The Association of Manga and Anime in Israel (AMAI) first gave birth to Harucon in 2008 at the Smolarz Auditorium in Tel Aviv University. Ever since then, the Isreal-Japan: Friendship Society and Chamber of Commerce started to back the event, which allows people from around the world (specifically Israelis) to celebrate and project their vision of anime, manga, and video games. Well, it looks like the event will kick-off again in 2021.
According to jpost.com, despite coronavirus concerns and events closing down to prevent further infections, the AMAI returned to the Jerusalem International Convention Center to host its annual event this year. The AMAI was expecting 3,400 attendees, but the event drew well over 5,000 people according to Inbar Eitan — a female cosplayer that attends the event annually:
“Of course it’s not as much as you’d see with more mainstream topics, but people are still going to give their two cents for the things they love.”
The website in question notes that before the Health Ministry ordered all events to be canceled, Harucon 2020 went on ahead last month despite other vendors closing down, and saw support from the Japanese Embassy (in Israel), Nintendo, and the Israel-Japan: Friendship Society and Chamber of Commerce.
With all of that said, over on animecons.com, we learn that Harucon will rear its head once more and this time it will take place in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Austria, in 2021:
“Harucon is a convention surrounding the topics of Japanese animation and comics (Anime and Manga), Japanese pop culture and gaming (Japanese consoles and board games). The convention developed for fans of anime and manga in Israel, as a way to provide attractions and interactions for the community during the Purim holiday.
In the convention you can find a variety of activities aimed for the field’s enthusiasts that provide a fun and unique experience, such as: lectures, workshops, panels, independent and commercial stands, movie screenings, cosplay competition and many more.”
To explain this whole situation, Gamescom 2020 (Germany’s largest games event) canceled its physical attendance while E3 2020 (one of North America’s biggest games event) shut down altogether to prevent any complications during this pandemic. However, Harucon 2020 (Isreal’s biggest annual confab) gained support from Nintendo and other companies to go on through with its physical attendance last month.
And on the topic of not closing down and going public, AMAI hopes to kick-off the next Harucon on April 24th, 2021.
