From April 20th to 21st, Comic-Con was held in Mumbai, India.
It was the second event post-COVID (since February last year), so there was curiosity about the turnout.
Surprisingly, it was a great success.
It seemed like the event was mostly dominated by the anime streaming platform "Crunchyroll," led by Sony.
On Sunday morning, voice actor Hanae Natsuki, who played the protagonist of "Demon Slayer," were also present at the venue for photo sessions and other activities.
Overall, the event showed as much excitement as in Japan, if not more. However, at the same time, there were new discoveries, such as things that should be present in Japan is lacking and things rarely seen in Japan being popular.
Below are some observations:
The attendees and cosplayers were predominantly male.
Boys adventure manga were popular (such as "Dragon Ball", "Naruto", etc.).
The classic cosplay staple, "Evangelion", was nowhere to be seen.
Giant robot series like "Gundam" were nowhere.
Idol anime like "Love Live" and "iDOLM@STER" were also nowhere to be found.
Major titles based on light novels such as "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" and "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" were also missing.
In general, it seemed like the older ultra-popular titles and the very recent ones were prevalent, with a noticeable absence of titles from around 2000 to 2010.
Additionally, there was a strong trend of men cosplaying male characters and women cosplaying female characters, with very few instances of cross-gender cosplay.
Nevertheless, I believe it's quite natural for male anime fans to like female anime characters and vice versa in any country. It's just that perhaps they haven't reached the point of openly indulging in "Oshi-katsu (fan activities)" in front of friends and family.
Anyway, the fact that Comic-Con has become a mainstream event in major Indian cities, where loving American comics used to be mainstream and loving Japanese manga/anime was secondary, but now, due to the COVID pandemic, it has completely reversed, is clearly evident. As a fan of Japanese manga/anime, I couldn't be happier.
