Bunkasai: A very British Japanese culture festival

Written by A. H. on 08 Mar 2011

I would imagine that almost everyone reading this has watched at least one school-based anime series which, at some point, included a culture festival in the midst of its story-telling; portraying the excitement and hard work through to its eventual pay-off of delivering numerous events from clichéd stuff like cafés and haunted houses through to more traditional Japanese pursuits such as tea ceremonies and so on.

If you ever found yourself thinking "hey, that looks like fun" while watching such an event, then London's occasional one-day Bunkasai events might just be for you.  Organised by Japanese language and culture teacher Akemi Solloway, these events seek to blend Japanese cultures both new and old together into a tantalising package in the hope of educating and interesting a UK audience in the rich and varied history, pastimes and entertainment media of the country.

The home for March 2010's Bunkasai outing was the Conway Hall in Holborn, an unassuming and homely building that looked all the older for the colourful array of cosplayers that congregated both outside and in as the event went on.  Stepping into the building's reception area revealed the event's main hall to the right, with numerous other rooms set aside for Bunkasai's various additional workshops, taking in everything from sake tasting through to drawing manga.

Stepping into that main hall revealed a number of stalls selling everything from Japanese food and drink through to books to teach yourself Japanese and of course some of the usual suspects selling anime and manga related wares, the last of which managed to forcibly take money from my wallet in the name of my love of Bakemonogatari while the first filled my stomach with the delights of melonpan.

By the time I arrived at Bunkasai, events were already in full swing - sword swings to be precise, with the first of a quartet of demonstrations of a couple of different Japanese martial arts or "budo".  From one extreme to the other, this disciplined exhibition of how to handle pointy things without killing someone yet with the absolute ability for serious bloodshed should the need arise was followed by a brief musical interlude from pop-violinist Masa-kun, who strutted his stuff with a couple of tunes including some Ryuichi Sakamoto.

The musical theme followed as Akemi Solloway herself introduced a group of GCSE students who have been learning Japanese, and using anime as a fun gateway to learning the language.  Cue a song and dance rendition of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya's "Hare Hare Yukai" performed by said students in cosplay, together with a brief discussion about how this particular song and dance routine and the anime it originates from has been a unified factor for young anime fans around the world.  Also up for discussion was the usefulness of Studio Ghibli's films in teaching polite Japanese, and an acknowledgment that watching anime does at least help to teach some basic words and phrases within the language, ergo giving us all another great excuse to watch unhealthy amounts of anime in the name of educating ourselves.