Anime shines at Art Walk
It was a coming together of Asian popular culture and Jamaica’s creative scene when Kingston Creative monthly Art Walk event at Water Lane, downtown Kingston, added a Cosplay Competition to their celebration of local film and digital arts culture.
“Anime Nerds of Jamaica (ANJ) is always about stepping out of our regular niche route and this year we’re doing things that we wouldn’t normally do. So it’s on brand with ANJ to do this at Art Walk,” Tianna Powell, president, ANJ, told the Jamaica Observer.
ANJ is one of the top Asian pop-culture event promoters and were on hand to run the competition.
“We’ve had a relationship with Kingston Creative and the Art Walk event for about five years now, and we’re truly excited whenever we’re asked to participate like we are this Sunday,” said Powell.
She explained further that it was their third time having such a competition in collaboration with Kingston Creative.
Given the niche nature of cosplay in Jamaica, she was still happy that a few did make the trek downtown to put away their inhibitions and display their creativity alongside the other artistic endeavours that make up the monthly Art Walk event.
“Anywhere ANJ goes we bring the vibes, we bring out the quality, the childhood in people, because our motto is that we bring out the inner nerd in you, and that is what we did today,” said Powell.
Taking home $10,000, courtesy Kingston Creative, for his efforts was Alex Lothian. His elaborate cosplay of Issei Hyoudou balance breaker, from the anime series High School DxD, plus is extremely animated performance won over the crowd.
“I actually feel wonderful to be honest to have won the competition. I put a lot of hard work into this outfit. I literally built it from scratch. It’s not as perfect as I want it to be, but it got the job done,” explained Lothian.
He said about a week and half was the time taken to create the cosplay for last year’s AnimeCom Fest. However, he decided to pull it out of storage and give the Art Walk competition a go, to surprise success.
He was followed by Ricardo Smith, in a similarly elaborate cosplay of Melina from the video game Elden Ring.