Karachi:
At the Habib University managed by the students, Fahad Ali Shah remembers the first time that Pakistan fans gathered for the anime. “They could never imagine a convention of this level,” he said. “It was on a very small scale. Now you find people with similar interests everywhere. If a person likes a character, you will speak to them. There are references that only anime fans understand.”
It is this feeling of recognition that withdrew the anime from the Niche social media circle that was limited and in the social calendar of young Pakistani people. Once confined to online fans groups, culture now fills university auditoriums, exhibition halls and social flows. IBA and LUMS student clubs organize events like Ibacon and Comic Day, while sellers have installed stands to sell items like Naruto pillows and One piece cups. In Lahore, the comic strip of Geek Haven Pakistan initially established the reference index, and its spin-offs continue to shape the appearance and feeling of these rallies.
Photo credits: Fahad Ali Shah, organizer of Hucon
The most anticipated is popclash, scheduled for the end of November. Organized by Hox Studios, the Convention offers free stands to artists, publishes original works and builds spaces for cosplayers, illustrators and writers to transform the pastime into professions. Similar efforts have multiplied across the country. Geek Con, organized by Geek Haven, took place in Lahore last month in Karachi, featuring the performance of young stunkers alongside art inspired by anime. Each event maintains the active but more important, visible micro-community.
For the organizers, the reader is both personal and practical. “The reason they are too hyperactive to grow and invest is that young people can write their stories and work in certain situations instead of wasting their time,” said Mohammad Umair, popclash host. Yasir Obaid, the co-founder of Geek Haven, described their first convention as an exciting project which later revealed a larger market. “The few events that were previously happened were carried out by the elderly and we did not really get their mindset,” he said. “We wanted to fill this gap and do it more focused on the community.”
Streaming platforms have accelerated the change. Netflix offered programs like The last arbineur, Howl moving castle And The boy and the heron brought an anime to new households, while world successes Titan attack And Demon tube gave him the general public status. “The stigma around his gaze has decreased,” said Yasir. “It has become cool to look at the anime.” Others retrace the boom to COVVI-19 locking, when people turned to accessible content as Dragon Ball Z And Pokémon Available online.
For fans, the call goes beyond novelty. “Unlike children’s cartoons, the Japanese anime is made for all ages,” said Arsalan Hussain, who has followed the genre since the Dragon Ballon Z era. This large demography makes the anime easier to maintain, he explained. For Umair, the Fandom also reflects a particular profile: educated, English -speaking and often working in professions such as law, coding or freelance. Even cosplayers, he said, save and invest carefully to finance their profession.
The reasons, he argues, are partly linguistic. “Anime fans look at the anime in Japanese, which has subtitles. For this, they need a specific reading speed to consume it in Japanese and instantly understand the context too. You therefore need a little intelligence to do it.”
But the majority of the crowd is younger. “He has OG fans in their twenties or thirties, but most of them have sixteen to twenty,” said Umair. “It is no longer a movement for young people at this stage.”
As November approaches, the calendars fill up quickly. Popclash in Lahore, geek con in Karachi and the comics days students through campuses will keep anime at the center of young people. What has started as a niche hobby is now a gathering, goods and shared language industry, proof that Pakistan anime geeks are not only alive, but prosper.
