A couple of weekends ago, we stumbled across a well-hidden sub-culture that is probably prevalent throughout Asia – the underground world of the anime and comic aficionado.

Before you conjure up images of the Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons, he is not even in their league. Whereas he wears a t-shirt three sizes too small and has his bum-crack showing, these people dress up in period style costumes (must be some comic that I’m not aware of) or high-tech looking outfits with their make-up immaculately done. To even think of them the same way that you would think of a Trekkie / Trekker would still be quite a long way off the mark (yes, I have seen people dress as Klingons before).

We were taking a short-cut through the HK Convention & Exhibition Centre in early August when we came across a huge crowd dressed in some really interesting and detailed costumes. We continued to walk through and found we were in the midst of the Hong Kong Ani-Comics & Game Fair (this site is in Cantonese).

It’s a five day event that attracts more than 400,000 people. We heard the crowd cheer a number of times and part as if it were the Red Sea to let various famous people through. I have no idea who they were but the Fair attracts authors, illustrators, film and toy makers, software developers and so on who the crowd seemed to recognise. Judging by the large entourage that some of these people have, there must also be a great deal of money to be made in this. People were even rushing to get their autographs.

As we were making our exit, we saw where the queue was to get into the exhibition hall. They had clearly planned for the crowd as there were barricades similar to the airport weaving around the entrance to direct the masses in. This must not have been there initially as apparently there was an outrage after the first day of the event. People had slept over (I have only done that for a Chili Peppers concert and would not have thought comics would attract that same degree of dedication) so they could get in first to collect the free limited addition collectors items which could then be sold on e-bay. As is the way with all the events that can be slept out for, people gate-crashed and so the hardcore missed out on the coveted items. Police were called in and the barricades went up.

So that was our glimpse of a HK subculture.

* Thanks to Meat Loaf for the title to this post.