“At seven o’clock in the evening, ‘Zoldyck’ and ‘Yagami’ met at Salma Al-Lawzai Street in Amman and set off for the Anime Village, to meet ‘Ryuzaki’ there.” These are not typographical errors, but “of three young Jordanians”, writes the pan-Arab site Raceef22. These last are “fascinated, like thousands of young Arabs, by Japanese anime, to the point of using the names of their heroes”.
Yagami and Ryuzaki are, indeed, the main characters of Japanese manga and cartoon Death Noteand Zoldyck the surname of one of the main characters of Hunter X Hunter – two of the most popular anime in the world.
“The passion for anime is increasing every day in Jordan”, écrit Raceef22which prompted Mouder Yassine and a group of friends to open the Anime Village cafe in Amman last July. “We now have our own placehe welcomes. What matters to me is to serve the young people of this country who have the right to have a place where they can be happy without being ashamed of watching anime.
In addition to this cafe, Jordanian manga fans also have their social media groups (like “Anime Lovers in Jordan”) and their online store where they can buy figurines, posters or other items around manga culture.
Dress up as your favorite character
Some of these fans push their passion further, more precisely towards cosplay – contraction of costume and of play –, which consists of playing the role of a manga character by imitating their appearance.
However, as written Raceef22, “in some cultures we don’t look at each other in the street, we are free to choose our clothes, our appearance. In the Arab world, things are more complex […]. Getting into cosplay is not at all easy.”
Mohammad Jadallah, 24, or “Kakashi” – named after a character from the manga universe Naruto – as his friends call him, is one of those Jordanians who love cosplay. Introduced to Japanese cartoons at the age of 14, he joined the otaku club – which designates fans of Japanese culture – at his university, some events of which have attracted up to a thousand people. Despite some mockery or contemptuous looks, he continues to make himself up as a manga character.
“Batata Chan”, she prefers to keep her identity secret. This young woman, who has her Instagram account, explains that she wants “preserving his privacy of his cosplay identity” after being harassed by people wanting to know more about her. But what does it matter to her “cosplay is one of the things that makes her the happiest”.