a good fireworks viewing spot, 3hours before it starts. People under the red big umbrellas get drunk and enjoy the EURO08.

Prefecture Chiba is a partner “city” of Düsseldorf and thus that had it’s own tent to promote Chiba.

TENTEKKO, a japanese/german mixed Taiko group. Their vibes make you feel your guts, it’s awesome!

Sumo girls! It’s a Kendo guy who has no sumo expierience vs the sumo women who has some kind of master title. Surprisingly… in the end he wins.

This time we have women vs women, though the civilian women has not a spark of fighting expierience, she delivers a good fight, did lose in the end though. She did “squeek” when i took the picture and everyone did laugh… why.. hmm..!

The sun sets over the Rhein river.

Haruhi orders me to finaly try takoyaki, so far i have always been afraid to try octopus, now i know why lol, not my thing.

Yuki hugs her bottle of ramune, i like this stuff sometimes.

Now the firework comes, the moment everyone did wait for at the festival. It’s a japanese style firework, so of course i did yell “TAMAYA!” … while the rest of the audience went “ohhh” and “uhhh” and sometimes “clap clap clap” when a big bang effect did go off.
First the firefigthers come with a ship, followed by the passenger ships. The tickets for those ships are not only expensive, they are sold out 5 years ahead i heard. There were like 20 or more of these passenger ships, it was a real nice view. Once the ships were in position the fireworks did start. TAMAYA! ^^v
The only downside for me, i was still freezing… it was really cold by now… but i did bite my teeth!

The passenger ships moving onto the Rhein.

The first eyecatcher for the audience – “Hello! We gona start!”

A heart shaped effect, he had a few of those.

Can you see the smily?

I like this one, everything is red!

The end of the fireworks is alwas a really HUGEEEE goldrain effect, it’s always awesome to see and no picture could give it enough credit.

The end of the fireworks is not only shown by the gold rain, but also the ships start to honk like mad, it was a nice a day! Thanks a lot to all the people who made this day possible and do it every year again.
Once the firework is over, a million people who did attend the Japan Day started to leave, either to their cars or to the main train station… it was a flood of people.

A few more firework pictures and some others are in the gallery at http://gallery.milkdrop.de/.

The Japan Day is kindly sponsored by:
JAL, Makita, Mitsubishi Electric, Nikon, Zum Schlüssel, Awista, Coca Cola, Fako, Fujifilm, Goethe Institut, Hitachi, ibis Hotel, ichikawa, Ikegami, Japan Foundation, Mitsubishi International GmbH, Mitutoyo, Nippon Express, Shiseido, Stadtsportbund Düsseldorf, Schlösser Alt, Füchschen Alt and Schumacher Alt.