Diego Paz

SHINANIME

A shinanime is an event where all the fanatics of japanese culture, anime, manga, videogames and stuff like that reunite and share their hobbies together, hang out, eat some japanese food and various random things, it is celebrated every month of the year, except for april and november, and every month has a different theme, so it's a variated celebration.

the place of the celebration is almost always in the "CENTRO CULTURAL COMFANDI" or comfandi's cultural center. the organizers pay for the use of the building and take 2 of the 5 floors that compound it, in the first floor there is the entrance, the cost of the entrance for those who want to come to the event varies per year, nowadays the price of a ticket is at least 8500 pesos, also there is a "just dance zone" where people can go and dance, be it for competition or just for fun, and there are the auditoriums, where the final parts of the event take place. In the second floor, there are all the stands where we can buy a lot of merchandise, like video-games, movies, mangas, pins, rings, figures and all of those stuff, there is also a restaurant where you can buy traditional japanese food such as ramen (noodle soup with spices, eggs and meat), onigiri (a ball made of rice with meat inside), takoyaki (octopus' meatball), etc. and there are "cosplay" (COStume Player) competitions, where people disguise as anime, manga, videogame, etc characters and can win a lot of prices and pose for a lot of photos.

the event is always the same, it starts with a humongous row of assistants, the event starts at 11:00 am, but people starts to arrive since 8-9 am, people use to go in big groups to enjoy the event, depend of the theme of the shinanime, the activities can vary, but the normal thing is to open the stands for buying stuff, the restaurant to eat, in the different rooms there are competitions of trading cards, videogames of any kind, and about knowledge about anime or japanese culture, close to the end of the event, (between 7-8 pm) there is the final part of the event, the cosplay contest, where 3 judges judge the cosplayer and his disguise under the criteria of: performance (how the cosplayer interpretes his/her character) and design (how looks the cosplayer's disguise), and the prices are given by the nominations: best male cosplay, best female cosplay, and best groupal cosplay, generally, the price is cash, the single cosplayers can earn 300.000 pesos if they win. an then, the event is over and everybody goes home

As a former cosplayer and a anime fan, I think that shinanime is a good event where I can meet new people and share with my friends and other people my likes and dislikes, and nobody feels akward and can feel as they want without worrying about what people can say about, recently, I haven't go due to my anxiety, because I'm afraid of exterior, but i would like to go again and have fun, because shinanime is the only place I can enjoy being myself.

Shinanime is an event where people who have "different hobbies" can reunite and have a good time without being disturbed and where they can be themselves, it's a wonderful place where everybody is equal and there are no borderlines!