“Our goal is to welcome enthusiasts and offer a gateway to the curious”

The festival celebrating Japanese pop culture was created in the late 1990s. It will be held this year from July 11 to 14, 2024 at the Parc des Expositions de Villepinte.

Born in 1979, Thomas Sirdey, co-founder of the Japan Expo festival, created in 1999 with two other people what will be the biggest event of Japanese culture in France. We met him as the 23rd edition of the festival Thursday July 11 at the Villepinte Exhibition Center.

Franceinfo Culture: Can you tell us about the origins of Japan Expo?
Thomas Sirdey: Japan Expo was the idea of ​​three people, Jean-François and Sandrine Dufour and myself. We were three people passionate about Japan who wanted to share this passion with as many people as possible. At the time, manga did not have the same image as it does today, it was much less democratized. So we wanted to get together, and what better way to do that than at a festival. The idea was born in the late 1990s.

Where does your passion for Japanese culture come from? ?
I think that many people of my generation and myself discovered Japan through cartoons in the 1980s, and then it was built with manga, then food, then the fascinating way of life, and today, Japan has the place it has in pop culture in France. With Japan Expo, we wanted and hope to bring a small stone to the building.

How many people attend Japan Expo each year? ?
At last year’s edition, we welcomed just over 250 000 visitors. In addition, there are also 12 000 jobs that have been created, if we also count seasonal workers. Here, there are no volunteers, everyone is paid.

We see that today people of all ages and backgrounds come to the festival, who was your basic target audience? ?
Our goal has always been to welcome people who are passionate, to offer them very specific and very niche content, but also to be able to present Japan in its generality to people who are just curious, sometimes manga helps people a lot to be interested in Japanese culture in its entirety. In addition, we have more and more visitors from outside the Paris region and even from outside the French-speaking world.

So manga can be a gateway to Japanese culture?
Absolutely, many people have become interested in Japanese culture through manga. It is an art that represents a large part of the festival. But there are also exhibitors who present martial arts, board games, calligraphy. It very often happens that people come a first time for the manga and come back the following year for the culture in its entirety.

Every year you welcome Japanese artists to this festival. How do the collaborations generally work? ?
At first, it was a bit complicated to bring creators from Japan. If we talk about the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, they were not quite aware of the success that their works were experiencing. Afterwards, they realized the scale that it had taken, and today, they accompany the movement and collaborations are a little easier than before.

Japanese designers are therefore not aware of their impact in France. ?
They didn’t have it, but now they have it a little more, I remember, for example, we invited the creator of Goldorakwhich is a work that rocked my generation and introduced many people to Japanese cartoons. When we got in touch with him, he was a little hesitant, he wasn’t sure that Goldorak was known here, he even asked us the question : you are sure they know Goldorak ? And he was answered : yes, come, you will see, they know [rires].

What advice would you give to someone who would like to organize or create a pop culture event? ?
First of all, you need to be familiar with the legislation [rires] and by legislation, I mean everything that is bureaucracy and administrative procedures, etc. It seems obvious, but if you are not careful, it is very easy to find yourself facing obstacles. The second thing is the importance of knowing what you are talking about. It seems a bit silly to say it like that, but I have seen several initiatives, conventions or others, which were really superb, even if they were small, you could feel that there was passion behind them. And conversely, you can feel it when an event only wants to ride a wave or trend. When you know what you are talking about, you will know what you will offer to people.