So just last weekend, there was an event called “Summer Mahouto Market”. I had no idea what it was until they broke down “mahou” and “to”. Something they should have separated as it appeared to be one singular word. Japanese grammar aside, the word “mahou” means magic whereas the word “to” is a Japanese grammar particle which means “and”. There’s a bit more to that but I’m not here to give a Japanese language lesson.
In essence, this could be translated to “Summer’s Magic and Market”. As one can infer from the title, the event is a small market geared towards selling anime art from local artists. I figured this would be a fun opportunity to come out and take a few pictures.
(click on Continue Reading to see the gallery!)
In the Facebook event page, people were encouraged to wear cosplay to the market. It appears they’ve made that encouragement heavily to the greeters that were near the doors. There were two ways getting into the market and there was always someone greeting people in. As someone who came in and out often, I had a few confused looks from those who had already seen me arriving. I don’t blame them ahaha.
There was quite a number of artists that had gathered in that market. It wasn’t beyond what I was expecting, however it fell short of what I had hoped to see. Nevertheless, the art each merchant had presented was pretty good.
As I was browsing, I had noticed there were these pokeballs with the top half transparent showing a figure of a Pokemon in a small hand made mini diorama being sold by nikoneko. I found them to be really neat and began conversing with the artist. I figured it would be a good opportunity to the artist a few prominent artists I know from the toyphotography community and shamelessly add myself to the mix as well.
Although I was only going to be there for a short time, it was nice little outlet to add a splash of color to everyday life. In a sense, it really brought back the magic that’s usually found in anime conventions, even if it was just a small glimmer of it.
This was their second time hosting the event and it appears they’re preparing to try to go for the winter/summer format. I don’t usually go to the exhibition halls in Sakura-Con anymore and never find myself being able to get the time to make purchases anymore. As such, it was really nice to also be able to shop for some anime-related art for once (especially from local artists).
Though in the end, I think I only got myself two stickers whereas everything else I got were for others… Oh well.
