I’m writing this article in English because there was an American girl with us, who does know some German, but it would only be fair to not make her guess at most of my babblings. (Deutscher Artikel folgt vermutlich morgen. Zum deutschen Artikel mit Fotos. // Click here to get to the German article with photos.) FYI: I’m talking about „Japan Day“ 2015 in Düsseldorf, Germany, a yearly cultural outdoors fair, which also attracts tons of anime and manga fans – lots of them cosplaying as characters from either medium.

Well. Japan day in Düsseldorf. I was so excited! I had planned this for months and it was gonna be so cool – at least in my head. What I didn’t take into account were two things: The weather and other people. As I mentioned, I did not go there alone. Since I wanted to try myself at videoblogging, a good friend of mine had offered to be my camera guy. Really awesome, especially since he knows next to nothing about any anime besides Dragonball and maybe Pokémon. Unfortunately (timing-wise), a week or so before J-day, he told me that a friend of his from the US was coming over and asked me if she could come with us. Sure thing, the more the merrier, I thought. Two days before J-day another friend of his said she would come with us, since she is also friends with „the American girl“ as I called her. I have to say that both of them are really cool and funny and I was happy that I got to know them. But why not under these circumstances?! :D

„What is she talking about?“ you’re probably wondering now. Right. A day before I asked whether we wanted to talk about what our plans are because (hey, did I mention I had a work related trip the two days before that?) I did not have time before to really think about when we should be where. My friend said we could meet up, but his friend was already there, so she would be with us. No worries, as long as we can plan this while we’re grabbing a coffee with your friend. Which we didn’t. Instead we got dinner and talked and at around 10 in the evening I decided to go home because I had not prepared at all and we just decided on a time to meet the next morning, while we were still in the tram.

Of course, it got later, so we rescheduled to a train, which I knew would be late and full as hell, but hey, all’s not lost until … I forgot how that saying actually goes. Anyways. We arrived a bit late and I thought „Yes! Let’s look at all the stuff and the people and get started!“ and they were like „We need to get lunch.“ so we stood in line for lunch, since I wanted to meet up with another friend pretty close to the food stalls an hour later anyway, so we might as well stay.

The second I unpacked my camera, it happened. A never before seen thing occured in Düsseldorf. It rained. It fucking rained on my damned parade! I was pissed in more than one way. While we were getting wet, we decided to switch the open field of J-Day for a restaurant cause that seems like the sensible thing to do if it pours and everyone wants to eat anyway.

So we drove to the city, could not find any Japanese restaurant without a queue in front of it and decided to go to an Indian place instead. Our order took about one hour to arrive. So instead of running around the place, getting photos of cosplayers and grabbing a bite in between, I sat for an hour in a restaurant. Honestly, it broke my heart. After this – it was already around 4 o‘ clock in the afternoon then – we went back. Of course I missed the friend I had wanted to see again, but at least I saw another friend, gave him a hug and darted off to finally see something of this event together with the others.
Of course at this point a lot of the cosplayers were already exhausted and/or cold and wet and not really in the best mood for photos. Additionally, I noticed again how awful it is to move around such crowded happenings if you are a group of more than two people. Nobody can ever just stop somewhere without one of the others failing to notice and suddenly vanishing or starting to wander into a completely different direction. And for me taking photos under these conditions is just stressful. Especially when no one else is really interested in the topic and more like „Look at all those strange people!“ I have a hard time asking someone for a picture. Really talking to them strane ones would have been even more horrible because of those two no-longer-strangers in whose eyes I might embarass myself – or rather my friend for whom they are important and aaargh. And obviously I did not want to hinder their exploration of the Japanese themed stalls too much, which are of course quite interesting. Oh yeah, and all three of them had to go to the place of another friend because of … reasons. I have no idea, nobody told me why and after the twentieth information I didn’t get I no longer cared. Everybody was going somewhere different the next day and they had ro catch various trains, buses, cars and probably even planes. But possible traincatching was the reason why we had to leave earlier than expected and had even less time. Although I have to admit that at the restaurant I would have been happy to just go home and have a cup of coffee instead …

But concerning the photos, of which I only made five or so, well, maybe I’m just too nice, when I try to be so considerate. I don’t want to hinder others holidays and instead just give up something I have hoped of doing for months. I don’t know. Or maybe I’m just not good with people. Or (which is quite likely) the rain ruined everything and I will be happy again and also talk to other people again. Yes, I am quite negative right now, but don’t worry, after a hot cup of tea and some sleep the grumpiness might give way again to my old half-fluffy half-cynical self, who apperently likes stupid jokes and smileys a lot. ;)

So these are the reasons you won’t be getting any video of Japanday 2015 from me and I apologize very much for failing my own expectations. This just did not go as planned at all. Finally I have to emphasize that the part of the trip back from Düsseldorf I spent with the other three was very amusing. As I mentioned, those two girls (and of course also my friend) are really funny, entertaining and were always nice to me. Just so you don’t get the impression I spent the day walking around with horrible people. It was just the constellation on this day, which made me hate everything around and probably also myself for a while.
In two stations I will be back home. I hope you had a better day than me and maybe even enjoyed Japan day for me! ^^
The German version will probably be written tomorrow, hopefully with at least some pictures, and I wooooon’t check for typos. Sorry, but I’m too tired for that. :)

Kindest and nevertheless fluffy-est regards,
yours truly
0utofjoint =)