Annual cartoon and animation festival is going to start

The 17th China International Cartoon and Animation Festival will open at Baima Lake Animation Plaza in Hangzhou on September 29.

As the annual carnival for domestic manga buffs, the CICAF this year will include exhibitions, forums, a trade fair, auctions and competitions.

Baima Lake will be the main festival location supported by 10 satellite venues across the city and subordinated counties and districts. The highlights of the six-day festival include the Golden Monkey Prize, Tianyan Comic Competition, Cosplay Super Gala and Seiyu Contest.

This year, the Golden Monkey Prize will select winners from 91 entries. The popular Tianyan Comic Competition has received more than 42,000 entries from home and abroad and will show the works of the top 10 winners at the festival.

After years of development, CICAF has evolved into an extravaganza for cosplay and seiyu (a Japanese term for voice acting) aficionados.

Cosplay is a performance art. Cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific anime character.

Besides acting as narrators and performing voiceovers for movies and television programs, seiyu actors are used to voice characters in cartoons and animated films.

All visitors are required to issue 48-hour negative nucleic acid test results for admission.

China Cartoon and Animation Museum, China's first museum for this industry, opened in July. Located beside Baima Lake, it will host a show of the achievements of the festival's previous 16 years.

The CICAF was first held in 2005, backed by the Chinese government and Zhejiang Province government. It is the world's largest trade fair for animation films, cartoon publications and cartoon products.

The festival is traditionally held in late April. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, it was held during the National Day holiday for the first time last year.

Sales worth 250 million yuan (US$38.67 million) were inked in 2020. More than 1,500 cooperation deals were sealed during the event. Despite the epidemic, the festival still attracted more than 2,600 companies and organizations and 5,800 exhibitors from 65 countries and regions.